Page 77 of Chased By My Grumpy Alpha
“If you’re planning to die,” he says quietly, “who will take care of Luna?”
The name hits me like a punch to the gut. Luna. My brave, loyal Luna, who died trying to protect me. Who died because I was too stupid to see Andrew for what he really was.
“Luna is dead.” The words taste like ash in my mouth. “They killed her.”
“Is that so?”
There’s an amused tone in his voice, which makes no sense. How can he joke about this? How can he find anything funny about my cat being murdered?
Before I can ask what he means, his hand cups my jaw, gently but firmly, and tilts my face to the right. “Does that look dead to you?”
I glance at the tree he’s pointing to, and my world stops.
Luna is sprawled across a low branch like she owns it, black fur gleaming in the dappled sunlight. Her eyes are closed, and her chest rises and falls with the deep rhythm of sleep. One paw dangles over the edge of the branch, twitching slightly as she dreams.
She’s alive.
“Luna!” The cry tears from my throat, raw and desperate.
Her amber eyes snap open at the sound of my voice. She stretches luxuriously, like she has just woken from the world’s most comfortable nap, then focuses on me with that intelligent gaze I know so well.
“Luna, come here!” I’m sitting up now, my arms reaching for her.
She gives me one of her most imperious looks—the one that clearly says she’ll come when she’s good and ready—then gracefully leaps down from the branch, straight into my arms.
The moment her warm, solid weight hits my chest, the dam breaks.
Everything I’ve been holding back crashes over me at once. The betrayal, the terror, the bone-deep certainty that I’d lost the one creature who truly loved me. It all comes pouring out in great, shuddering sobs that shake my entire body.
“I thought you were dead,” I gasp against her fur, my voice barely recognizable. “I thought they’d killed you. I thought I’d lost you forever.”
Luna purrs and nuzzles against my neck, her usual comfort technique when I’m upset. But this time, it only makes me cry harder. She’s real. She’s alive and warm and purring in my arms, and I can’t believe it.
“How?” I look up at Lucian through my tears. “How is she alive? I saw them hurt her. I heard—”
“She was unconscious, not dead,” he says quietly. “I had the healers treat her before me. I know how important she is to you.”
The tears keep coming, harder now. Relief and grief and a thousand other emotions I can’t name, all tangled together. Luna’s alive, but everything else remains shattered. I still don’t understand why Lucian came for me or how he found us. I still don’t know why he’s being kind when he made it perfectly clear how annoying he thinks I am.
“I don’t understand,” I sob, clutching Luna tighter. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“You don’t have to understand right now,” Lucian says. “You just have to stay alive.”
“Why?” The question comes out broken. “What’s the point? Pretty much everyone I’ve ever trusted has either abandoned me or betrayed me. Everyone except Luna, and she almost died, too.” Images of Daciana and Selene flash through my mind, but I can’t speak of them. It’s too dangerous.
“Not everyone.”
I look at Lucian through my tears, but I can’t read his expression. It’s intense and complicated and makes my chest feel tight.
“You called me annoying,” I whisper. “You said I was pathetic and desperate.”
Something flickers across his face—pain, maybe, or regret. “I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because I was angry.” His voice is rough, and he looks away from me. “I said things I shouldn’t have.”
I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what any of this means. All I know is that Luna is alive and warm in my arms, and for the first time since waking up, I feel something other than emptiness.
