His Missing Luna

Chapter Fourteen

Peyton's Point of View

With those words Bethany disappeared. One second she was there, and the next she was gone. That amount of magic both mystified and terrified me in equal measure. As long as I lived, I would never want to get on the wrong side of her.

I turned my attention back towards the car. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Amelia wanted nothing to do with me. I smilied. So she thought she could get the better of me that easily? Good thing I liked a challenge

I wrenched open the driver's side door. "Out!" I ordered my driver. He dutifully did as he was told. I angled myself into the seat and pushed the chair back as far as it would go. Finlay yelped from behind me as the chair hit his shins.

'Sorry'

'No worries.' Although he sounded like he was in a lot of pain.

"Are you seriously just going to leave him on the sidewalk?" Amelia asked me, her voice saturated in condemnation.

"Yup." I replied casually.

'Try not to be an asshole, Peyton' My wolf warned me with a sigh. 'You've messed this up once already.'

'Noted.'

"Well, if you're going to drive, then I'm going to get in the back with Finley." She sulked.

I put the car into drive and started to maneuver through the parking lot. "That could be tricky in a moving vehicle."

"Fine." She said, as she unbuckled her seat belt. I didn't know much about Amelia, but if she knew nothing about werewolves, then it was unlikely that she would know jumping out of the car would cause very little injury. And if jumping out of said car did cause any injuries, then they wouldn't take long to heal. Which meant that the only thing she was likely to try and do was to climb from the front to the back. Fortunately, I had anticipated this and had already started to close the screen between the front and back seats.

She slammed her hand against the glass, which had no effect whatsoever.

"Fine." She huffed. "But don't expect me to talk to you."

I growled at her, which made her jump. But she recovered quickly.

"Bethany said you can't kill me because you would end up killing yourself."

How on earth had she managed to communicate that to her?

"That is true. But it would cause me no harm if I decided to throw you in the dungeon at the pack."

I watched her visibly wither inside herself.

'Why give a lady hearts and flowers when you can use scare tactics instead?' Dice muttered.

'She's being petulant!' I replied.

'It's a defense mechanism. She's been living rough for months. Please tell me you're not completely without brain cells?'

I sighed loudly in defeat. I felt her eyes on me but didn't turn to look at her. I wasn't sure if it would make the situation worse.

"How long will the drive be?" She asked with a yawn.

"Around an hour. Why don't you try and get some sleep?" She looked exhausted. I had no idea what she'd been through since her Mom died but it must have been really tough. My heart ached for her.

"No thank you!" She replied haughtily. Wow, she really didn't trust me.

We'll see about that, I thought to myself. I switched the radio on to a station known best for its talk shows rather than playing music. The broadcaster was reading something or other in a tone of voice that would sooth a newborn baby.

Within a couple of minutes, Amelia was snoring gently.

I dropped the screen between myself and Finn.

"f*****g hell!" he said.

"I know."

"We found your Luna." I glanced at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. He was grinning like an i***t.

"Believe it or not, that was the easy part."

"Seriously? You mean we can't even enjoy the win?"

A smile took over my face, almost splitting it in two. "At least we can look after her now." It was really important to me that she was cherished.

"Yeah, and get her a bath. She absolutely reeks."

I had been trying to ignore the smell coming from Amelia's clothes. I wound down the windows in the back to circulate some fresh air.

"And some food. She looks like she hasn't had a decent meal in a while." Fin carried on chatting away.

"Have you been looking at my mate's body?" I asked in a tight voice.

"No man, of course not. But come on, her clothes are hanging right off her."

He was right, of course. The long sleeve t-shirt she was wearing hung in folds around her minuscule waist. It was probably too big for her to start with. If it wasn't so sad, she would have looked comical.

"Hey, why do you think she changed her mind about coming home with us?" Finn wondered.

"According to the Winter Witch, she didn't give her any choice."

"And when was that exactly?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. I'm sure Amelia will tell us what happened in her own time. For now, we have to concentrate on getting her to believe I didn't kill her mother."

"How could she possibly think that's true?" He sounded wounded when he spoke the words. Finn knew that I would never kill an innocent wolf.

"I was probably one of the last people to see Juliet alive. Other than that, I have no clue."

"We'll just tell her that it was your father and his warriors. Problem solved."

"Something tells me it's not going to be as straight forward as that."

"Of course it won't be. I mean it's us, right?"

I laughed. For the last six months, Finn and I had been relentless in our efforts to find Amelia. Equally, prior to me taking over the pack, it had taken up a great deal of our time. I felt like I'd been looking for Amelia forever. First, when I was trying to help my father, who had insisted that Juliet had killed her mate and kidnapped her daughter. Then, when I had realized my father was not the innocent party he had claimed to be, and I wanted to get to her before he did. Even when we were working to overthrow my father, Amelia was never too far from our thoughts. She was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep and the first thing I thought about when I woke up. She had also featured pretty heavily in my dreams. Selfishly, when my Mom was strangled, I was also looking for Amelia to see if she was a healer... I shook my head quickly. Thinking about what happened to my Mom pulled me into a really dark place.

"But she's in the car, and we're heading for home." Finn spoke as if he still didn't quite believe it. "And when she talks to the rest of the pack members, she'll come around."

One of the reasons Finn was my best friend was that he always saw the positive in everything. Everything cloud had a silver lining and his cup was always half full. Me, on the other hand, I'd seen enough bad s**t to know that not everything ended in a 'happily ever after'. Which is why I would put my all into making this work.

"Speaking of which - let's make sure we have our welcome crew waiting for us when we arrive."