Chasing My Luna

5

REBECCA

"WAYNE!" I exclaimed, wrapping my arms around his neck. He wasted no time in reciprocating the embrace, holding me close to him as if his own life was on the line.

"Son of a b***h!" He exclaimed. "What the f**k happened here? Goddess, are you okay? s**t, you're hurt!"

He made to loosen our embrace to look at the cut on my arm, but I shook my head, holding him closer. Never before had I felt so strongly the need for human contact. For someone to hug me, to hold me.

After what I'd been through that day, I just needed that.

To not be alone in and against the world.

I felt something wet on my cheeks, and I realized I'd burst into tears only when Wayne began to cradle me, stroking my hair and murmuring sweet, reassuring nothings.

"She need to sit down, W." I heard another familiar voice say. Ravi, his mate.

"I know." Wayne replied, a little testy. He sat down on the road, dragging me with him and gathering me into his arms. "It's okay, Becks, really. We're here with you, and you're alive. It's all right. But... why the f**k are you here alone? Where's Reiner?"

The mention of his name only had the effect of making me sob even harder and tearing at my heart even more.

Reiner was home, and I knew that he was furious with me, that he hated me, that he was heartbroken... and the thought of his suffering was intolerable.

"This doesn't seem like the right time for questions." Ravi interjected again. "Dress her wound. I'll see about getting rid of these guys."

"What?!" Wayne asked, shocked.

"They tried to kill her, which means someone's after her. We must hide the tracks, both hers and theirs." Ravi replied dryly. "Take her to the car, make her comfortable. Don't worry," he then said to me, addressing me with a warm, reassuring smile. "Don't worry about anything. We'll take care of you."

I was not able to respond. Now that the adrenaline and the subsequent clarity of thought were wearing off, I was totally losing control of myself. My emotions were all coming to the surface now that I was safe... and for the Goddess, they were uncontainable.

I was barely aware of my surroundings. Of the comfortable, luxurious car Wayne had put me in, the fact that he was stitching my arm, or Ravi loading my assailants into my car and then pushing it off the cliff, followed immediately by the other two cars.

I could only feel pain, fear, and uncertainty... and some relief, for the presence of my friends and their heroic intervention.

"Let's take her to our hotel." Wayne said an hour later, once Ravi had finished cleaning up what was, after all, a crime scene. "I'll call the front desk and book another room in our name."

"W-what?"

Ravi shot me a look laced with a smile. "You don't really think we're going to leave you in the middle of the road, do you? We're hours away from the pack house - our hotel is less than half an hour away. Let's spend the night there, and we'll take you home in the morning."

But I couldn't go home.

I'd been kicked out.

I felt another sob swell in my throat, but it stayed stuck there without my being able to get it out.

"We should also call Reiner and tell him what happened." Wayne added. "He might be panicking and sent out scouts for her already."

My stomach clenched with fear. Now that he hated me, now that he thought I had betrayed him... If he found me and found out about the pregnancy...

"No!" I exclaimed - perhaps too quickly. Wayne and Ravi turned to stare at me strangely, and I found myself not knowing what to say, like a deer caught in headlights.

Think, f**k, think...

I knew I could tell them the truth. I knew they'd believe me, but I... couldn't. Just the thought of having to talk about what had happened, of having to go through all of it again, was terrible.

I just knew I had to keep them from calling Reiner or anyone else in the pack. I couldn't go back there, or my children would be taken away from me.

I wasn't going to lose the last thing I had left.

"He's... he's on a work trip." I lied. "He's at a meeting with the Alpha of the Dread Moon. They... there are tensions between our packs, and I'm fine, no need to bother him."

"Becky, they just tried to kill you." Ravi commented, weighing the words. "Of course he needs to hear about it. You're his mate and his Luna."

Until twelve hours ago, perhaps.

"Exactly. I have to put the well-being of the pack before my own or his, and that is for his meeting to go well." I insisted. "Really, guys."

After a few seconds, the two nodded, though I could see a shadow of doubt deep in their eyes.

"All right," Wayne said. "Now, let's go."

Ravi nodded and started to drive - following the directions for the Astoria Inn hotel.

I swallowed as memories invaded me. I knew that place. I'd been there with Reiner a few months before. We were returning from vacation when a storm suddenly broke out. Reiner had been very firm about his decision not to continue driving in that weather, so we had stopped there for the night. A small smile grew on my face as I thought back to how full the parking lot had been then. How we had run under the storm to get to the safety and warmth of the lobby, how wet we had gotten there... and how we had laughed later, once in the room, looking at each other.

That smile collapsed as soon as the memory became sweeter. As soon as I remembered how Reiner had held me, kissed me, and cuddled me - because it would never happen again.

Because of someone else's unfair and arbitrary decision.

Fate had a cruel sense of humor indeed. We’d gone there after a vacation we’d taken to specifically take our minds off the pressure of having a baby and to reconnect as a couple, and I was coming back as a single, Rogue mother.

I tried to breathe in and out.

Calm down. Don’t make a spectacle of yourself.

I kept repeating those words over and over again as we parked, as we walked into the lobby… and as the receptionist gave me the key to my room.

The same one Reiner and I had stayed back then.

Great. Just great.

I must have done something to upset or offend the Goddess. I couldn’t find another possible explanation for the tornado of s**t that day had been.

I kept a straight face as we rode the elevator, as Ravi and Wayne told me to join them in their room for dinner, and as I opened the door to my own room… but, as soon as I closed the door behind my back, sobs started piercing my chest.

"I'm sorry." I sobbed, slumping to the floor against the door and clutching my belly. "I'm so sorry, little ones. You didn't deserve this..."

Reiner and I had waited so long for them. We had wanted them with every fiber of our hearts... and now I'd be forced to raise them alone. Because of Sheila's stupid and wicked hatred and classism, my babies would never know their dad - that wonderful, amazing, sweet dad that I knew my husband would have been. They would never have known his love, his sympathy, his pride, and they would never have been able to see themselves in him or take him as an example.

He would never have known his children - the pups he had so longed for and would have been so happy and proud of.

Sheila had destroyed everything, and even though I was the Luna, even though I was the strongest she-wolf in my pack without being an Alpha... there was nothing I could do to stop her. She had played on a mean, cunning plan. She had manipulated Reiner in a cruel and wicked way, and in doing so had destroyed four lives and a family.

"You didn't deserve this... I didn't deserve this." I whispered. My tears, by now, were an unstoppable flood. "I didn't deserve this."

But the world, I knew, and life were full of undeserved events. Both in the good and the not-so-good sense.

"We didn't deserve it. But I'll do everything in my power for you to be happy." I promised the two embers of life inside me. "I'd do anything for you. I promise you that, one way or another, we won't just make it through. We'll do great."