The Luna's Escape

Chapter 10 - An Escape I of II

Jasmine

The tang of salt tickled my nose, and the patter of the surf mixed with the chiming whistle-calls of little wading birds chasing the water’s edge to and fro. I pulled my long grey-printed cardigan closer, wrapping the layers over each other against the coastal breeze, and tucked a stubborn blonde curl behind my ear. I was never one of those women who could wear their hair down in the wind and maintain any sort of graceful dignity. Mine would always swirl around in chaos, whipping me in the face, which was why my locks were tied back.

The sea breeze rolling in off the waves wasn’t the only thing holding an icy chill; my guard for the day had been frosty from the moment I climbed in the Jeep when I was picked up this morning. Rafe had driven me to the coast, per Dominic’s request, and the wolf had barely said two words, glancing at me even less. Conan had told him everything, and Rafe was not best pleased that I had blackmailed his chosen mate into helping me.

I didn’t know why Dominic was so keen to have me out of the house with only one wolf as a guard when he preferred to seal me away. If I had to guess, this had something to do with my request.

“Alright, we’re definitely alone.” Rafe returned from maintaining a perimeter and reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. “You’re going to Bethel tomorrow. If you’re caught with any of this, you got it yourself. You don’t mention anything about Conan.”

I took the folds of paper, unfurling the thick stack and snatching it tighter when the wind tried to sweep it away. The wad of money stood out most – all hundred dollar bills and at least thirty of them. There were a couple more smaller papers, but the entirety of the stack was wrapped in a map.

“The map is of Bethel,” Rafe piped up and pointed out the parts circled with inscriptions. “This is the main bus depot, and Conan spent most of the night researching how long it takes to get from each of these stores” – he ran his finger along each path highlighted in black marker – “to the station.”

This was more than I ever hoped for. All I needed was for the young Gamma not to reveal what he had seen and possibly convince Dominic to let me go to Bethel. I hadn’t anticipated him to offer me real aid and have a plan.

“And these.” Rafe indicated three slips of paper that had been hand-cut with uneven edges, each displaying a time and a QR code. “These are bus tickets for different times; they’ll give you three windows to get away if you time it right. Two go to Fairbanks; one goes to Anchorage. I know everyone uses their phones for their tickets, but if you take yours, you can be tracked, so I printed these for you.”

“Thank you. I can’t believe you both did all this…” I stared down at the stack in my hands as Rafe refolded the tickets.

“It’s not as though you left us much of a choice.” He crossed his arms and turned his head away from me, out to sea.

“I never would’ve sold either of you out—”

“Well, that’s not much comfort now, is it?” he snapped, wiping a hand down his face and taking several deep breaths. “Sorry, I’m not angry at you. I know you’re in a desperate position for you and your baby, and you panicked. I’m angry with myself because my sister knew something was wrong, and when she told me about it, I brushed her off like she was crazy, and that was the shittiest thing I could’ve done. I’m angry that I bought into Dominic’s lies and that he’s manipulated everyone to the point where I don’t know how anyone can ever fix it. I’m angry at the Alpha because he actually made me believe he was changing this pack for the better when he was really f*****g us all… And I’m angry at Conan because he’s being an i***t, stubborn, prick who thinks he can solve this on his own and won’t listen to me.”

He was heaving by the end of his rant, wiping away stray tears that he fought to hold back. His rant seemed more aimed at himself than me, an outward voice to his internal frustrations.

“Please, whatever happens tomorrow, don’t get Conan in trouble for any of this. He’s a good man, and I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to him.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to him either.” I placed the stack of precious papers in my hand on the rocky shore, weighing it down with a stone. “Or you.”

Trying to gauge whether I was about to step over a line, I hesitated a second before embracing the wolf in a hug. He reciprocated, squeezing me tight before remembering that I didn’t quite have the tolerance for werewolf strength.

“Sorry.” He let go and rubbed the back of his neck. His free hand must have brushed against something in his pocket that triggered a recollection. “Oh, here. One of the most important things, and I nearly forgot.”

He pulled out a clear spray bottle with a faded label – a repurposed container for whatever its new contents were.

“It’s homemade scent cover. It’s the best Conan could make in a hurry.” Rafe unscrewed the lid to let me sniff.

“It smells like wet dirt?”

“It’s supposed to. Bethel is forested and it’s by a river, so the scent cover mimics the background scents.” He rescrewed the lid and handed it over. “Because it’s homemade, it won’t last long, not to wolves who will be trying to track you down. The more you sweat, the more your natural scent will come through. You’ll need to strip down first, and that includes your underwear; spray on as much as you can, and dress in clothes you’ve never worn or touched before. I guess a bathroom or changing room will work best, somewhere you can be alone.”

I hadn’t given much thought to dealing with trackers. My guards weren’t just selected because they could fight; they were selected because they were also fast and had a keen sense of smell. The plan I probably would have come up with would have been to blend in with a crowd or find some foliage to rub on me.

“I… thank you. I don’t think I would’ve pulled this off without your help.”

“You would. We just made it a little easier, that’s all.” Rafe turned eastward, back towards the main town of Tundra River. “We should head back. You need time to hide your things and have them ready for tomorrow. Also, you’re not meant to know about Bethel, so try and act surprised.”

We headed back to the Jeep and climbed in, my hand instinctively finding my small baby bump and holding it for protection. I had been doing this more and more in recent days. The landscape of the passing willow shrub lands and sedge meadows morphed into forest as we journeyed along the main river that flowed past the pack house and, if goddess and Gaia willing, my former prison-of-a-home.

“Rafe?” I bit the round of my lower lip, in two minds about whether it was worth bringing it up. “Do you remember, around two and a half years ago, three pack members were executed for plotting against Dominic?”

He gave me a sideways glance, flicking between me and the road. “Orson, and I forget the other two, but yeah?”

“Well, there’s probably more. It couldn’t have just been those three. If you ever do find any of the wolves who worked with them… can you tell them I’m sorry? I should’ve helped them, and I know that now.”

“If there’s ever the opportunity, I will.”

He fell quiet after that, and I think I had given him something to contemplate. It wasn’t until we reached my home that he opened his mouth, hurried and insistent.

“You don’t have long.” Rafe sprang from the Jeep, rushing me to the front door. “He’ll be leaving the training grounds any second, so you’ve got a matter of minutes to put what you need where you can grab it tomorrow morning.”

I nodded and shouldered the front door open, making a beeline for the stairs.

“Luna! You’re back,” a feminine voice called from the kitchen, the thud of the utility closet door following, which made me freeze with my foot on the first step. “I just finished. Is there anyth—”

“Not now, Tessa! Go home,” Rafe snapped and waved his hand to usher me along.

“What, why? What's going on?”

“Tess! Not. Now.”

The siblings squabbled, but I had to trust that Rafe could handle it. If I didn’t hide the things stuck up my cardigan, there wouldn’t be a tomorrow; there’d be a whole heap of blood and a fate worse than death. I was halfway up the stairs when I remembered my hidden stash. It was too much money for me to leave behind, so I spun around and dashed to the living room. The brother and sister had gone quiet, but I could spot them outside through the slatted windows on either side of the main door.

I threw the cushion aside and pried up the board of the window seat with my nails, reaching down to my shoulder to grab the bundle hiding below. My finger grazed it, and I snatched, grasping onto the flurry of papers as they fluttered against the displaced air of the cushion flung back on the returned board of the window seat.

“You still have a little while,” Rafe said as he sagged against the front door. “Conan was able to hold him up, but it won’t be for long.”

My feet thundered up the staircase, and the bedroom door pounded the wall where the handle collided. I tore open my closet where I kept my purse and buried the folded pages in its inner pocket, so that if Dominic happened to see inside, they were out of sight. I couldn’t risk hiding everything in the window seat because there was no way he wouldn’t see me off tomorrow, and with his eyes on me the whole morning, there would be no sneaking to any sort of hiding place.

I didn’t know what to do for a change of clothing to escape in. Everything I possessed was steeped in my scent, and anything I tried to smuggle in my purse would cause it to bulge, highlighting that I was hiding something. Standing in my closet, staring at the medium-sized purse, I realised just how little I’d be running with. The security of a roof over my head, food and warmth – all of it would be gone. Tomorrow night, where would I be sleeping? Would I be going hungry? I had thought for so long about escaping and had given no thought to what came after. Outside of this pack, I had nothing.

How was I ever going to provide for my baby?

This place, these walls… my gaze trailed over the bedroom, framed in the closet doorway. It was a prison, but it was a safe prison, and it was warm.

No! I shook my head free of all that.

This is precisely what my vision warned me of: the easy path. It would be easy to stay here, where I wouldn’t have to worry about if I slept in a bed or if I would eat. Easy came with a steep cost, and that cost was my son’s soul.

My arms circled my waist, wrapping over the indiscernible mound of my womb. This was all part of that difficult road I needed to walk – for my son and also for my secret green-eyed man. If there was ever a time to have some faith in my powers of foresight, it was now.

I made sure my purse was exactly how I found it and stopped the sway of the hanging charm on the strap that gave away it had been disturbed. If everything looked normal, there would be no reason for Dominic to suspect anything.

When I came downstairs, I came down to Rafe’s voice disappearing out of the door and saying goodbye as Dominic thanked him for a job well done. I wondered if the young wolf walked down the path to his car with a new perspective, where once he would have taken such words as heartfelt praise from his leader instead of the fake flattery that it was.

“You enjoy the coast?” Dominic’s voice called my attention away from the door.

“Yes, it was nice to go back there again.” I walked through to the kitchen and flicked on the kettle. “I’ve not been in so long… I remember the last time you took me.”

I batted my eyes over my shoulder as a further distraction so he wouldn’t ask what I was doing upstairs. The memory from two years ago did the trick, darkening his eyes to pools of swirling ink and emerald.

Not far from where I had visited today, we had made love on that beach in the summer, for hours, or what I thought was love. Two years since that summer didn’t seem long enough to be so much wiser. But here I was. My recollection without the rose-coloured spectacles was that it was uncomfortable, and I hadn’t wanted to do something so intimate out in the open. In my world, such acts in the outdoors were for two wiccan familiars on the hazing night after their wedding ceremony.

“That was a good summer.” He gripped my waist from behind, and while I was grateful I had distracted him, I was regretting distracting him with s*x. “I have a present for you.”

I spun in his embrace, keeping my forearms pressed to his chest to maintain some distance. “You do?”

He hoisted me on to the kitchen counter, paying no mind to the kettle peaking its boil and turning off, or my yelp of surprise. His sudden actions were often accompanied by a notch of my fear – a fear of what he might do after.

“Tomorrow, I’m letting you go to Bethel.”

I mustered the best wide-eyed innocence I could. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm.” He nodded.

“Thank you!”

Dominic captured my lips in a kiss before I could utter another thing. My thanks was my only sincere reaction because he had just handed me the one chance I needed.