The Luna's Escape

Chapter 9 - A Plan

Conan

My head pounded like a jackhammer, and my paranoia had me convinced it was another mind-link that I was inadvertently blocking out again. It wasn’t; it was stress, and also my wolf pacing circles. Like me, he was torn. The man who we admired most, who had been the father figure I had grown up without, was laid bare as a manipulative monster. And I had just left my Luna with him…

I pulled at the collar of my windbreaker jacket, the material too close and too suffocating against the unseasonably warm mid-April sun. The weather was well above freezing for this time of year, melting the white-over landscape to spring green, but the frigid wind kept the snow from melting in the shadows. A perfect reflection of the battle waging inside me: far too hot, all too cold and all of it colliding in an uncomfortable mess.

I was pissed, and I didn’t know where or who to direct it. Jasmine, because she had landed me in this. She dropped my name, and now there was no going back. Placing any blame on her left me disgusted with myself in the brief second that the emotion flickered. She was a victim, doing what she had to. Which led directly into my next target for my anger: myself. How had I been so blind? So oblivious? I couldn’t unsee or unhear what I had witnessed. I had half a mind to march back there, and my every instinct was begging me to. I would have trusted those instincts once, so certain of what I should do, but now? I was second-guessing every instinct.

And all because of Dominic.

Was anything he taught me true? Did he mean any of the praise he showered me with, or was it all candy bribes to feed a dumb kid and keep them on the hook… was I even a decent Gamma?

Dammit, my mother was right. I shouldn’t have accepted this position until I was older. I was in over my head, but I’d be damned if I was ever going to admit that last part aloud. My pride reared, refusing to be swallowed, much to my wolf’s dismay.

‘Goddess’s sake! You are the stubborn animal in all of this, I hope you know.’

‘I’m not running to mommy like we pissed the bed. We can solve this ourselves!’ I slammed the pack house door far louder than I intended, but I didn’t hang around to take stock of the attention I garnered on the way to Dominic’s office.

Ciimaq huffed, crossing his front paws and waving his nose in the air like a diva because he just had to have the last word. ‘You can solve it with help too.’

I scanned my thumbprint on the doorknob of Dominic’s office – because carrying a key around as a shifter when we ripped through clothing was impractical at best – and sagged against the surface. The room was too hot, so my jacket was tossed to the side, landing somewhere on one of the chairs, and I winced at the loud clatter the tablet produced when it connected with the wooden desk. I sank into the couch along the wood-panelled wall, spreading my arms along its back and crossing my ankle over my knee, bouncing it wilder than a bucking stallion. The dead stares of mounted animal heads all around did nothing to calm my nerves, each one sending silent judgement my way.

I uncrossed my legs and leaned forward, hunching over my knees and seeking the long necklace hidden under the collar of my plaid shirt. It was long enough that if I shifted, it would hang around my wolf’s neck with ease. I fiddled with the strands, spinning the carved beads between my thumb and index finger, the repetitive rhythm grounding me with some calm as always.

The necklace had once been my father’s before he died. In a harsh winter when I was eight, he fell under the ice and never came back out, not alive anyway. Had he been alive when I shifted for the first time, he would have presented me with my own beaded necklace for my inaugural First Claw’s Feast, which was held on the Winter Solstice in the years when young Yup’ik wolves shifted and met our wolf counterparts. It was a celebration that honoured the new wolves and gave thanks to the moon goddess on the longest night for blessing our people with the wolf spirit. The set of beads hanging around my neck had been presented by my mother instead, saved in my father’s possessions, and were cut from polished cougar bone with some of the beads dyed red or yellow.

She and my father weren’t fated mates, but she missed him as though he were. And I hadn’t realised until this moment just how much I missed him either, or how much I wished I remembered more of him rather than fractured memories. Most importantly, I wished I had never replaced my father figure with that angucaluuq (bastard), Dominic.

What if he was hurting Luna Jasmine right now? I shouldn’t have left her with him.

I jumped to my feet faster than logic could stop me, but as it turned out, I didn’t need rationality to halt my steps; the swelling Alpha aura and the heavy boot thuds accomplished the job of it on their own.

‘Be. Cool,’ Ciimaq uttered slower than necessary as Dominic swung open the door.

All the repertoire of advice my wolf could supply, and he gave two syllables.

‘Fine! Be a jittery mess and see how far that gets you, terpaak (ass).’

“Sorry I kept you waiting, Conan.” Dominic interrupted any comeback I had to my wolf and sat himself at his desk, a congenial and easy smile stretching across his face.

He placed the book down on the wooden surface, on top of the tablet, which may or may not have a crack running along its screen. It was the book he had taken from Jasmine, the one she tried to take back only to have his fist clamped around her wrist. I was staring at a sinister stranger, a man I didn’t know, despite having sat across from him countless times. Was any of the person he showed real? How many times had this happened right in front of me or others, and we had all been too f*****g blind to see it?

“Conan?” He raised a brow, and my name spouting from his mouth jarred me out of the harsh frown strung tight across my jaw. “Did my Luna put you in an uncomfortable position?”

“Uh… No.” I kept my face straight as an arrow because it was a lie. She had.

I understood it was out of desperate necessity, but in the span of less than an hour, the whole outlook on my life had been upended. I had been placed in a position where one wrong word could put my chosen mate, my family and my people in danger. While I didn’t want to think Jasmine would throw me under any bus, I knew how people could be unpredictable when backed into a corner.

Dominic hummed, raising his chin, and I prayed to the high moon that he believed me because I was a terrible liar. “What exactly did she speak to you about?”

‘She told me all your dirty secrets, you mate-murdering son of a b***h,’ Ciimaq snarled and snapped his jaws before simmering down. ‘Maybe don’t say that.’

My wolf was the fountain of sound advice today.

I thought back to the few words Jasmine had spoken before I was ‘asked’ to leave and hoped I was about to give a corroborating account. “She gushed a lot about how excited she is for the baby, kept saying how she wants everything perfect, and I asked how the nursery was shaping up.”

“And that’s when she asked about going to Bethel?”

“Uh… yeah.”

Before, I would have taken his line of questioning as concern. Now I knew the truth: he was fishing.

“You really think it’s a bad idea?”

I had to be careful in how I responded. If I spun on my tail and contradicted myself without reason, I’d be suspect number one if Jasmine made it in her escape. Dominic needed to think of it as his idea, so that when Jasmine ran, he would think she saw an opportunity and took it.

“Well,” I began, perching on the edge of a chair in front of his desk with the rigidity refusing to leave my spine, “it’s hours away, for one. Any wolf with her won’t be able to mind-link the pack over that sort of distance. Even you, Alpha, no disrespect.”

‘Every disrespect,’ Ciimaq grumbled.

I laboured through the impulse to tell my wolf to cram it and continued, “There’s a late season blizzard warning ‘sposed to hit at the end of this week, so she’d have to go tomorrow or the day after to be out of danger of being snowed in. But, the place does have good cell service. So you’ll have easy contact while she’s there, just not so much in between. And our people go there all the time and have never smelled a wolf not our own, but there’s a first time for everything. It’d be your call, Dominic.”

The human city of Bethel to our south would make a decent place for the Luna to escape. The place had grown through the eco-tourist trade in the last twenty years, and along with it, their public transport system in the form of a bus route. I didn’t know where the routes were destined for, but it would be an easy search to find out.

If only Dominic took the bait…

“Perhaps I could make it work.” He scratched his chin in thought. “And it would make her happy…”

“Happy mate, happy home, right?” I chuckled, but there was no humour behind it.

“Very true.” Dominic seemed to go along with it. “Is that your philosophy for living with Rafe? You’ve been moved in together for over a year?”

“Yeah, w-we’ve been great. It’s all been great. Never been more great.”

Ciimaq buried his muzzle under his paws. ‘Goddess above, stop saying great so much.’

“Great,” Dominic repeated with laughter. “He’s been a decent guard to my Luna. You were right; I’m impressed by him. He’ll be accompanying Jasmine with her other guards to Bethel.”

… Great. Another problem to solve: how to get Rafe out of the s**t I had dropped him in.

“So you’re letting her go?”

“I’ll spend tomorrow preparing the Luna’s guards. You can take point on training the young wolves instead of me. And then the day after tomorrow, Rafe can lead the guards and take their Luna for her trip.”

“Oh… uh… I kinda planned a surprise date for me and Rafe then,” I lied, seizing the opportunity to get my mate out of this. “But I can cancel it, if you need me to.”

Say no. Say no. Say no…

If – and it was a slim if – Jasmine managed to defy the odds and escape, I could only imagine what would happen to the guards who let her slip by them. Rafe wasn’t going near any of this mess. If I had to chain him to our bed, so be it.

“Who am I to come between young love? Don’t let anyone tell you just because you’ve taken a chosen bond that it isn’t real.” Dominic smiled, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he meant it. “He can take her out of the house tomorrow instead, maybe the coast, while I drill her guards. I don’t like sending her out in pack lands so unprotected, but it’ll mean my Luna will have a nice surprise from me when she gets home.”

I had never noticed before now how he spoke, as though everything he did was some great privilege he bestowed.

How the f**k had I been so stupid to not hear it?

‘I didn’t hear it either,’ my wolf tried and only slightly succeeded in commiserating with me. ‘So you’re not the only one stupid here.’

“Righty-ho, Alpha. I’ll let Rafe know his duties for tomorrow, and I’ll see you for training.” I slapped my legs with far too much enthusiasm and rose to my feet.

‘Righty-ho?’ Ciimaq repeated, chafing my consciousness with his mortification. ‘Dear moon above, would you abort mission already? Your cringe is gonna get us caught.’

If Dominic noticed the inflexible stick up my ass, he made no comment and simply nodded to leave me to my evening.

‘Shut it!’ I exploded as soon as I was clear of the Alpha’s vicinity, walking so fast I could levitate with each step. ‘You’re not the one having to do this!’

‘Would’ve gone a lot smoother if I could.’

If it were possible, I would’ve loved to have sat back and watched my wolf sweat it out, trying to figure out what to say and what not to say. I would’ve loved to throw the odd snarky remark when he went off-key. Unfortunately, I had no such liberties. The only body my wolf could control was his own wolf form when we shifted. He had no control over my vocal chords either, having his own second set that all werewolves were born with that produced our growls and snarls.

My anxious mood hadn’t subsided at all on my drive home. A fourth cup of coffee had probably been a poor choice and only exacerbated my bouncing knee. I swore under my breath when I smacked the cap of it under the timbers of my driftwood kitchen table, which I carved a while back. As today was a day of poor choices, I rubbed my sore knee and filled a fifth mug of coffee from the moka kettle warming on the kitchen’s potbelly stove. Midway through a chug, the front door slamming shot the liquid down the wrong pipe, leaving me spluttering up a lung along with the bitter coffee. The unmistakable stomps of boots dislodging a dusting of persistent snow from their soles announced someone was home.

“Hey, sweet cheeks. I got crabs!” Rafe burst through the modest archway of our kitchen, waving the grocery bags from the fish market. “Well, their legs at least. These king crabs are monsters.”

He set the paper sacks on the counter, and with as dazzling a smile as ever, he greeted me with a peck on my lips and stole the mug of coffee from my hands. Downing the brew in one go, he rinsed out the mug for the dishwasher and began unpacking the wrapped seafood for dinner tonight, and all I could do was stare at his back in silence, the colour and warmth of my skin draining.

“Your mom got the good sourdough,” he continued, dragging the big cooking pot out and filling it with water, “and she said she was about to set off, so she should be here in about an hour. You got the Cajun butter made?”

I didn’t answer, fearing that if I spoke, the fragile peace I had with him would be broken. Rafe’s broad, muscular back flexed as he lifted the huge pot from under the faucet, shutting off the stream from the spout. I wrapped my arms around his waist, gripping him in a fierce hold, and laid my chin on his shoulder, which was made easier by our height difference of his 6'4" to my 6'7".

His sweet, wild mint scent, stronger around the gland of his neck, weighed down my nerves, reminding me who I needed to protect most. One day, when we were both ready to take the plunge, my mark would adorn his neck: a crescent circle of teeth marks that would fade from fresh red to pinkish silver. As we didn’t have a fated mate bond connecting us, we were doing this the old-fashioned, long way.

He chuckled, his deep voice warmer than our kitchen fire, and covered my hand with his, nuzzling his sandy-coloured waves back into my face. “If you forgot to make the butter, it’s fine. No need to get all dramatic. Although” – he spun in my arms to face me and circled his hands around my neck – “if you were angling for a roll around on the kitchen table… hey, what’s wrong? You look like your tail will never wag again.”

Rafe released my neck to cup my cheeks, his handsome smile morphing into concern along with his pretty hazel eyes. Ciimaq had receded to the back of my mind the moment our partners entered the home to link with Roul, communicating with Rafe’s wolf spirit through their emotions. I sagged into him further, needing the same connection my wolf was receiving, and sought the warmth of my mate’s lips, the slight rough of his evening stubble leaving a pleasant burn behind.

“I might have landed us in some trouble today…”

Aware I was on a timer before my mother pulled up, I condensed the whole sorry affair as best I could. We transitioned from standing by the sink to sitting at the table, his face losing more colour by the second.

“Tessa told me something three months ago, and I brushed her off like she was being ridiculous,” he confided in a guilt-ridden mumble, shaking his head. “When my sister was asked if she could help the Luna around the house, she said she saw some bruises, and Jasmine was weird about them. I’ve never seen a mark on her, and the Alpha is always so loving with her wherever they go… it never sat well with Tessa, yet I never gave it a second thought.”

I reached over and threaded my fingers with his, pulling him from his chair to kiss him across the table. “Don’t blame yourself; please don’t.” I tugged him around the roughened edge of the surface to sit on my lap, pawing my fingertips into his waist. “I work with Dominic every day, I’m around him the most, and I didn’t have a clue.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” I rested my forehead into his chest as he ran his fingers through my black hair. “But I’ve been dragged into this, and I can’t walk away. Providing nothing changes his mind, I’ve gotten Dominic to let Jasmine go to Bethel for the day. Which means I’ve got tomorrow to figure out a plan before she goes.”

“Maybe your mom can help—”

“No!” I snapped my head out of his chest. “I don’t want anyone else involved in all this. I debated whether to tell you…”

And the more people knew, the more risk there was that everything would come tumbling out. The pack was beyond in love with the Alpha; I knew exactly how deep that loyalty ran because I was one of them. No one would listen to any excuse for any betrayal levelled against him, and any accusation posed that he was less than a model leader would be branded a lie. Exactly what my initial reaction was.

I knew my mom would believe me, but she could be a tad of a loose cannon at times.

“Conan…” Rafe lilted in exasperation.

“Please don’t fight me on this? I’m not being over dramatic when I say what we know will get you killed, and I can’t lose you… I love you.”

Our lips drew together, pulled towards one another on a path they’d travelled a million times. The kiss turned deeper, our tongues engrossed in their dance, with little care for another urge rising with it.

“Whoa, okay.” Rafe planted his large hands on my chest and pushed away, sucking his reddened bottom lip between his teeth, which in no way deflated the semi he was grinding against. “I really don’t want to have to explain to your mother why dinner is just a cold pot of water on the counter.” He stood and lifted said pot onto the stove, clicking the lighter beneath. “We’re revisiting this topic later, just so you know.”

“Can we revisit it naked?”

“You’re terrible,” he muttered, and I smiled at the blush that stained his skin. “And make the damn butter, would you?”

He grumbled under his breath, a sure fire signal that he was flustered and frustrated.

The water boiled away, throwing out the scent of herbs from the muslin bag Rafe added for the stock, followed by the aroma of crab meat as the legs went in. He was just removing the second batch when my mom’s headlights appeared on our drive and cut off, flashing the kitchen window.

“Ooo, smells good in here,” my mom called, latching the door behind her.

“Thanks, Aurora. It’s that new aftershave you gave me for Winter Solstice,” Rafe quipped, though he gave me a pointed look. When he said ‘revisit the topic later’, I envisioned he meant while we were sweaty, breathless and sated, not literally the second my mother walked through the door.

I wasn’t budging from my decision, not tonight at least.

“Haha, funny.” My mother dropped her large tote bag on the table and kissed my partner’s cheek in spite of his corny joke. “And how’s my other beautiful boy?”

She hugged her arms around me, then held my face between her palms, taking all of me in. While I largely resembled my father, I shared my mother’s high cheekbones, and she was probably where I inherited my stubborn streak from. Where my shoulder-length hair held a little wave to it, my mother’s was pin straight and held half up away from her face. At seventy-three, she only had one or two locks of slate grey hair, ageing far slower than our wholly human counterparts. The beading of her necklace peeked from under her scarf – three strands of polished white moose antler beads, punctuated with blue and red.

'We don’t see her enough,’ Ciimaq whined, hanging his tail low, before raising his nose. ‘She brought our favourite bread, too.’

Even in its wrapper, the fresh scent of sweet and warm honey oat sourdough swirled under my nose. Mom used to bake it all the time when I was a pup, but she lost the desire for it after my dad died.

“I’m doing good, uh, great. Doing great.”

‘I swear, human. Say great one more time today.’

‘Ciimaq… go link with Roul or literally anything else, would you?’

My mother raised a sceptical brow. She could smell my bullshit a mile away.

“Who wants crabs?” Rafe cut the subtle tension by thudding a platter on the kitchen table, looking far too smug with his one-liner.

“Are you ever gonna give that joke a rest?”

“I will when it’s not hilarious.” He handed me a plate, pulling his little kissy face that I couldn’t help but smile at. He always said the lamest jokes, but I loved every single one of them, no matter how much they made me groan.

We tucked into dinner, slathering the crab legs in Cajun butter, tearing off chunks of sourdough that still held a little warmth for how fresh it was and scooped spoonfuls of the salad my mom had brought along too.

“That was delicious. I might have to roll home,” my mother tittered, and began collecting plates.

“Don’t you dare.” Rafe took them from her grasp. “Go grab yourself a beer with Conan and let dinner settle while I clean up.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

I grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and popped the caps, handing one over. We moved to the living room, and I struck a match to the newly laid kindling in the large fireplace that Rafe must’ve set this morning before he left.

“So, how’s it going as Gamma? It’s been, what, a year now?” She took a long swig from the brown bottle.

This was always going to be a sore spot for her. She said I was too young, but I thought otherwise; I was only a year and a half younger than she was when she was selected as Gamma back in her day. But after finding out about Dominic, I wondered if there wasn’t more to it.

“Train and patrol… the usual.” I threw a log on the fire as it grew. “Can I ask you something? Why were you kinda against me being Gamma?”

“Conan, I’m not getting into this argument again.” Her brow furrowed in irritation, and her aura flexed; my mother’s wolf, Amirlu, was raising her hackles.

It was an interesting quirk of our Yup’ik wolves. We all possessed an aura of some kind, varying in intensity, that was not determined by bloodlines – a trait not shared with our kass’aq yarra (white kin).

“I’m not starting an argument.” I sat by her on the couch. “Was it just because you thought I was too young… or was it Dominic?”

Her eyes narrowed to sceptical slits. She knew something was going on that was motivating my probing. Deflating and sagging her shoulders, her mood shifted, and tears gathered.

“I don’t like how easily he inserted himself as some father figure to you. Levi was your dad, not him. And I don’t like how he’s pulled you away from me.”

The tug of tears found a new victim, burning at the corner of my eyes. I slid my hand into hers, giving it a hearty squeeze.

“That rogue you helped all those years ago and his mate, your friend… why did you do it, honestly? Even though it put many at risk for just two wolves.”

“Because it was the right thing to do. Dominic’s father, Alpha Richard… that whole hunt for them showed quite a few who he really was. So it was worth it in the end.” She bit her lips together. “What’s all this about?”

“Nothing. Just figuring things out, I guess.”

My mother would work it out anyway when it all came to fruition – if it came to fruition.

For the time being, the fewer people who knew, the better. And fewer people acting unnaturally meant fewer people saying the wrong thing.

Her words had given me food for thought, and I believed I knew just how I was going to get Jasmine to the freedom she and her unborn pup deserved.