The Luna's Escape

Chapter 5 - A Lie

Jasmine

My heart crawled back down my throat where it belonged, and I fumbled to fix the towel around my soaking body. I realised too late that the one I had grabbed was far too short and barely covered my nether regions. Unlike the werewolves of this pack, who thought nothing of nudity from shifting constantly, my inhibitions on the subject were firmly intact.

“Oh.” I tucked the corner to secure the towel. “Uh, yeah, if that’s okay, Tessa?”

Of course Dominic would phrase the request for help around the house as me asking. I couldn’t refuse without looking insane to a pack member or undermining his authority.

Tessa smiled brighter than the midday sun and threw the door wide open. “Sure it is, Luna. Here, let me empty the water, and you can go get dried.”

She hustled into the room, full of good intentions, but I wanted her out before she noticed the marks on my skin that I knew my mediocre excuse for a towel wouldn’t hide. I tried to intervene on her track towards the bath and raised a hand to stop her.

“No, no. It’s fine, honestly. You head downstairs and—”

“Luna… what happened to your hand?”

The bath was forgotten by the both of us as I registered my second mistake too late yet again.

She grasped my extended left hand, turning the palm over with such care as though it would shatter in her fingertips. The purple-blue bruise had flushed through to the surface and spread up the side the length of my pinkie finger, and had begun to show on the underside of my thumb. It was neither subtle nor easy to miss.

I tugged from her grasp and hid the hand under scrutiny behind the small of my back. “It’s nothing. Honestly. Just a silly accident. I’m fine.”

Eye contact, words and breathing had never proved to be such a chore in my life. The awkward chuckle that parched my throat added nothing to my credibility and only cranked up the brilliance of the spotlight, burning the top of my head. Whenever anyone said they were fine, they were anything but.

“Okaaay,” she drew out the word, the scepticism obvious in how her line of sight trailed down my body to my legs, narrowing to a point I didn’t want to acknowledge. “I’ll… go do a quick tidy downstairs and look what we have to make you some dinner.”

“Sounds great!” I burst out with far too much enthusiasm.

Gaia’s sake, Jasmine, I cursed. Lie better.

The bathroom door clicked shut, and I sagged, deflating against the lip of the roll-top bath. I snatched at my leg, pulling at the flesh to check what exactly Tessa had seen. Five darkening marks: a thumb indentation at the front and four long finger blemishes at the back, high on both thighs.

I shouldn’t be surprised, and yet…

A tiny dust bunny string, wafting on the light fitting above my head, took the brunt of my glare. If I switched my sights to the mirror, it would be my reflection in the firing line, and it was unnecessary to pile more self-hatred on myself. I snatched a folded towel on the radiator rack and snapped the hanging, dusty blight away from the ceiling. The towel unfurled into a full bath sheet, one that would have covered me completely and eradicated the whole uncomfortable situation.

Out of everything today, a stupid, goddess-damned towel was not going to be the breaking point of me.

I kept my stare on the little imaginary speck, searing my sight with the bright bulb in hopes it would evaporate the tears before gravity proved its title as a heartless b-word. Holing up in here any longer was not helping my case that ‘all is fine and dandy’, and if I kept staring at the ceiling light, I was going to end up burning my retinas out.

The plug cap popped with a light press and gurgled the water away as I kicked the bathroom rug across the damp floor, refocusing my ire on a physical outlet. At my closet railings, I bounced on the balls of my feet, debating whether I should wear a t-shirt like I wasn’t hiding anything, despite the snow piling up outside on the window sill. Or if I should wear a nice oversized sweater to suit the wintery cold that would drape over my hands, making a point I was hiding something.

I was tired of this, living in a perpetual state of anxiety, second-guessing everything, walking on eggshells and being engulfed in claustrophobia that only ever tightened like a noose.

Curse it all.

If I was going to be a squirming ball of nerves, I was going to be a cosy squirming ball of nerves in a thick knit sweater. I chose to leave my hair up in its clip to air-dry the damp strands at my nape.

The tangy scent of tomato stewing and the sweet perfume of home baking in a bread oven carried me from the stairs to the kitchen, where a busy Tessa flipped black beans in a skillet. She would have heard the quiet click of the bedroom door on the upper floor and the wooden creak of the stairs, but it was the soft squeak of my slipper socks gripping the kitchen slate floor that turned her head.

“Hey. Hope you don’t mind I made a start” – the she-wolf flourished a drizzle of garlic oil – “but it was getting late, and I don’t want the Alpha worrying about you starving. I thought some black bean chilli would be a good winter warmer, and there’s a little cornbread reheating in the oven, made fresh this morning. No meat; I made sure of everything.”

“That actually sounds perfect.” And not too dissimilar from what I was craving: a mix of sweet and savoury.

My eating habits weren’t exactly easy to forget, and neither were they a secret. The lone vegetarian in a pack full of shifters who hunted and ate meat highlighted me as something of an oddity, not that the pack wasn’t accommodating. In my former home among my people, we ate what we grew, which was mainly vegetables, herbs and a small amount of dairy and cheese produced from our few Jersey cows.

“Do you need some ice?” Tessa paused the skillet midair before lifting the lid on the stewing tomatoes, a pungent bloom filling the kitchen. “Uh, for your hand?”

She spoke of my hand, but her attention lingered in on my legs, the hidden finger marks lurking under a pair of form-fitting jeans.

“No, it’s fine.” I moved from awkwardly standing in the abridging archway like a spare part to filling the electric kettle with water to direct my nervous energy. “It looks worse than it really is. I caught my hand in one of the sliding doors in my wardrobe this morning. Just one of those klutzy moments is all. I barely feel it, honestly.”

I was rambling again, filling the void with more words than needed. The whir of bubbles reaching their boil filled the silence, along with the metal pan lid quivering over the steam from the chilli. Neither would last forever.

I wasn’t used to this. I wasn’t used to having to mind my words when I was supposed to be home alone. It had been so long since I carried a conversation that I didn’t know how to hold one anymore – another sliver of myself I had lost in the four long years under Dominic.

“You want some tea, too?” I asked as I filled my mug, pouring the boiling water over an unknown bag that I had selected without looking. Green tea and orange blossom, judging by the scented steam wafting under my nose.

“No, I’m good. Thanks, Luna.”

The oven door rattled over my shoulder, and a metallic clang hit the pot holder on the counter, the aroma of hot cornbread leaving me salivating.

“This smells amazing.” I spun, clutching my mug high to my chest and wanting to maintain the breezy diversion.

“I hope it tastes as good.” She spooned a heap onto a bed of brown rice and sliced up the yellow bread. “There’s some fruit salad as well in the fridge, for after. I’ll come over tomorrow with another girl, and we’ll start on cleaning and working out the best rota to suit you…”

She left a heavy pause hanging as she ran a cleaning cloth over the central island stovetop and the white granite work surface where she had been chopping and cooking. I pretended not to notice the unsaid words, setting up a lap tray with my food and tea to sit in front of a cheesy rom-com yet to be decided.

“Luna?” Tessa paused at the back door of the kitchen. “You sure you’re ok? It’s just… you’re looking a little pale and flushed at the same time.”

“I am?” I caught the reflection of myself in the dark window. My pale skin wasn’t as obvious as my flushed and ruddy cheeks. “Oh, a warm bath and winter skin, I guess.”

Neither a lie nor the whole truth either. My colour was drained because I was on edge, and my cheeks were stealing my blood supply because the vision, daydream or fantasy – whatever the hell it wanted to call itself – still lingered across my skin. His touch still lingered, my secret green eyes.

“Ah. Well, spring will land its ass in Alaska at some point, for like a week,” she joked. “We’ll get you some sun. Oh, and Luna?” She popped her head back through the door, a cold night gust finding the gap. “Congratulations on the pup. It’s all the pack can talk about. Probably expect a lot of flowers and presents soon.”

My cheeks heated, and not from some imaginary man my mind wanted to torture me with.

“Thanks, Tessa, but I don’t need—”

“Don’t be silly. It’s the next future Alpha. We all know you and Alpha Dominic are gonna make the most beautiful pups.”

With that, the door closed, and the chill that cooled my burning cheeks was not from the icy blast but from her words.

Pups, as in plural.

This pup, if it made it, wouldn’t be an only child. Dominic would expect more. I didn’t need gifts, presents or flowers. I needed a way out, for my baby’s sake.

*

*

*

My sleep faded, dragged away from me by the pressure on my bladder. I awoke to a heavy arm thrown over my waist, keeping me plastered against a heated, naked chest with his palm flat at the small of my back. Dominic wasn’t home when I went to bed three hours ago, as I deduced from the sleek, illuminated blue numbers on the clock over his shoulder.

I tried to lift his arm, but his grip tightened, pressing me further into his body and a semi-hard-on.

“Dominic,” I whispered, shaking his shoulder. “Dominic! I need to pee.”

“Hmmm?” he mumbled into my neck, his throaty voice thick with sleep.

“I need to pee.”

“Ok, but be quick. I missed tucking you in.”

His lips surrounded mine, coaxing my tongue around his and pushing his stiffened lower half against me. I let him have his way, until the point where the mounting pressure demanded the toilet, and now.

I pushed at his chest, wriggling my way to freedom. “Sorry, I really need to go.”

“Hurry.” He slapped my bare rear, letting his palm linger.

As with most shifted wolves, Dominic preferred to sleep in his skin, his wolf finding clothing at night suffocating. And if Dominic liked to sleep naked, then I ‘liked’ to sleep naked as well.

I took my sweet time rather than hurrying, yawning and squinting against the harsh light that had no business bombarding me with such brightness at 3 a.m. Flushing and washing my hands, my wired and tired brain couldn’t stop circling back to where I had left off while eating my dinner, trying to focus on a film, attempting to read the pages of a book and the ordeal of trying to fall asleep. How could I escape a pack where everyone knew my face, where my every step out of the norm would be reported and where every individual had a keen sense of smell that could track me for miles?

My biggest challenge wasn’t Dominic; it was my isolation. I hadn’t realised how utterly alone I was until now, having mulled over my entire situation during the course of the evening. I never learnt to drive because I was told I didn’t need to; I could be driven whenever I wanted, provided Dominic approved where first. I had no money because I didn’t need a job as I was Luna; Dominic could give me all the money I could spend, provided he approved on what first. I had no real friends because I was unapproachable as the leader’s woman; if I wanted company, all I had to do was ask, provided Dominic approved who first.

Everything he had done was to seclude me, segregate me from any form of support, and leave me in total dependence on him.

How could I turn any of it in my favour?

Was it worth even trying?

Defeated before I even began, I dried my hands, wincing when I pressed too hard on the bruise running the length of my little finger. I paused by the door, mentally preparing to be engulfed in Dominic’s arms and his needs, but as I crossed the barrier, my head collided with an invisible wall. The air was sucked from my lungs, and my body was yanked backwards through the air, weightless and encased in blinding white light.

This had happened before, though not for a very long time – four years, to be precise – when the haunting call of howls deafened me.

A vision, and a strong one at that.