Chapter 107

Helen POV

I leaned over the bar when I had successfully exhausted myself. Everything was numb and hot and tingly. Randy was handling his liquor way better, off to the corner of the decrepit bar where he was running a game of pool.

I asked for another, and if not for my title as the new Luna, I don’t think he would have obliged.

I sipped steadily on my drink, testing my legs as they felt tired and weak and useless under my weight. Downing half my next drink, I finally felt good for the first time in a while.

No cell, no furious mate—just me.

I stalked outside, the sun setting in the far distance but it still had maybe two hours left to go before darkness would strike. I took a walk towards the sun, entranced with the orange and fiery qualities of it in the beautiful horizon.

The woods surrounded me at last and I stopped walked when the sun had officially set on the day. My stomach rumbled, hungry and exhausted, but I was left without options while I had stridden out here.

The old Lone Wolf pack was far behind me now.

I didn’t want to walk all the way toward True Mates pack, just to find myself back in another cell.

Whatever direction I would choose, there would be cell waiting for me.

I settled on the ground instead, dizzy and drunk, laid out under a tree. Looking up at the stars, I was able to breathe deeply and focus on the diamonds overhead.

Then they started moving.

My eyes crossed and I sat up quick, seeing a blur of the stars drip down in the space before me, flying throughout the air and zipping over the grass and around trees like bullets fired out of guns.

I stuck my hand out, catching one of the flying stars, the white, bright light flickering around my fingertips in hectic fashion.

I brought the fallen star to my lap, holding it in my palms.

It had a face and little, crooked wings.

“It’s a pixie,” I breathed in shock. “Oh, moon goddess… a pixie!”

The little star stood up fast, wobbling around my palm, her little feet stumbling over one another. I tried to help her up by nudging her upright but she fell forward, exhausted.

Her right wing was more bent than the other and I pinched it out, stretching her wing until it was perfectly back in place. She fluttered off with the other pixies, dazzling through the woods until her and the others slid down a ravine into the mountainside.

I jumped up to follow, curious beyond normal, and hurried over there in my long, pretty dress.

I kicked off my heels in the process of running, chasing the pixies that swarmed what looked like a wolf, laid out on the ground and still as could be.

I approached carefully, still drunk and utterly useless to Joy. I won’t be able to shift while I’m this drunk, that’s for sure.

I stopped at the dark furred wolf and laid my hand on it’s back.

Sharp teeth came for my hands, brushing my fingertips before rearing backwards. The wolf shifted into a person, a starkly naked man with dark, black eyes and hair the color of honey.

The pixies went wild over him being awake and he ushered them away carefully, making sure not to swat at them painfully. They were obsessed with this wolf and seeing it had made my head spin.

“Who are you?” I asked, wondering why this pack of pixies seemed so focused on this wolf.

The man looked me over with a cautious, submissive look. He was a rogue. I was a Luna. Naturally, he was afraid, but I didn’t want to make a big deal over it.

I want to know how he has pixies fluttering around him and landing on his shoulder with admiration.

“They were in trouble one day,” the rogue hummed. “I helped them out. They have stayed by me ever since.” He tilted his head curiously. “Why are you out here, Luna?”

I swallowed my hot, acid breath and dared not to throw up from the alcohol blazing through my gut right now. “I walked away from my pack,” I grumble. “Had too much to drink and my mate—he—”

I dropped my head. Justin will be furious when he realizes I’m not at the dinner and bonfire tonight, unless he doesn’t even care that I’m not there.

“Does your mate hurt you?” he asked precariously.

I sat back in shock. “Of course not. Why would you ask me such a thing?”

He gestures to my position, kneeling in a dried up ravine in the middle of the woods. It’s a clever observation I suppose but I would never want anyone to think of my mate like that.

He’s just upset with me but he will trust me again someday.

“I haven’t ever seen a Luna out here wandering around before. Doesn’t seem safe,” he huffed.

“I was going to go back,” I mutter. “I just got lost and sick and then I saw the pixies. They’re beautiful. I’ve never seen one before, let alone so many of them.”

A deep guttural howl was released in the woods nearby, echoing over my shoulder from miles away. My heart fell into my stomach and the rogue was already up, whispering to the pixies to fly to higher ground.

He stopped, looking at me for a split second, and then reached down and grabbed my wrist in haste.

“What is it?” I groaned, worried. “Who is howling?”

“Rogues. They must have picked up your scent, Luna. I know the little pack well. They will rip you apart if they find you out here. We have to hide.”

I tried to keep his pace in this form but had to stop against a tree, chocking on my breath while the world spun around my eyes in drunken chaos.

“Now, Luna, or you will die,” he grated.

Instead of taking my arm, he flipped me over his shoulder and took off running deeper between the mountains. The howling was louder, or closer, and my heartbeat slammed like drums in my ears.

He finally stopped, ducking into a system of caves, and sat me down on my bare, worn feet.

“I have to get back to my mate,” I growled. “He will be furious if he can’t find me. He’s already upset with my actions, I don’t want to make it worse. Please, help me get to the estate.”

He shook his head, pushing me further into the cave system. “You’re drunk, Luna, and we will stay here until the rogues loose your scent. Your mate will just have to understand.”

My stomach felt knotted with those words. “He won’t understand. It’s the first night of the ceremony and he needs me there with him.”

“So how were you able to walk away from the pack without him?” he snapped, his voice a little rougher than I would have preferred. “Face it, Luna. We are stuck here tonight. If your mate cared about you then you wouldn’t have been lost in the first place.”

I hung my head with that claim. How could he say such an insult about my mate? It was my fault I was late, not Justin’s. Course, Randy let me out of my cell and I followed him when I should have abided by Justin’s wishes.

He wants to cage me, to punish me, and maybe to protect me as well.

It’s hard to know what is going on in the mind of my Lycan mate but I know one thing, he will be furious if he finds me here with another male wolf, a rogue, nonetheless.

“What’s you’re name?” I asked at last, sitting down on the cold rocky floor of the cave.

He was setting up a fire with sticks and sparking a fire with two, black rocks. “Oscar. What is yours, Luna?”

I laid on the floor, settling in for a long night with a strange rogue. “Helen. My mate, his name is Justin. He’s the new Alpha King.”

His eyes lit up, even in the dark, but he never spoke about it.