“No, but you can leave me alone,” I sneered, quickly walking down the stairs in front of us. His loud footsteps came after me, and he grabbed my arm as I reached the bottom step.
“You can’t leave every time something gets tough, Sloane.” He glared. “We need to talk about this.”
“Is it really a conversation if you shut down every idea I have and always tell me no? You aren’t listening to me, Rush.” I grabbed his hand from my arm and squeezed it. “I know I seem like I’m some crazy hunter sympathizer and that I’m not looking out for our pack, but I am. Men like to solve things with their fists, but women think differently. If you widow every woman whose husband or brother joins the resistance, you aren’t getting rid of the problem, you’re creating an even bigger one.”
“What makes you think it will only be men joining the resistance?”
“It won’t be,” I agreed, speaking softer. “But if human women are anything like me, then they’re thinking about their families.”
“And I’m not?” He pulled his hand from mine and moved past me. I remained on the bottom step.
“I guess I just always thought our future children would grow up in a kind world, not a place where we wiped out anyone who doesn’t understand us. What kind of message are we sending to them if all we do is kill and take what doesn’t belong to us?”
“What kind of message are we sending our future children if we aren’t alive to raise them or even create them?”
We stood four feet apart from each other, but it felt like the whole room had grown between us and sprouted a river.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” I grinned, and my eyes filled with warm, watery tears.
“I shouldn’t have to,” he finally said, looking down where I imagined the river divided us. He started walking towards the front door, and my foot fell onto the first level of the house, desperate to keep him.
“Rush,” I whimpered. He paused and placed his hand on the doorknob. “Please don’t go.”
“I’m not leaving you,” he promised, head leaning against the doorframe. “I just need air.”
“The air around me isn’t good enough?” I tried to joke, but my chest ached at the attempt.
“I need to be alone.”
He closed the door behind him and left me in the foyer, stumbling towards the door, clutching onto it. My forehead fell on the back of the door, and the warm tears that had gathered in my eyes left and dropped down my cheeks. My body shuddered, nose prickling with the quick descent of tears.
A shoe touched the ground in the room, and I turned my head quickly. Jonah and Beckett stood in the doorway, frozen, not knowing what to do. I wiped my cheeks and nose and stood away from the door.
“Luna,” Jonah wondered softly, a hand lifting to scratch his chin. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I promised, brushing the wetness from my eyes. “We’re okay.”
“He’s just stressed out,” Beckett offered me, kinder than he ever had. “With the hunters and everything, he’ll be back.” I grimaced, turning my head to distract myself.
“Do you need anything?” Jonah asked, his face cringing.
“I need your Alpha to understand that he isn’t always right,” I spat, surprised at how the words sounded coming from my mouth. “I need your Alpha to realize that I am his Luna, that my opinions should be valued, that I’m not just something to keep his bed warm. I am smart. I’m not just some silly girl.”
Beckett and Jonah’s faces paled, and they exchanged a glance of surprise and discomfort. Their eyebrows motioned to each other, trying to urge the other to say something.
“It’s fine,” I assured them. “Just continue whatever you were doing, I’ll fix this.”
“Well,” Jonah said awkwardly. “We were actually coming to speak to Rush.”
“About what?”
Beckett bit his lip, and his eyebrows clenched.
“You can tell me, I’m your Luna.”
“Yes but-”
“Tell me. Now.” I demanded.
“Alpha Trissur called,” Beckett eventually said, not wanting to speak the words at all.
“What did he say?”
“That’s the thing,” a ghost of a chuckle left Jonah’s lips.
“What did he say?” I said firmer.
“There was another attack.” He looked down at his feet. “On the Rennen pack. Their packhouse was set on fire after it was doused with gasoline. Most of the pack died in the fire, they were a small pack, almost all of them lived in the packhouse. The survivors are taking refuge in a neighboring pack.”
“He’s going to give the order,” I thought out loud, blowing out the breath I had been holding onto my hair.
“What order?”
“Rush is going to give the order to kill the humans.”
Anxious
Jonah and Beckett laughed strangely and exchanged a look. I pulled on a chunk of my hair, frustrated that there was nothing I could do.
“Luna?” Beckett asked. I growled and paced the same three-foot area I had been walking between for ten minutes. “Talk to us, please.”
“And say what?” I exclaimed, looking away from the floor and to their nervous faces. “I’m fifty percent of the leadership in this pack, and it might as well be zero. I can’t do anything to stop this. There’s absolutely nothing I can do. I might as well just sit back with a glass of ice tea and a nice book on the porch because that’s all I’m good for.”
“You know that’s not true,” Jonah argued, stepping back slightly when I shot him a look.
“Oh, do I?” I laughed loudly. A small head appeared behind Beckett, and Kenna’s short curls flopped in the silhouette. “Kenna?”
She peeked out from behind the two men, eyes wide, mouth in a straight line. “Jonah mind-linked me; is everything okay down here?”
“No,” Jonah murmured, not for my ears, but I still caught it.
“No, Kenna, everything is not okay.” She wiggled her way in between the men’s shoulders and walked towards
