Filed To Story: In the Shadow of the Past Luna (Lily & James)
I feel her smile against my neck. “Yes, tonight. When I get back from work.”
I freeze. I gently push her back so that I can look her in the eyes.
“Work?”
“I have a shift at the girls’ home this afternoon. It is my last one.”
“Lily, I am not comfortable with you being away from me right now, especially unmarked. With how weird
Derek was the other day….”
“I will be fine. Charlotte says that she and Derek have been going out every day, and she is happy. She said he apologized for how weird he was being with us, and he is eager to start over on a better foot. He is proposing another double date next weekend. Charlotte thinks that night was just a one-off for him.”
“But you do not believe that,”
I comment as I study her face.
“No. I think Derek is up to something. I do not trust him. But as long as Derek is focused on Charlotte and. seeing us for a double date next weekend, we should be fine for today and tomorrow.”
I sigh, and then push a strand of Lily’s hair behind her ear. “Can you not call in sick or something?”
Lily shakes her head. “No, I do not want to leave the girls in the lurch. It was already hard enough when I told them that today is my last day. I do not work there that much, but they do not have a lot of other staff members to cover the hours that I work. I was able to find someone to cover my shift on Saturday, but no one else was available this afternoon.”
“Then let me go with you.”
Lily raises one of her eyebrows at me. “I should bring my alpha male boyfriend to a girls’ home with a bunch of traumatized teenage girls?”
“I take issue with that.”
“What part?”
“The ‘boyfriend’ title. I am more than that.”
Lily leans in and kisses me gently. “Yes, you are much more than that. But to humans, that is your title. For now.”
“I came here to keep you safe. How do I do that if we are not together?”
Lily sighs. “My shift is just four hours long. I will be fine.”
growl. “I do not like this.”
“I know. But Rose will not let anything happen to me. Especially because she is just as excited as Luke to mark one another tonight.”
“We can go and get roses and candles and decorate the apartment while she is gone. Make the
“That actually is not a bad idea,”
I respond to him.
“Okay. Fine. But when you get back, we are going to mark each other. No more excuses from either of us.”
Lily nods, and I pull her close to me. I bury my face in her neck, and start to gently nibble at her marking spot.
“Unless you want to do it now,”
I murmur against her neck.
Lily giggles, “I need to start getting ready. I have to be at the girls’ home at two o’clock.”
I glance at the clock. It is 1:10.
“We have time.”
“I need a shower. And food,”
Lily protests.
I groan. “Fine. But I am going to help you with the shower/
With that, I pick her up and carry her to the bathroom. Somehow, Lily manages to make it to work only.
five minutes late.
(Shortly before 6:30 p.m.)
The apartment is fully decorated in roses and candles. It looks like a romantic scene from a movie set.
Dinner -which I ordered from a nearby restaurant- is staying warm in the oven. I am dressed in a button up shirt and black slacks, an outfit Lily says she finds s**y on me.
All that is missing now is Lily.
With my werewolf hearing. I hear footsteps in the apartment’s stairwell. I smile, believing it is my mate.
I go to open the door and greet her. Unfortunately, it is not Lily.
“Brady? What are you doing here?”
(Derek POV)
I came to Ravenswood as a favor for a friend. Specifically, a very powerful and rich friend. He was opening a gym, and he believed that the more celebrities that came to the gym for the pre-events and the grand opening, the better.
I love money, power, and fame – and this friend was not exactly someone you say “no”
to without a valid excuse- so of course I agreed to attend.
Hindsight being 20-20, however, I wish I had gotten the flu. Or chicken pox. Or a migraine. Adult werewolves do not typically get any of those things, but I wish I had claimed to have one of them anyway. My friend does not know that I am a werewolf, and faking an illness would have saved me the heartache of everything that happened after I arrived.
My problems started when I walked into the Blue Moon Lounge on my first night in Ravenwood. I was immediately hit with an overwhelming smell of sugar cookies and chocolate, which are not scents common to find in a bar. They are, however, two smells that remind me of the happier days of my puphood.
Before I could process where the smell was coming from or what it meant, my wolf -who had not spoken to me in some time- started shouting “mate”
in my head.
My heart dropped. I tried to turn around and leave, but Damon -my wolf-would not let me. He forced me to walk further and further into the bar until our eyes landed on her. Our mate. Charlotte.
Never in my my wildest dreams did I expect that I would meet my ddess-given mate in human territory, much less at a bar. Hell, I never even expected that I would meet my Goddess-given mate at all.
At nearly thirty years old, I had just assumed that the Moon Goddess had forgotten about me. Not that I could blame her for doing so. After all, my parents and original pack forgot about me too. That is how I ended up where I ended up, and that is why I need the daily affirmation that comes with being a famous celebrity. (You can thank my $500 per hour life coach and my $750 per hour pyschotherapist for that particular realization.)
In any event, I was absolutely floored when I first laid eyes on my mate. At first, I could only see the back of her head and her back, but even that was stunning. Then, when she got up and turned around, thus allowing me to see her face, I was absolutely amazed.
Not only had the Moon Goddess given me a mate, but also she had given me a mate that might as well have walked directly out of one of my teenage fantasies. Hell, my mate could have been walked directly out of one of my adult fantasies too. Charlotte’s face, body, energy aura… they were all perfect.
Of course, I was pi ssed when I realized what Charlotte had been doing. Or rather, who she had been doing. Cody Wilson is a human man-wh ore who has probably banged more females this month than I have in my entire life… and I am far from a saint. In fact, if Charlotte was a human, I would worry just her kissing him would have given her some sort of disease.
Thankfully, Charlotte is a werewolf and they did not go that far, so she is fine. Even so, that was not the visual I wanted the first time I met my mate. And it took everything in me to prevent Damon from killing
Cody.
But even with all that…. that is not why I called Charlotte a sl ut and a few other names and walked away.
Let’s be real: Cody is a rich, famous, handsome guy. He bangs a lot of females because he can. I cannot. hold that against the females, even if I might want to spray them with disinfectant when they are done with him. Even I might do him if I swung that way and I was not famous in my own right.
Nor can I blame Charlotte for not having sexual experiences outside of me. I cannot expect her to have waited for me, her mate, when I definitely have not waited for her.
No, the reason that I called Charlotte a sl ut is the same reason that I wanted to leave as soon as I walked into the bar. I do not want a mate.
I am not good for one. My lifestyle is not consistent with someone who wants a family, and my parents were not exactly good examples of how to be healthy parents or healthy mates. In addition, my moral compass is a little too broken for a mate who pays homage to the Moon Goddess.
Ultimately, I know I should have just walked away without calling Charlotte all of those names, but my wolf was pi ssed-both at me and at her. Also, that mate bond is d&mn stron bond is d&mn strong. I needed to do whatever I could to get Charlotte to stop following me, Calling her a few names achieved the goal, and it also calmed Damon down too (he was worried that if I continued to run my mouth, Charlotte would reject us on the spot).
I left Blue Moon Lounge and headed back to my hotel. Once there, I took out my phone and started to order a girl for the night. I rarely use prostitutes -I have no need to with females always throwing themselves at me- but the last thing that I wanted to do was go to another bar looking for a girl to take home and risk running into Charlotte again. All I needed was someone to help me unwind, and someone who could distract me from the evening’s events, and I was happy to pay for that help.
Unfortunately, Damon was screaming at me during the entire phone call. I tried ignoring him and putting up a block, but he was not making it easy. Then finally, when the service asked me what hair color!
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?