17 Luna

Carrie

He lay on my bed with his arms crossed behind his head like he belonged there—who was I kidding, he probably did—unconcerned that he was naked as he watched me gather a few things for the night.

I said stay over, but realistically, I doubted I would be leaving, if things kept going in this direction. Seriously, we were marked and mated, and I could barely wrap my head around it.

He pulled on his clothes once I was nearly ready. I watched the way his muscles flexed as he moved, and heat built inside of me at the memory of what we had just done together. It had been mind-blowingly good.

A grin split his face as he met my eyes and moved closer to tower over me. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing too exciting,” I lied, although I didn’t expect him to believe me.

“Mmm. Is that so?” he asked, toying with a stray black curl.

“No.”

He smiled. “I want to get you home, first.”

“Home?”

“Yeah. My pack. Our pack.”

His confidence broke for just a second, and he looked vulnerable. I nodded, wanting to reassure him.

He studied my face. “The pack isn’t established, it’s not going to be easy,” he warned again, as if I could somehow still back out. Well, I was certain I could still leave if I wanted to, but it would probably kill my wolf and maybe me along with her. Surely he knew that.

Plus, I didn’t want to leave him. My resolve had been weak to begin with, and now it had basically crumbled to dust. “I’ll stay with you.”

“Good. I need you.”

“Well, I can feel that.” I could feel him growing against my stomach already.

He smirked at the direction of my attention. “Well, that yes, but I liked having you in my home.” He paused, and there was another flicker of uncertainty. “You’ve already seen it, so you know it’s not much right now.”

“It’s fine.”

“Most packs have wealth of generations, but...”

I met his eyes. “That wasn’t why I ran away from you, Jason. I left because I thought you were a jerk.”

He laughed, as if I hadn’t just insulted him. In retrospect, he had put up with all my intentional provocations with a lot of patience for an alpha. “Good,” he said, and placed his arm around my back and led me along. I stopped to lock the door. I needed to speak to my landlord, too, I thought, as we left. I headed towards my car.

He stopped me. “Come with me in the truck.”

“I’m not leaving my car. I worked hard for it,” I said. I planted my feet firmly.

He smiled. “We’ll come back for it. I promise. I just don’t want to be apart from you.”

“Then let’s leave your truck,” I suggested.

I thought he would argue, but he shrugged. He checked it was locked and strode over to my car. I honestly didn’t think it would be that easy, since my disagreement had been more for the sake of disagreeing.

He folded himself into my beater, and I felt instantly guilty for the small amount of leg room he had. The truck would have been more comfortable for him. “Let’s go,” he said.

“We could take yours.”

“This is fine.”

“Do you want to drive?”

“Carrie, I don’t care how I get you back to the pack, as long as I do. Please, just drive.”

I didn’t argue further. With a smile, I just backed out the car and left.

We drove back to Jason’s pack mostly in silence. My mind was filled with thoughts of him. I’d accused him of being like other alphas, but he did seem to have an awful lot of patience for one, and now that I wasn’t deliberately trying to upset him, he seemed a lot more laid back than the others I had dealt with while I was acting luna for Greenwoods. Asshole Dane hadn’t been my only contact with alphas, just the most crushing.

It hit me hard suddenly. I would be—was—luna for his budding pack. The though brought with it unpleasant memories of my time with Asshole Dane, and panic at the thought Jason would find out about it. There was no if, it would surely be when. I wouldn’t be able to hide it forever, because if we started doing official pack things, someone would definitely say something. How long until we ran into someone who had known me in my former capacity?

I could picture explaining to Jason about how I had given up waiting for him and succumbed to Asshole Dane’s advances and sweet promises. I looked like a gold digger or a fool, and I didn’t want Jason to see me that way. The thought made me sick.

“What’s wrong?” he asked and I nearly choked, which would have been pretty bad as we barreled down the highway. We might survive, but an accident at that speed would definitely hurt.

“I’m just thinking.”

“About what?”

This was my moment to tell him, but... “I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Sorry.”

A glance showed me his frown. “You can tell me.”

“I know.” I was sure I could, but I didn’t want to see his disappointment, or worse that same disgust I had seen in the packs who had rejected me when I had asked to join them. He’d surely figured out I was not a virgin since he had just slept with me, but he hadn’t said anything about it. Had that bothered him? My throat felt suddenly dry.

I was glad when we got back to his territory. I remembered the way back to his home pretty well.

We got out of my car, and Jason swung my bag over his shoulder before I had a chance to grab it. A blond man who looked a bit like a modern-day Viking came up to us, his eyes sweeping from me to Jason and back. I recognized him from my time glaring out the window, although he’d only been outside briefly. He smiled at me and extended his hand in my direction.

I took it. Jason’s arm came around my shoulder. “Carrie, this is my beta, Porter.”

“Nice to properly meet you, Luna,” he said.

This was the first time I’d been called ‘Luna’ since the whole mess with Asshole Dane. I swallowed at the reminder of the mess when I left Greenwoods. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“I need you to assign someone to accompany Carrie to her work tomorrow. I’m thinking Randy, if he has time, or Max.”

“Sure, Alpha.”

“Don’t bother us unless it’s important.”

“How important? Wolf fights or camp burning down importance level?” Porter asked with a grin as Jason already began to draw us away.

“Let’s say anything at the fight-to-the-death level or higher,” Jason said with a grin over his shoulder as we neared his trailer.

“Sure, Alpha.”

The door shut behind us. I pulled my bag away from him and went to the room I had first claimed when I arrived.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jason asked, following me into the room

“Putting my stuff away.”

“Now you’re worried about neatness? And I hope you don’t think you’re sleeping in here, because you’re not,” he said, and he grabbed me and carried me across the hall. I shrieked, but my fight was completely fake. I was just planning to use the room for its closet.

He tossed me on the bed and landed on me before I had even stopped bouncing. “Alpha Jason,” I said.

His mouth was by my ear. “You can knock off the alpha title. I wasn’t born like most alphas with a silver spoon shoved up my ass, Carrie.”

I laughed at his words—the man really understood how most alphas ticked—as much as at his breath tickling my neck. “I was a delta, and I wasn’t even born into a delta family. I worked for that.”

His gravelly voice made shivers run up my spine and down my back.

“And now, I’m building my own pack. It’s dirty work, and I hope you’re up for it, because now that we’re marked, you’re not going anywhere, not while I have any say over it. I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into, Carrie.”

“I do.” I just hoped he wouldn’t regret what he’d gotten himself into once he found out more about my past, but even that thought disappeared when he kissed me again.