Alpha Luke and His Unwilling Mate
Chapter 31

~Nyla~

My groggy eyes widened the minute I opened them. What happened earlier today felt like a dream.

All my life I had hated that my kind needed b***d. It was more of a necessity to survive for me rather than a delicacy. But feeding from my mate was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was amazing! With the hum of pleasure that raced through my body and, given how good it tasted, I had to fight back the urge to suck him out dry.

I couldn’t help but blush when I saw he was hard. That sexy look on his face once I finished the best meal ever… it had aroused some deep-seated hunger within me. His heavenly masculine scent that still lingered on my body and the bedsheets made my lower regions clench in longing. I wanted him in my bed again.

I kept telling myself I shouldn’t want to like anything about him, yet I found everything so darn irresistible about him. All my wonderful thoughts about the awesome s*x flew out the window when I heard a knock on the door.

Was he back to confront me?

I can’t deny it forever. And the worst part was that he could use Ari against me to extract the answer. If I told him the truth, he might want to punish me by taking my baby away for good.

I heard the knock again as I trudged towards the door, praying it wasn’t him. Part of me wanted it to be him. I had never fed on Wyatt, but it appeared to have intensified my feelings for Luke, especially the need to be with him all the time.

The next full moon was over ten days away. I needed to stay here until then. I needed to find a way to not feed on him and still beat the withdrawal symptoms. Asking for b***d again would be a sure-shot way of confessing to my crimes after.

I would never be willing to tell him the truth. Wyatt would have never forgiven me if I did something like that to Vance. It would be a terrible idea to gamble on how Luke would react to Ryder’s or anyone else’s deaths.

There was only one way to stay here until the full moon and to keep my baby safe…

Ren wheeled in a cart full of food I had no appetite for.

“Good to see you awake. The Alpha had asked me to wake you up if you slept past three,” she said.

“Is he… does he…” My mouth went dry wondering if he would come back to confront me now.

“He went to oversee some pack stuff in the Night Walker Pack’s territory.”

I sighed in relief. Ah, absorbing more lands, bringing in more omegas and the others who were left alive. He won’t find any answers even if he asks around.

Would he be able to guess who I was? How much did werewolves know about sirens? Wyatt hardly knew anything about me and Maya except for whatever I told him.

“He will be back tomorrow night. If you needed anything, he asked me to link him right away.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary. I have his number. How is Ari?”

“She slept through the day. Do you want her back?” Ren asked after setting out everything for me to dig in.

“No, I will see her later. I’ll get some more rest.”

I had something more important to do right now. I needed to get another pendant ASAP. While werewolves worshipped the Moon goddess Selene, her sister Lorraine was the one who sirens looked up to whenever they needed help.

The extra strength we got on full moon nights was indeed from her. All our abilities like reading our werewolf mate’s thoughts, muddling people’s minds up, luring them to their devastation, and making us bloodthirsty when in siren forms. Everything was because of her.

My kind never really needed anything from these goddesses because we were free of mate bond litigations and could roam the vast ocean with abundant food. The only sirens who summoned Lorraine were those who wanted to accomplish something out of the ordinary, wrong, or evil.

She wasn’t known as Selene’s evil sister for nothing.

Maya’s cousin, Patrick, was one such siren who took Lorraine’s help to overthrow Maya from the position she earned in my community. He acquired so much strength from the evil goddess that he could beat me and Maya with his amped up fighting skills, forcing us to run to the shores to save our lives.

That was only a year ago but seemed like a lifetime had passed in between. I wanted to ask for her help when Red Crescent Pack was attacked, but she was a werewolf hater and would have done more harm than good. Legend has it she was a jilted lover of one of the earliest lycans.

I opened the window and summoned her with the little prayer my mom had taught me. After some thirty seconds passed, she emerged out of the grey skies as a Luna moth and shifted into her true form right next to my bed. With peachy blonde hair and dressed in a delicate white gown, her face was strangely beautiful, and yet, there was a dark and fiery aspect to her.

“A werewolf’s mate!” Her voice was like a whip cracking through the air.

“Shh… Please, they can hear us… the men outside the door.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure of being called upon?”

“Um… I’d like a pendant that lets me stay here in my human form a little longer.”

“What happened to the one my sister gave you? How did you end up here without a pendant?”

“It got lost… somewhere.”

“Too bad Selene is so strict. Is that all you need?”

For a second, I thought this was going much smoother than I had imagined. She didn’t really sound as wicked or bitter as my folks portrayed her to be.

“Could you wipe out my mate’s memories from this morning? A specific memory.” That would be awesome.

“Sorry sweetie, I can’t do that kind of stuff. I can give you strength and enormous bouts of energy instead. It’s complimentary with the pendant.”

“Oh…”

“There’s always a price, of course. Nothing is free except pain and betrayal.”

I took a deep breath. Why did no one tell me about this part?

“A bo—” She stopped talking when we heard a persistent knock on the door.

I frowned as I went to open it. We were being very quiet. It wasn’t time for dinner yet for it to be Ren. It struck me suddenly. There was magic happening in my room! And Luke found out about the intruder.

He must have asked one of the guards to check. I looked back at the moth sitting on the windowpane as Rachel slowly walked into the room, sniffing around. Eric and two other guards followed her.

“Rae? What’s up.” I definitely hadn’t expected her.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Er… myself? I was talking to myself about how your brother leaves without saying a word to me.”

“Is that the s*x glow?”

“What?”

“Your skin looks gorgeous. You are glowing! My brother sounded extra eager to return. I can connect the dots.”

She chuckled and walked to the window to take a peek while I struggled to stop my cheeks from turning red, wondering what exactly Luke had said to Rachel.

“False alarm, happens sometimes.” Satisfied that there were no intruders, she left after chatting for a little bit.

“Phew! What a chatty dog!” Lorraine shifted back and whispered as I closed the door.

“So, if you wish to draw down from my power, you should be able to give up something precious to you… like the mate bond.”

“My mate refuses to reject me.”

“Doesn’t matter. Just say the word and you won’t be fighting these meaningless feelings stemming from the mate bond.”

I wanted these meaningless feelings. She noticed my hesitation.

“What about your baby?”

What nonsense! Why would I give up on Ari?

“Never. Is there no other way?”

“What about your friend? Maya. I can accept your precious bond of friendship.”

Maya would kick my butt for even considering it. She was more precious to me than any b***d relation. Not everyone is blessed with a friend like her.

“Choice is yours. Pendant or friendship?”

How about both? And my baby of course. Maybe Luke too. I must be really messed up to be adding Luke to the list of people I couldn’t live without. Feeding on him again would probably make me feel even more attached to him.

“I can help you decide, my dearie. What if I told you she was as much the reason for your true mate’s death as anyone from Storm Moon Pack was?”

“That’s impossible. I trust Maya with my life. She almost died protecting me.” This evil goddess was obviously famous for setting people against each other for fun.

“She did that out of guilt. She knew all that happened could have been avoided. It’s not just you who got sucked into the mate bond with your enemy. Remember the duel your friend fought with Vance in her early training days? She made skin-to-skin contact with her mate and read his thoughts.”

This was something Ryder had said too. Lorraine can sense things every time one of her powers are used.

“Not trying to stir a hornet’s test, just enlightening you. Alpha Wyatt trusted his beta to have made foolproof security arrangements. While Beta Vance’s intentions were to safeguard his pack, he was an unfaithful man. He could have caught the Night Walker Pack’s stealthy actions if he was alert. Betas are meant to do that. Beta Ryder was very good in that sense and he brought out Luke’s ruthless side which he needed to kill and conquer. Beta Vance was too busy making love to your friend.”

Really?

“But he rejected Maya because he was in love with Riley.”

“He was. The bond with the chosen mate gets weakened once a werewolf spots their true mate. Vance’s wolf always considered only Maya to be his true mate. He didn’t want Riley anymore no matter what Vance tried to tell him.”

“I give up my bond with Luke then.” I was surprised at the words coming out of my mouth. I chose Maya over Luke while a part of me was screaming caution.

She tried to hide her triumphant smile. I didn’t care about her intentions.

It was for the best. The stone was going to keep me here only until the coming full moon. Forgetting him and taking my baby to safety would be much easier without the pull for him messing up my mind and priorities. He can take Adalyn as his chosen mate for all he wants and I won’t care then.

I watched Lorraine close her fists and whip out a blue stone, just like that.

“I’m glad you made the right choice. Mind you, Selene is the wicked one, not me. She chose Luke as your mate just to watch some fun. I’m the one who helps people who feel wronged. She puts you in misery and I help you get out of it. You forgot to summon me because you subconsciously wanted your mate safe. This trade off you made for the stone will help you achieve your goal.”

What?

She disappeared as the moth she showed up as, not allowing me to ask what that meant.

I looked at the stone carefully. She must have cursed it or something to use me for her hatred against my mate’s kind.