His Mute Luna
Chapter 22

Taylor

I don’t know what I was thinking.

I should’ve never gone along.

I thought I might’ve gotten closure, answers and a small, petty and bitter part of me wanted to show off I had twin mates now.

All the resolve I had built up in my mind vanished the second I saw him, the second our eyes connected.

As soon as we had re-entered the twins’ home, I had all but run to my bedroom, slamming the door behind me, just needing a moment to sort through my feelings by myself. The mate bond had never felt so confusing to me. My wolf didn’t know how to process things either and was whimpering to himself in turmoil. I wanted my twins, that was without a doubt. Our bond was incredibly strong, though it had only just formed. Even now, I could feel them outside the door to the bedroom they had given me.

Then why did my bond feel as though it had reignited with Hunter?

Every fibre within me wanted him again. Even though he had hurt me, rejected me, taken my home and my life from me…I wanted him.

And I didn’t want to replace my twins with him. I wanted all three of them…this was getting insane.

I knew identical wolf multiples often shared a mate, but there was no way they would want to share me with another Alpha, right?

“Taylor? You ready to talk yet?” Cam called from the other side of my door.

“Yeah, come on TayTay, talk to us,” Cal implored with his brother.

I opened the door, frowning at him in disapproval, “please don’t ever call me that again.”

“Got you to open the door didn’t it?” He smirked in triumph, with a half-crooked smile.

I rolled my eyes at his cockiness but couldn’t ignore how that smile made my stomach flip…just how Hunter’s wink had almost made my knees go weak.

…That was our sign…that he loved me. Did he still love me?…Was he playing me again?

Cam grasped my hand, leading me to sit on the bed with him, Cal sitting on the other side and his hand resting high on my leg.

“I think we need to talk…”

Morgan

As my twin brothers and their mate left, Shane and I exchanged a confounded look. Almost no words had been exchanged in the encounter, but the looks traded between Taylor and Hunter and even my brothers and Hunter raised more questions than what any of this weird-a*s meeting answered.

‘What the s**t just happened?’ My Gamma asked, as though I had any idea myself. Shane was exceptional at reading others and even he had been rendered completely confounded.

‘Nothing that anyone present was expecting…’

One thing I was sure of, the way Hunter stared after Taylor was the look of someone that had just lost their entire world. But how he had looked at my brothers wasn’t in jealousy or bitterness…it was as though he felt a pull towards them also…and it didn’t seem one-sided either.

I think our goddess must have been drinking one too many moon juices when she created the mates for my family.

“You didn’t reject him because you didn’t want him…did you,” it wasn’t a question. The devastation was written all over his face.

“If you knew what my father did to wolves that were outed in my pack… I made sure Taylor never saw any of the executions, he doesn’t like violence… but I was made to watch each one. I would sacrifice anything to keep that fate from him,” his eyes were still fixed on the direction Taylor and my brothers had left as he spoke in an agonised tone.

“Maybe I should go, so you can speak in privacy?” Shane said from beside me, looking as though he felt completely out of place.

“It’s fine. It’s not as though there’s much left of my dignity anyway…” he lamented.

My Gamma nodded a little stiffly, “soooo…how did you manage to track him down?”

“About nine months ago, my father was dealt with, with the help of a friend; he was the one who helped me track Taylor down…but I guess it’s all too late now…” Hunter looked so hopeless, but I wasn’t convinced his efforts were in vain. Something was still there, something had formed, it just wasn’t understood between the four of them yet.

“You can stay in our pack, if you want. Maybe once the shock has worn off, he’ll be ready to listen?” I offered.

“That’s kind of you but I can’t…it’s too painful…and I’ve been away from home for too long as it is. My pack’s still pretty unstable, we don’t have many warriors to defend it and I don’t have a Beta or Gamma anymore,” he sighed, turning away.

As Hunter walked off he began to strip, preparing to shift, but his bare back caught my eye. It was littered in deep, ragged, red lines, dozens of them. There wasn’t an inch that wasn’t marked…only silver could leave those sorts of scars…what hell had he lived through?

Both Shane and I stood in silence, completely flummoxed by the brief but intense meeting as Hunter’s huge wolf ran off.

“I don’t know what your brothers have got themselves involved with, but trust them to find the complicated one, no offense,” he said as we turned to head back.

He wasn’t wrong. Cal and Cam had never walked the easy path, so it was no surprise their mate situation would be any different. But it wasn’t as though I could comment on the issue with me currently concealing my relationship with a human mate that shouldn’t even be physically possible.

I mind-linked my father to let him know to stand down and described in as best way I could how the encounter had panned out.

‘I’m actually glad I was wrong about him…this couldn’t have been easy for the young Alpha,’ he sympathised. My dad, too, had been in a similar situation to Hunter once, having to be apart from his mate for their safety.

As Shane and I neared my home, walking back into the packlands, an idea struck me. Though I did have work to get to, I had a more important task; start seriously learning sign language to speak to my mate. I had sacrificed a lot for my role as future Alpha and for once, pack matters could wait for my personal life.

“Shane, have you got some time to spare to maybe teach me some sign language?” I asked.

“Sure, I’ve got a few hours before I need to pick up Daniel and Markus,” he replied as we walked through my door “I might need to leave earlier if Daniel’s been in the sandpit in day care again. I don’t know how he gets the sand where he does.”

“He’d be doing me a solid if he didn’t,” I chuckled, remembering when I had babysat both his boys before after picking them up from daycare and preschool. The amount of sand that kid had managed to absorb was plain unnatural.

“You know what’d be even better? Go back in time and punch younger Morgan for ever thinking learning sign language would be a waste of time,” he stated with a smug looking grin. I could see the two of us being 100 years old and him still throwing this in my face.

“Yes! I know, I’m an i***t. Now can we get started, Sensei?” I replied sarcastically, while throwing my hoody on, the one that June had worn and was now saturated in her sweet scent.

“First, coffee!”

June

“Here’s your salad, now give me details!” Bea practically vibrated with eagerness as she spoke.

We were sat in the serene park a few minutes away from our offices for lunch, while Tipper ran around having lazed her morning away.

“I know what details you’re after and I’m sorry to say not much has happened, we’ve only been together a few days,” she really needed to find her own mate or even some willing male to bang out her s****l frustrations.

“You are definitely holding out on me, no way you haven’t given him a happy ending,” she c****d her brow at me suggestively.

“You are terrible,” I signed, pushing her over where we sat on the grass. “All I will say is he is every bit the Alpha and I definitely owe you one for looking after Tip last night.”

“So we both took care of some ‘tips’ last night,” she smirked, making me choke on my water.

“Why am I always the one talking about their s*x life recently? Why don’t you share for a change?” I signed once I had finished choking.

“Because mine’s the same as it was last month, a rampant rabbit and a copy of the Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue.”

“That’s it, I’m out. Overshare,” this woman was insane. And I completely loved her.

———-

As promised, Morgan picked me up on time, even greeting me in sign language and asking me about my day. It had been incredibly dull looking at numbers but, from the sounds of it, his day had more than made up for my lack of excitement. Bea had sent me a sly wave as she spotted me climbing into his truck. Everyone else had left so I wasn’t too bothered about her seeing and she knew everything anyway.

My brother had messaged me to let me know he’d be back around 9pm, so I had wanted to bake him some of my madeleines as a surprise and I also needed to water my plants at home. I had spent the last few days everywhere but there, since that night. I thought I was feeling ok and almost over it all in a way, but facing the front door had me glaring at the spot I was taken. Morgan had silently taken my key and led me through, making sure to lace his fingers with mine and keep so close his body heat kept me warm.

“Woah, Tom wasn’t kidding about the plants!” He exclaimed, looking at all the pots and hangers.

Most of them were pretty low maintenance, but I had a couple of orchids in the living room. I loved the ones that resembled animals, just like the one that he had bought me.

“I think this one might be dying,” he was pointing out one that was a little sad on my desk. All it needed was some water, it did this sort of thing regularly.

Oh, no, that’s a nerve plant. They wilt when they want something but perk up straight away once they get it, I explained. It’s such a dramatic b***h, I love ’em!

He laughed to himself as his gaze moved to a few pieces of my artwork hanging up. They were mostly scientific type sketches in watercolor pencil with the odd feather or pressed flower attached to it.

“These are really good. My mom’s pretty artistic too, she’d love these.”

I had seen a couple of her pieces before in the main pack house, though I had only been inside a couple of times while I was still in school. Luna Grace was pretty famous within the pack for her talent and her eye for style; Tom had always felt a small sense of pride that she had praised his work so much and had even bought some of it too.

I remember she used to come into the elementary school and paint with the kids. Does she still do that?

“Yeah,” he beamed. “She loves it and loves the kids. I’ll never know where she found the time between the four of us at home.”

Come on, let’s get baking. You can be my sous-chef. We won’t be using the hob, so I doubt you’ll burn the place down this time, I typed with a teasing smile as he read and pulled him to the kitchen.

I was busy beating the butter and sugar together and had asked Morgan to whisk the eggs, giving him the small pot of salt to add a pinch.

“Oh…shit,” I heard him quietly swear.

I turned to peer over his shoulder and saw the small mound of salt in the eggs and the empty pot. I couldn’t stop myself burying my head into his shoulder laughing, his red cheeks adding to my hysterics.

“I may have added too much salt…” he said sheepishly, once I managed to rein in my breathing.

The Winchester brothers could fight demons with it. So yeah, it’s a little much, I typed out giving him a deadpan look.

“I don’t hear anyone playing ‘Wayward Son’, so I think we’re safe right now,” he laughed at himself. “I swear I’m not this much of a liability in the kitchen.”

I kissed his cheek and brushed my lips against his, just taking a moment to appreciate the wonderfully adorable ball of awkwardness that was my mate. There was no part of him I would change. All the things he was probably embarrassed about, were the things that endeared him to my heart more than I thought anyone ever could.

I threw out the horrifically salty eggs and gave him my last three.

Don’t f**k this one up, I don’t have any more so the fate of the recipe rests on you.

“No pressure then,” he grinned, while I slid the salt away from him. No risks this time.

I had 12 perfect madeleines, I would have had 24 but Morgan had pilfered half of them, not that I minded. It would be Tom sulking that he had to share the spoils of my baking with someone else now.

The closer we got to Tom’s home, the more Tipper began to whine and stir in the backseat, she knew she was going home to her dad. As soon as the car was open she was out and running to the front door. My brother emerged almost instantly, bending down to fuss over his fur baby as she wagged her tail furiously and licked his face. Once she was finished, I handed him the baked treats and greeted him, stepping into the open plan living room.

“Wow, still warm. I’ll grab your pie dish from the other day. I kinda ate it almost in one sitting,” and far from looking ashamed, he looked rather proud of himself. f**k werewolf genes, I wish I could eat a whole custard pie and still be ripped.

Morgan appeared behind me carrying Tipper’s bag and bed, which for some reason had Tom looking nervous.

“Oh hey, Morgan…” he greeted, sounding a little edgy.

And Morgan himself was acting peculiar. His eyes were narrowed and his nose was twitching.

“You can smell the scent, can’t you?” My brother sighed.

“Scent? What scent? Tom, what’s going on?” I signed, looking between the two men.

“…My mate’s scent,” he admitted, while I had never been so taken aback in my life.