Their Warrior Luna
Chapter 123

Knox:

I watched her walk away, and it was everything in my being not to follow her, pin her against the wall, and show her exactly how much she meant to me. Instead, I stopped our k**s before I took it too far because it wouldn’t be right for her first time to be with just me. Cass should be there too, and now she is pissed at us both, and I can’t even tell her why I stopped it.

I dried off and got out of the hot tub. I cleaned the mess up and put the glasses away when I felt a power fluctuation. I ran to her room, and my heart almost stopped when I found her door locked. I kicked it in, panicking. She is leaving me. Leaving us again. She told me she wouldn’t go anywhere ever again, and now she’s leaving because of a misunderstanding. f**k that. Lennon is ours, and I will be damned if I let her go. I jumped her portal as it was about to close. She had jumped into the human realm. What the f**k is she doing back in this place? We were in the forest, and I could hear her footsteps in the crunching leaves beneath her feet. Fall had hit in this realm, and I could smell her sweet scent floating on the crisp breeze blowing through the now-naked trees.

“Lennon kissed me. I stopped it before it went too far because I didn’t want her first time to be without you. Now you have f****d s**t up for me too, Cassius. I’m sending a portal to you. Jump it because we are going after her, and when we find her, we will tell her the truth right now. f**k you, f**k Ashley, and f**k everything else. This bull s**t ends now.” I mind-linked Cassius. I knew he heard every word when the fear in his bones vibrated our mate bond.

As Death, I was never meant to have a mate. It was never written in the fates for Death to have that connection with another person, and the moon saw it fit to allow me to have two of those bonds, and I will be damned if I give up on it so easily. The portal lights ignited, and Cass stepped through it, looking deadly as hell.

“Where is she?” he growled.

“Follow me.” my tone matched his. I don’t know why we are angry. It isn’t like we are mad at her. This is our fault. We are the ones who f****d this up, not her. We made our way through the forest. Something tells me she is in the same place I called out to her for the first time. I held my hand out, signaling to Cass to quieten his steps. I pointed over the embankment, and just below us was our little mate. Soft sobs were falling from her parted lips. Will-o-the-wisps were dancing around the forest, singing the mourning song of their people and lighting the way for her. Crime scene tape was blowing softly in the wind. She was fisting the dirt that once covered her body. She had been found… but I already knew that. That is just another of the many things that I hadn’t been honest with her about.

Lennon:

I rolled my eyes angrily when I saw the worn yellow tape whipping softly in the breeze. Of course, they had found Carter, but I bet the entire police department walked right over me, not even bothering to notice the dirt on my grave that still hadn’t sunk yet. But as I approached the shallow grave where my current life had begun, I realized it was empty. I collapsed to my knees, clenching fistfuls of the dirt. I couldn’t process it at first. I felt like I was dreaming. No one had even been looking for me.

The wisps were back. They lit the forest for me the same way as before, and this time, they sang me a tune. The melody was full of sadness and grief. It was like they were singing the sounds of my heart’s feelings out loud. I hadn’t even realized I was crying until the tears falling from my eyes landed on my dirt-covered hands, splattering my emotions in dark brown across my skin.

I knew they had followed me. I knew they were watching, and something about this moment made the anger inside of me that had been directed at both of them vanish. I needed them. I need them in any form of relationship I can get, and I want to kick myself for losing sight of that. Even if I never satisfy my hunger for them, if I never find out why girls leave Cassius’s room broken and in tears. I still need them. I turned to where I knew they were hiding and held my hands out, showing them the dirt. Both stepped from their hiding places in the trees. Understanding and concern laced Knox’s face. Cassius seemed confused and with every right. He has no idea what happened to me other than I was murdered and buried. But he was here, and I know without a shadow of a doubt his support is mine if I ask for it.

“They found me.” I sobbed at my own words. I bet I am buried in the community cemetery. I bet they had a funeral… I wonder if my mom went to it before I killed her.

“Come here, princess.” Knox scooped me up, and I let him wrap me in his arms, holding me tightly. Cassius was rubbing the arch of my back as I sobbed into Knox. I shouldn’t have come here. I told myself I never would again. Now that I am here, I want to see the fixer-upper. I want to buy flowers for my grave because God knows no one around here will, and then I want to put my petty-a*s attitude behind me and go home with my friends. I want to return to where I was always meant to be.

Cassius:

I rubbed her back while she cried into Knox. I looked at the small shallow hole in the ground, and my b***d boiled. Someone had hurt her, folded her into a tiny hole that I don’t think I could even sit down inside of in a forest, and left her there. I was fighting the urge to rampage and kill every human that crossed my path until I found the one that hurt her when Knox’s soft voice echoed in my mind.

“We will find the two bastards that are left while we are here. She deserves the choice to feed on them if she wants to.” A chill went all through me. His voice was soft and tender for the pain of our mate, but his eyes were locked on the small hole in the ground and were just as full of fury as I was. I nodded once and let myself step into them just a bit closer. Maybe, if anything, I could warm her chilled skin with my body heat. Perhaps the bond could calm her the way it does me.

I was surprised when she turned and latched onto me the same way she had Knox. I picked her up, wrapping her legs around me. I snuggled into her neck and let her cry her heart’s frustrations out right there. I knew she needed this moment, and the only thing I could do for her right now was be there for her.

“Lennon, there is something Knox and I need to tell you. I don’t know if you are ready to hear it or not… but I just wanted you to know that when you are ready and want to sit down with us and talk about it, we will be ready to tell you… or answer any questions you have about it.” I didn’t let her go when she went to pull away from me. I wanted to keep her here just a bit longer just in case she never lets me touch her again. The wind had picked up, and a chill wracked her little body.

“Do you smell that?” She asked me. She sat up, with her eyes glowing just like the sun on a summer day.

“Lennon. You need to breathe through your mouth, baby girl.” Knox spoke to her so softly I didn’t think she heard him until her soft lips parted slowly, inhaling and exhaling a shaking breath. After that, her whole body started trembling against me, and I could only look to Knox for answers. Maybe she was hungry?

“How… are… they… here?” Her chest was heaving, and her hands were locked in tight fists, clutching my shirt.

“Let me down, Cass.” Her voice had changed to reflect the aura rolling off her in waves. Knox shook his head no at me, but I couldn’t resist her command. Not because she was my mate but because whatever happened while she was sleeping in that hospital bed those six days had turned her into something much more powerful than I can comprehend. I lowered her down, helping her steady herself. Her whole body was still in violent vibrations, but she made her way up the hill in the opposite direction to where we had come.

“The night she died, she was drugged, brutally beaten, raped, and buried alive. Her spirit held the hand of her dying body, and then once it did die, she refused to leave it. I forced her away when one of her murderers stumbled down by her grave drunk and shot himself. I fed her his soul, but the other two haven’t been charged, and the one who killed himself took the fall for all of it in a suicide note he had left before leaving his house for prom. He told her he could make it better before killing himself, and I didn’t understand what he meant, so I have been keeping tabs on things here. I didn’t want to tell her until something was done about the other two.” Knox’s mind-link had me seeing red. The fur sprouted on my arms and chest, but Knox softly squeezed my shoulder, using our bond to calm my beast.

“She can sense them. So can I. She has become ravenous for them because the pieces of her that they took are calling to her. If you interfere… she could turn on you. Let’s follow and keep her safe, and then we can talk to her.” This mind-link was like throwing cold water on my rage.

We followed her up the hill and through the woods. The further we went into the darkness, the more animal in nature my little mate became. Once upon a time, the bastards that harmed her treated her as their prey… but tonight… my little sunshine is all predator, and the pathetic little motherfuckers that hurt her are the only prey for miles.

She held her hand out, and the expensive door of the lake house blew open, shattering the glass. I smiled as she stomped into the place I can only assume held some of her darkest memories. She didn’t bother looking anywhere. It was like she knew where they would be without them even offering to come and see where the banging of the shattered door came from. She kicked a bedroom door open and dragged a scrawny b***h boy off of a girl that looked oddly similar to Lennon, but she paid her no mind.

“I killed you!” she growled, pinning him against the floor. The guy she had tossed to the ground turned pale at the sight of her.

“What do you mean, Lennon? When did you kill him?” Knox asked her, but the only thing that I could focus on was the piece of s**t on the floor about to speak to Lennon. How dare he think he had any right to open his mouth to say something to her after the ways he hurt my innocent little sunshine.

“If you even so much as speak to her, I will make my friend here resurrect your a*s after we watch her kill you so that I can f**k you up a second time. Don’t doubt me, little boy. If you disrespect the woman before you, I will de-f*****g-stroy you! Better yet, don’t even look at her, you little bitch.” I spat on him. Lennon’s fury-filled gaze snapped to me when he shut his eyes so that he couldn’t look at her. She stared into my eyes for what felt like an eternity before she refocused on the little b***h who had just pissed himself all over the wood floor.

“When Adoria pulled me into The Nothing… I killed him. I killed Chad and my mother too.” Knox dropped down beside her. I recall him saying he felt her mother dying and went to her, and he had seen Lennon there when we were at her bedside in the pack hospital.

“No… No, you didn’t, angel. Your mother committed suicide when they found your body. She became just lucid enough in her breakdown that she blamed herself for not caring for you better. You were there when she died. But you did not kill her. Chad and Grant are both alive and free because Carter took the fall for everything before killing himself the night I took you home. His letter led to the discovery of both of your bodies. I know I should have told you sooner, but I wanted to be able to do something about Grant and Chad before I told you anything. You didn’t kill any of them, princess. Adoria made you see what she wanted you to in the darkness. It was not real.” He ran his fingers through her hair, giving her the tender affection that both of us were dying to shower her in, and then he looked down at a very mortified whoever the f**k he was and back to Lennon.

“But you can, you know… nothing says you can’t cause the monster that was created the night that you died the same pain he caused you. I know where Chad is too. We can go there next.” She shook her head no and loosened her grip on him. But I won’t have that. She deserves this. She deserves to take those bits of her back from them. I dropped down on the other side of her, gently taking her quivering chin in my hand. I turned her gaze to the little redhead, still frozen in fear against the headboard.

“Look at her, red. Doesn’t she remind you of someone?” She looked long and hard at the girl in that bed. But she didn’t speak about the truth floating in the air, so I spoke it for her.

“He enjoyed what he did to you so much the night that he killed you that the only way he can come is by sleeping with someone that reminds him of you.” Her shaking subsided at the confirmation of what she had thought, and her emotions that had been swarming from anger to sadness and back to loss turned into raw fury. Knox understood what I was doing. Lennon will fight for the people she loves the most, and she is absolutely vicious in the execution of that fight. She is a beast by any right. But she runs from the things that cause her harm or sadness. Not anymore, though. No… today she learns that, above everything, she is the most important thing in the cosmos.

“Did he rape you?” Knox asked the girl whose tears were now falling freely.

“N-No. W-We are dating.” She sniffled.

“Does he make you do things in bed that make you uncomfortable?” He hit the damn nail on the head with that one because the girl started sobbing harder. Her curls bounced around her shoulders as she confirmed for us what we already knew.

“Tell her what he makes you do.” Knox released his aura just enough to make the human bend to his will

“Play dead. He makes me play dead when we…” Her confession pushed Lennon over the edge. Immediately she started feeding on the soul of her assailant, and with the guilt lifting off my chest that was caused by pushing her to take his soul, I stood back and watched the love of my life save herself, and God only knows how many other women. Next, we take the other guy, and if my little one doesn’t want to end him for herself, I would gladly rip his f*****g heart out for her while she watches.