Chapter 23
I stepped back, balling my bloody hands and putting them behind my back.
“Lucian, what are you doing walking around without your crutch?” I chastised. He approached, his gaze not moving from mine as he limped toward me. He moved gingerly, taking extra care with every step, and I hated that. Bruno entered behind him, but he hung back.
My heart thundered in my ears with each step he took closer.
He finally came to a stop in front of me. He seemed calmer than he probably was. His hand lifted to my cheek, and his thumb swiped across my jaw, taking with it a smear of blood. He didn’t seem angry.
I rolled my shoulders. Not that him being angry scared me . I dropped my arms from where I was trying to hide them, and he grabbed my wrist, lifting my hand.
His eyes narrowed as he fixated on my knuckles, rubbing the blood off my hand to expose the split skin. Now, he looked angry.
I cleared my throat and tried to pull my arm away, but to no avail. He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the split knuckles.
“Get back to the house.” His soft order was full of quiet rage.
“No—”
“Josephine,” he snarled. I clamped my lips shut. Oh, he was angry .
My face heated, and I tried not to pay attention to our audience of Bruno and Alex.
“How quaint,” Duane sneered. Lucian’s nostrils flared a little.
He kissed my knuckles again and dropped my hand. He took two wide steps, putting him before Duane. Without another word, he struck him.
Duane’s head jerked to the side, and blood sprayed from his nose. He hacked up blood.
“Alpha—”
Lucian cut him off with another strike. This time, a laceration opened on Duane’s temple. I caught Bruno’s wince.
“Lucian.” I put my hand on his arm. “You can’t be out of bed like this right now.”
Lucian turned to me, and cupped the bottom of my jaw, forcing me to look up at him.
“This bastard put you in danger, Josephine. He will die by my hand.”
“We’ve been friends for twenty-three years,” Duane spat. “Longer than that brat has been alive. You’d kill me for trying to help you?”
Lucian’s eyelid twitched, and for a split second, his hold on my chin stiffened close to pain. But as if catching himself, he exhaled, releasing my chin in the process.
“Why don’t you head inside, Princess?” he murmured. So slowly it was scary, he turned in place to face Duane.
“It was what was best for you, Alpha.” Duane stayed steady with his resolve.
“You would have thrown away everything you’d been working for.
Just for some bitch—” Lucian’s knuckles connected with his jaw, a snap echoing in the small shack.
Duane grunted, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth at a steady pace.
He spat to the side, gaze focusing on Lucian with pain.
He’d never been in love with Cierra . . . That made me even madder. I lunged at him, slapped my hands across his face with repeated swings. I couldn’t stop screaming.
An arm wound around my waist, and Lucian pulled me against his chest.
“Shh, Josephine,” he comforted. My arms flopped, my muscles throbbing.
I panted, ragged and breathless. I didn’t look away from Duane. Blood dripped from his nose, and his lip was split. Bruises began to bloom across his face, swelling it in various places.
Duane spat out blood again.
“Seeing what a cunt you are, I don’t regret trying to get rid of you,” he sneered.
“When Lucian asked us to find her, you’d known the entire time about her. You ran her off the fucking road.” Bruno’s voice suddenly came from behind me. He was shaking his head. “I saw the fucking report. How did you do it?”
“Jane Doe.” He grinned, teeth bloody and a hole where one used to be.
“You slapped her name on a dead girl’s case,” Bruno scoffed. I could feel the tension radiating off Lucian; he was ready to blow.
“If he had asked us to look just days earlier, it would have been harder. Good thing he waited a week.” Duane’s tone turned mocking. “It was obvious the Moon didn’t want them together.” He lifted his nose with his claim.
“Bruno, please escort your Luna out,” Lucian ordered. I whipped to look at him, eyebrows furrowed.
Rage crackled off him.
“What?” I shook my head. “Why?”
“Luna?” Bruno called closer.
“Please,” Lucian bit out.
The guilt that didn’t leave his eyes, living behind the hazel gaze, had intensified. I chewed on my lip. Now that the adrenaline had calmed, my hand pulsated. Nodding stiffly, I backed away.
The second step off the shack creaked under my weight. Bruno fell into step beside me. After a few quiet beats, he exhaled.
“I’m sorry, Luna.”
I slowed to look over at Bruno quizzically. “If I would have looked into it instead of believing him . . .” He scowled. “I should have double-checked, Luna?—”
“It’s okay.”
Bruno strode next to me, quiet and contemplative.
“I should be saying sorry,” I joked, trying to add levity to the conversation.
“About what, Luna?” He was a very soft-spoken man.
“All of this drama .” I waved my hand toward the shack.
“I’ve never seen Lucian happy like he is now. You have nothing to apologize for.” He smiled slightly. “And don’t try apologizing to Lucian, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you.”
My face warmed.
“Do you really think so?” The vulnerable question caused my voice to tremble.
“I was with him when we found out about your death. Of course, at that time, I hadn’t known what happened, but now, looking back, it makes more sense.
Duane made it sound like Lucian waited a week because he didn’t care, but in that week leading to him asking us to look for you, he unraveled.
” Bruno frowned. “All we had to go off was the name your father placed the room under, but it didn’t exist.”
Dad had a tendency to do that; he’d even had a bank card in a false name to make all his payments.
“After we told him about your death, Lucian spent months locked in his study here,” he jerked his chin toward the house. “It was how Cierra held onto her influence.”
Cierra, it always returned to her.
“Since the pack had always seen them together, and knew they would take each other as chosen mates, it was easy for her to hold on to it.”
“You don’t think he’ll tire of me?” I blurted.
His eyes widened, and his eyes peeked at the shack.
“If anything I said made you believe that, I apologize?—”
“No,” I interrupted. “I just know he wasn’t sexually deprived,” I said pointedly.
He exhaled and relaxed.
“Lucian has always been promiscuous.” He cleared his throat, and his eyes flicked to the side again. “But after you were declared dead, he only hired from the Shifter Services agency.”
That woman from our first night that had entered his hotel room. She was a service . . . “With how he disintegrated after—” He shook his head and cut himself off.
A piercing scream came from the shack. I jolted, stopping myself from running back, mainly because Bruno intercepted my path.
“Let me pass,” I finally spat out.
“Apologies, Luna,” he murmured, but still didn’t let me through.
Footsteps came from behind me.
“Let’s get you some hot tea, Joey.” Verity curled her arm around my waist. I looked over Bruno’s shoulder, where the screams continued. I finally relented and followed Verity to the kitchen. “We have a lot to talk about.”
She guided me to the chair, and I stretched my arms across the surface, watching her putter around to grab a mug.