His Fated Luna (Bloodfire Phoenix #1)

Prologue

Estelle screamed as she gave one final push, and the room filled with the shrieks of an infant.

“A girl!” her husband and fated mate, Ezra, proclaimed proudly, gripping his wife’s hand as he was overcome with emotion. “She’s… She’s perfect, Estelle. Thank you… thank you.”

He leaned in to kiss his exhausted wife on the forehead. Ezra, the beta of the Bloodfire Phoenix pack, might not believe in traditional human weddings, but he’d had one for Estelle, his fated mate.

“Is she…is she fine?” Estelle asked weakly, holding out her arms for the crying babe.

“She’s beautiful!” the nurse exclaimed glowingly, handing over the baby.

“Rose…Ezra. I want to name her Rose,” Estelle spoke weakly, clutching her baby girl who was still crying and covered in blood.

“Rose it is!” Ezra exclaimed joyfully as his daughter was whisked away to be checked over thoroughly and brought back for her first feeding.

“I…I don’t feel so good, Ezra,” Estelle whispered, closing her eyes.

“You’re amazing, my love. You just gave birth. Give yourself time to rest and recuperate,” Ezra assured her, patting his mate’s shoulder lovingly.

There was a small commotion and the nurse and doctor hurried back with the baby excitedly.

“She bears the mark of our next luna!” the nurse proclaimed, pulling the newborn’s white blanket away to show her left arm.

A dark-red, phoenix-shaped birthmark resided on the inside of her upper arm, just before her shoulder began.

A child born on pack soil who bore the mark of the Bloodfire Phoenix was the predestined luna.

She was the one born with powers to converse with the dead ancestors of the pack.

And it seemed that the human mate of the pack beta had just given birth to the next luna.

She would be the fated mate of the alpha’s son, who was only one year old right now.

Ezra frowned as he digested the implications of this mark on his infant’s arm.

“Our luna has been born!” the doctor said with a happy smile. “What an honor,” he said reverently, looking down at the infant.

Estelle smiled, her eyes still closed. “She’s destined for great things, Ezra.”

Ezra, unable to cope with this new piece of news, suddenly felt as if his child had been taken from him.

This was his baby girl! How dare the pack lay claim to her?

He hadn’t even had time to hold her properly and now everyone was going to start fussing over her and…

his train of thought stilled when a piercing pain shot through his body.

Confused, he turned to his mate and realized she was no longer breathing.

This pain was the pain of his mate passing away!

“Estelle?” he asked fearfully, shaking her shoulder where his hand was resting. He did not want to believe what his heart screamed to be true. Estelle’s head lolled to the side, and she remained lifeless. “ESTELLE!” he yelled in anguish.

And that was how Rose’s mother died, a smile on her lips and internal bleeding that the doctors had not foreseen.

It was very rare for werewolves to die in childbirth due to their regenerative abilities, but Estelle was not a werewolf.

Human mates were very rare. It had never occurred to anyone that maybe she was better off delivering in a human hospital instead of the pack’s clinic.

Maybe…, just maybe, a human doctor would have been more accustomed to all the things that could go wrong.

Estelle might still be alive if she’d delivered at a human hospital.

Plagued by guilt over not being able to save his wife, Ezra fell into despair, throwing himself into his work.

Rose would always be the light of his life, but even her pudgy fists gripping his fingers, or her toothless smile, was not enough to lessen the depression in his heart.

Estelle’s sister, Hilda, took over the rearing of her niece whenever Ezra was out with his alpha for pack work.

She moved to the pack lands, leaving her human life behind.

Sometimes, Josie, the current luna of the pack, would stop by bringing her son Aiden, who was a mere toddler at that time, to check in on her future daughter-in-law.

It was uncanny how the infant would hush when Aiden was nearby. For his part, Aiden would look at the baby, fascinated by her coos. Josie had given birth recently, but Aiden’s new brother did not fascinate him the way that little Rose did.

“Pwetty!” he exclaimed, on a warm sunny day when Josie was visiting (she had left her younger son with an omega babysitter) while Ezra had gone out with her husband to inspect the perimeter of the pack territory. Aiden was pointing to the wild unruly curls atop the one-year-old's head

“Oh, she’s going to have a wild time trying to style her hair.

” Josie laughed fondly, looking at the baby trying to crawl on her chubby legs on the plush carpet in the sitting room.

She couldn't walk yet, unlike her werewolf counterparts who were already zooming around on their legs by the age of eight months.

“Her…her progress is a little slow…no?” Hilda asked, biting her lower lip worriedly.

By now, most werewolves were getting into everything.

“Don’t worry about it,” Josie assured loftily. “Every child is different. She is part human, after all. The doctor said her werewolf genes would lay dormant until her first turn at twenty-one.”

Hilda nodded, still worried about her niece. If younger werewolves were anything like their teen human counter-parts, her niece would have a tough time. “I worry sometimes; she might not fit in…”

“Nonsense, she’s the future luna of the pack. No one would dare bully her,” admonished Josie.

The two females continued to chat until there was a sudden crash from the front door.

A canister rolled into the sitting room.

Gas exploded and the two adults were sent into coughing fits.

Rose began to cry, as did little two-year-old Aiden.

Both females went to pick up their respective charges and then run out of the house.

“Take them,” Josie implored, dumping her son into Hilda’s arms.

She was ready to do her duty as Luna of Bloodfire Phoenix. She would gladly risk her life ten times over if it meant saving the pups. Placing a quick kiss atop her son’s head, the formidable woman turned to face the intruders. Hilda ran, clutching both children to her.

However, the moment she ran, a werewolf with an unknown scent grabbed her.

Aiden slipped from her arms and fell to the grass, but the werewolf paid him no heed.

Instead, his eyes gleamed as he stared at Rose.

He shifted to his human form. A swift knife in the gut and Hilda stumbled, clutching her stomach.

Blood stained her hands. Rose was now in the werewolf’s hold.

He turned to run, and was almost out when Josie jumped on him, pummeling him to the ground.

Baby Rose was sent sprawling to the grass, letting out a cry after being jostled.

Josie, already injured and bleeding from her tussle with the werewolves inside, who she had successfully managed to dispose of, kept punching the man, asking him again and again, “Why do you want our future luna?”

The man, laughing and spitting blood, finally spoke. Josie’s hand stilled mid-punch.

“We will weaken your pack, eventually! We will take over this territory one day. To do that, we need to weaken the future alpha who is heavily guarded. An alpha is nothing without his luna. We know that your lunas are granted special abilities. Once we do away with her, your pack will no longer remain as strong as it is today!” The man gave a crazy grin and spit more blood out along with a few teeth.

Hilda and Josie were both thankful this shifter did not know that it was their pack’s future alpha that sat a mere few feet away, crying. From the woods located next to the house, Ezra and Alpha Austin emerged running… running like their lives were at stake.

“There are two dead inside,” Josie spoke grimly to her alpha, getting off the werewolf, who was now laughing as if he had gone insane.

Ezra picked up Rose off the ground, running to aid Hilda. Hilda was losing blood fast. He began to call for an ambulance. Josie clutched a crying Aiden to her while Alpha Austin grabbed the would-be kidnapper, hauling him up.

“Well... it’s the holding cell for you,” Alpha Austin muttered, his subordinates reaching the back lawn and dragging the prisoner away.

Then Alpha Austin turned his attention to Hilda, who was bleeding profusely.

She needed to get to a human hospital. The injury looked fatal.

If she had been a werewolf, Hilda would have begun healing by now.

The knife hadn’t been silver, which meant that they had known a human would be caring for Rose.

It was pure luck that Josie had been here today.

A week later, Austin spoke quietly, his words heavy with unspoken worries. “The only way to keep her safe for now is to send her away.”

Their prisoner had killed himself, never disclosing who was behind this nefarious plot to harm an innocent baby in a bid to destroy Austin’s pack.

Austin and Ezra had been preoccupied with a rogue attack on the day Rose was nearly kidnapped, realizing too late it had been a mere distraction for someone to infiltrate their lands and get to Rose .

“She’s part-human. She could assimilate well in the human world for now.

When she’s older and her werewolf genes fully emerge, she would be better able to take care of herself.

For now…this is the best option. It doesn’t sit well with me that werewolves were able to infiltrate my pack lands so easily.

Someone…who knows my pack workings intimately is behind this.

I fear…it might even be someone from within the pack. ”

“It is too dangerous for her to stay here. Oh, if her mother were alive…” Ezra trailed off sadly before continuing.

“I’ve become a mess ever since her death.

I don’t trust myself to guard my own daughter properly.

My bouts of depression sometimes become so severe, the only way I can cope is to take anti-depressant medication.

It knocks me out cold for a good few hours.

I…I can’t go with her,” Ezra finally stated, hanging his head.

“I’m not asking you to take her, Ezra. You’re my beta and widely known amongst the werewolf circles.

Your presence anywhere but here would alert people to Rose’s whereabouts.

Both of us need to find out who is behind this plot to kidnap my pack’s future luna and harm my son.

We will eliminate this threat together…for both our children.

Once we succeed, we’ll call Rose back to join us in her rightful place,” Austin assured his friend and second-in-command.

“In a few months time, she’ll be back where she belongs. ”

Nodding as he gulped back tears, Ezra looked at Hilda solemnly.

“I’ll take her with me, Ezra,” Hilda spoke before Ezra could even ask it of her.

“Not as you are, Hilda,” Austin stated with finality. “You almost died from the last attack. If you’re going to guard her…I’m sorry to ask this of you, but you need to be stronger.”

Hilda looked at Austin, paling suddenly. She would have to allow them to turn her.

“No,” Ezra blurted out forcefully. “Estelle would never—”

At the merest mention of her sister, Hilda’s eyes filled with tears.

“Estelle would trust me to keep her baby girl safe.”

Hilda turned to Ezra with tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

“I’ll do it, for Estelle and for little Rose.

I’d do it a thousand times over if it meant we kept this precious girl alive to fulfill the great things she is destined for.

Estelle always told me over the phone that she felt her baby was special.

I won’t disrespect her memory by not doing the best that I can to care for Rose . ”

“The turning process for all humans is painful. That’s why I never turned Estelle. Some don’t even survive the change,” Ezra spoke furiously. “You’re risking your life. What would your sister say? She would never want you to sacrifice yourself.”

“I’m made of stronger stuff than Estelle was.

She was always the more fragile one between the two of us.

I’ll survive.” But the way Hilda’s voice shook made it clear even she had doubts.

Hilda took a deep breath and kept speaking.

“Once...once you and our alpha have gotten everything under control, we will return.”