Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Luna
Ihaven’t moved from my bed for the past four hours. The sheets are twisted around my legs like restraints, and I can’t bring myself to care. My body feels hollowed out, not just from the miscarriage, but from the months of secrets I’ve been carrying.
The front door opens downstairs, followed by Maren’s familiar voice echoing through the house.
I texted her to let her know I wasn’t feeling well as soon as I got home.
Her reply emojis asked if I was okay, and when I said I just needed some rest, she said she and Ethan had it covered. I’m so glad he was here today.
“Lu? You up there?”
Her footsteps thunder up the stairs, and she appears in my doorway, her dark hair starting to fall out of her ponytail.
She only looks like that after she’s had to fend off Ricky’s wandering paws too many times.
Concern is etched across her features, and when she takes one look at me curled up like a broken bird, her expression shifts from casual worry to alarm.
“Hey, what’s going on, Lu?” She sits on the bed, and the mattress dips under her weight. Her gaze searches my face, and I know she’s cataloging every detail. The puffiness around my eyes, the pale cast to my skin, and the way I’m clutching my pillow like a lifeline.
The words stick in my throat like thorns. I’ve rehearsed them a dozen times in my head since this morning, knowing I have to tell her and my wolf, but now that it’s here, I can barely breathe around the truth.
I push on my hands to sit up.
“I had a miscarriage.”
Her mouth drops open, and under different circumstances, her expression would be comical, like something out of a cartoon.
But there’s nothing funny about this moment.
And she’s been through it herself, so she knows how devastating it is to lose a baby you didn’t plan.
In an instant, she’s throwing her arms around me, pulling my head against her chest.
“Oh, fuck, Lu.” Her voice drops to a whisper against my hair. “What happened? When did— Is this where you went today?”
I lean into her. She’s solid and warm and everything I need right now. “Yeah. I woke up bleeding this morning.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her arms lock tighter, her heartbeat steady beneath my cheek, and my breathing finds the rhythm of hers.
“I wanted to find out what it was first, before I worried you.”
“Did you know you were pregnant?” Her voice goes soft, each word placed with care.
“No.”
She pulls back to look at me. “Can I ask the obvious?”
My stomach clenches. This is my moment of truth. Well, part of it. The part I can safely share without revealing serial killers and dead bodies.
“I thought you said you aren’t having sex with the Wolfe?”
I nearly choke on my tongue. “What? Who?”
“The Wolfe? That’s what I’ve started calling Damien in my head, since you seem to dislike all my other saucy nicknames for him.
It’s my running joke with myself.” She looks sheepish, like someone caught her talking to herself in public.
“You know, because he’s all brooding and intense and has that whole lone wolf vibe. And, duh, the name.”
“Maren, do not call Damien the wolf.” The irony of her nickname squeezes my throat until I can barely breathe.
“Is it his? I thought you only let him—”
“The baby wasn’t Damien’s.”
Her mouth opens, then closes, confusion crossing her features. “Oh.”
“It’s a long story.”
She kicks off her shoes, then climbs under the covers beside me, settling against the pillow and pulling me into her arms. She tucks my head under her chin, and some of the tension leaves my body as I sag against her.
This is why I love Maren Rodriguez with my entire heart. Why she’s the best friend I’ve ever had, and why I would drive off a cliff with her like Thelma and Louise. Because she’d do the same for me. And she always knows what I need more than I do most of the time.
She rests her head on the top of mine. “Hit me with it.”
I take a shaky breath. Where do I even start? And how much can I tell her?
“So, as it turns out, I wasn’t paranoid when I felt someone was watching me?”
Her body tenses beneath me. “Fuck! But you—” She cuts herself off and takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “Okay, I’m going to refrain from tearing you a new asshole until I know all the facts. Continue.”
I know how hard that is for her, so I hug her tighter to let her know I appreciate her restraint. She squeezes me back.
“Okay, I really did think I was being paranoid at first. But then I started seeing a flickering in the woods, like the moonlight shining on metal. I convinced myself it was just my imagination.” I tilt my face up to look at her.
“Until one night. I woke up and found a man standing in the backyard, looking up at me. So, I grabbed my shotgun and went outside to confront him.”
“You what? Jesus fucking Christ, Luna, you could have been murdered.”
“I know, I know.” I sigh, the sound heavy with everything I don’t know how to explain. “Anyway, when I stepped outside, he was standing in front of the porch. He was wearing this silver wolf mask.”
Maren’s eyes widen. “A wolf mask? Are you shitting me right now?”
“No.” I shake my head before she can get another word out. “I know what you’re going to say. Don’t. Anyway, he was just standing there. I had the gun pointed right at him, and he didn’t even flinch.”
“Who does that?”
“I know, right?”
“So what happened?”
“I asked him what he wanted.”
“And? What did he say?”
“Me.”
“That’s creepy as fuck.”
“I was fucking terrified, Mar. Like shaking-can’t-breathe terrified.
But the weird thing is, at the same time I wasn’t.
I know that makes no sense.” Pulling away, I sit up, twisting my hands together in my lap.
“I thought I might piss myself, but there was also this... pull. Like something inside me was being dragged toward him. A magnet I couldn’t fight. ”
“Okay… And then what happened?”
“He strode up the porch steps, so I shot him.”
Maren sputters and releases me, sitting forward and looking at me like I’ve sprouted a second head.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Behind her horrified expression, I detect a hint of amused pride. “So, why didn’t I have to come help you bury a dead body?”
The way she asks is so sincere, I actually laugh because I know she’d do it in a heartbeat.
“I missed.”
“You always hit your targets.”
“He moved so fast. One second he was standing there. Next he had the shotgun. Ripped it right out of my hands. The shot went wide, barely clearing his shoulder. He burned his hand on the barrel.”
She sits back. “Shit, Lu.” I give her a weak shrug. Emotions cycle through her face—shock, concern, disbelief. “So, what happened after he took the gun away from you?”
Heat floods my cheeks, and her eyes narrow to slits. “Hey. We don’t do embarrassed. Not with each other.”
She’s right, so I just let it all spill out, starting with all the times I felt watched. Seeing him at the edge of the yard, stripping in front of the window when I was drunk, and finally, what I let him do to me after confronting him on the porch.
Maren sits up straighter. “Hold up. You let a masked stranger—”
“I know how it sounds.”
“—finger-bang you on your front porch after he stalked you? And you didn’t tell me?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds even worse.” I bury my face in my hands. “But the way he touched me, God, Maren, I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“Okay, we’re going to come back to the stranger finger-fucking in a minute. Because, as horrified as I am in reality, it’s also kinda hot and dirty fantasy material for me. But what happened after that? Please tell me you called Sheriff Mills.”
I shake my head, telling her the rest. How he came back the next night and the next. How he bypasses Damien’s security system, hacks into the cameras, and seems to always know what I’ve done.
I tell her how he comes to me every single night and takes me apart before putting me back together, leaving me wrecked and wanting more.
About the things I let him do and the things I beg him to do.
I hold nothing back—well, almost nothing—and the relief of speaking the words out loud, of not carrying this alone anymore, crashes over me so hard my eyes blur.
Maren yanks the elastic from her ponytail, her curly hair tumbling free around her shoulders.
She tosses the hair tie onto the nightstand, where it bounces once and disappears over the edge.
Both hands rake through the long chocolate strands, nails scraping against her scalp, and she exhales a long, slow breath that sounds like a deflating balloon.
“Everyone calls me the queen of bad decisions. You kicked me out and took the crown. He really comes every night?”
“Yes.”
“Christ. I don’t know whether to be horrified or jealous of that. No wonder you’re fucking exhausted all the time.” She shakes her head. “You know I’m all for wild, dirty sex with strangers, but this is kinda off the charts for you. And a little fucking scary. No, make that a lot.”
“I’m not afraid of him, Mar. I was at first. The first couple of nights, I was terrified he was going to kill me. But the way he touched me, I knew he wasn’t here to hurt me. Just to claim me.”
She catches her bottom lip between her teeth, studying my face. “I never would’ve pegged you as a woman into erotic asphyxiation. Zip ties? Breath play? That’s more my style.”
“I know, right?” I say again.
She scrunches her nose like an angry kitten. “Hey, we don’t judge each other’s kinks. Especially now. I think you’ve bypassed me.”
She has no idea.
“So who is he?”
Oh, shit. Here it comes.
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes narrow, and her voice lowers. “How do you not know? You’ve been fucking him for months, right?”
“Yes.”
“So why don’t you know who he is?”