AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The way the guard behind me shifted, I’m sure he missed the genuine sparkle of joy in the woman’s eyes. Everyone seemed to hold contempt for me, the female that stole their chance at Nessa being the Luna, or maybe it had nothing to do with that.
“I did. You aren’t upset?”
She smiled and spooned some stew into a bowl. The spoon clacked against the glass of the bowl as she handed it to me.
“Luna,” the guard said as he reached for it.
I held the bowl away from him.
“It’s okay. I trust her.”
The pack link was strong, but this close to him, I could feel the strong pulse of apprehension and mistrust. The feeling extended further than my guard. It was from the bodies filtering into the kitchen.
Devon was right. They were a dying pack. One woman stepped into the kitchen and she was heavily pregnant, but no one else seemed young enough to work, let alone guard them. My mind went back to the males that had attacked me. Poor choices.
I lifted my bowl and said, “Thank you.”
Things that bothered me could probably be counted on one hand. Begging won the lead at the top of my list, being starved and beaten? Those ranked high. But being stared at by the pack that allowed such things? That was getting high on the list of creepy.
“Luna, we should get out of here.”
I put the bowl down before the guard had a heart attack. That, and I lost my appetite. There was a boulder of a lump in my stomach now and I cleared my throat.
“I… I was curious. Did any of you know my pack? The one that sold me to you?”
A few looked angry, and I didn’t know if that was at me or the situation.
“Look, your alpha. I’m sorry. He attacked me. He—”
The cook stepped forward. “Pardon, Luna. None of us are sad he is gone. He was a tyrant.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
She shared a glance at a few others.
“But, uh. The new alpha? He has us locked up here like animals. So you’ll have to excuse us if we can’t seem to trust you.”
She gave me a half-hearted smile, and I truly looked at the bodies piling into the room.
“I… Well. I can talk to him. But you really need to stop attacking me.”
There were murmurings.
“Well the boys… They were raised poorly. They grew up with take what you want to survive. I’m sure you can understand seeing how you…”
She trailed off.
“Seeing as how I what?”
More shared looks, and I stepped a little closer to the guard.
“Well, Miss. Nessa. We haven’t seen her here. We assumed you killed her?”
I opened and closed my hands at the realization of what any of these people had assumed or how they’d lived. I’d placed all my anger on the entire pack. Not without warrant.
“She is alive. And Alpha Devon is my fated mate. I am not here to validate or explain, but perhaps if you help me, I can see what can be done to truly integrate you into the pack. You will certainly need to realize that we do not take what we want here. We share.”
Someone’s fist punched a wall, but I couldn’t see where that came from. Instead, I met as many of them as possible, eye to eye.
