Snuff

Lya

Trevor and Thom followed me off of the training grounds. Oliver had given in, accepting that I overruled him, and was letting me continue with training. He knew me well - even without his blessing, I would have continued. The stipulation he thought I wasn’t aware of was Trevor or Thom would tag along to make sure I wasn’t actually put at risk. Both were coming with me today under the pretense of wanting to catch up with Cody. I knew Trevor just wanted to avoid Anna as much as humanly possible, and Thom… I wasn’t exactly sure what Thom’s excuse was. Maybe he did just want to see Cody.

Training today had been tough. That’s not to say it had been easy before, but I had been pushed past my limits more so than in previous sessions. Cody said it was because I was clearly a better fighter than he had initially thought. After running over some new maneuvers, he left me with a couple other warriors to work on them, telling us to find him after we were done. I had desperately hoped a couple times that just maybe Trevor or Thom would jump in and say something was too rough, but they never did. Kicks and punches were being landed on me at a much higher rate than I was delivering them, and absolutely no mercy was being shown for the future luna. Granted, I had to wonder if I’d get any useful training in at all if the people I was sparring with knew I was the future luna. If I actually wanted to get good at fighting, it was probably best this way.

“So what happened to you two last night?” Thom asked as we headed toward Cody’s office.

I just shrugged. “Nothing. We just sat out on the patio for a couple hours.”

Trevor still hadn’t talked to me since dinner last night. I had tried to get him to after he unceremoniously left, but he was keeping quiet. It would all come clean eventually. If he wasn’t talking, though, it had to be a big deal. He wasn’t much one for the silent treatment.

I wasn’t surprised to find Cody sitting behind his desk, glaring cooly at the door as we entered. It was the way I always found him. A few people had mentioned he had been exceptionally moody and angsty recently, but I didn’t really know him well enough to make that call.

Cody stood up, shutting and locking the door behind us. “This conversation does not leave this room, under any circumstances.” He sat down behind his desk, pulling out tumblers and a bottle.

“Well good to see you too, Cody,” Thom chuckled, taking a seat across from his desk.

“Isn’t it a little early for drinking?” I asked hesitantly, not exactly wanting to poke the bear, but also worried about what sort of topic would warrant drinking at three in the afternoon.

“No. Now sit.” He shoved the drink across the desk and I did as instructed. I glanced at Thom and Trevor on either side of me while taking a sip. I really just wanted water, but anything to relieve my parched throat after training. The whiskey burned on the way down, but I wasn’t about to piss him off by refuting his offer. He seemed to be in an exceptionally bad mood today.

The silence was strained. I was relieved when Cody finally spoke up. “Lya knows she’s luna and she knows she’s from the Wulver Pack. She isn’t telling Oliver she knows these things, and I have no clue why, but I also don’t care.”

“Is this secret meeting only about our dysfunctional alpha couple?” Trevor asked.

“No,” he said, turning to his computer and pulling up a screen, “but we can use their dysfunction to our advantage.”

Cody turned the screen toward us. Each quarter showed the feed from one of the security cameras around my house. Three of them showed a quiet, abandoned house. In the last one, however the camera that would have been able to show if there was regular surveillance of the house along the street, all that could be seen was a note in front of the camera.

'Time to come out and play.'

The silence was deafening as we took in the ominous request. My mind raced with everything this could entail. One thing was for certain, though, and that was there was absolutely no avoiding the problem.

“So what’s the plan?” Trevor finally asked.

“That’s why we’re here,” Cody said, “to come up with a plan without Oliver sitting in the corner having a conniption that his mate is in danger. Because whatever we come up with that will actually work, Lya, you will be in danger.”

Thom shook his head. “I can’t sit by and be a part of coming up with a hit or miss scheme. We have to keep Lya as far from this as possible. If something happens to her, we’ll lose Ollie, too.”

Cody’s eyes never left mine. “She’s a Wulver. She is going to do what’s best for the greater good, with or without help. So best to be in on it so she can have some more protection.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. I mean, he was right, I wasn’t going to let anyone else get hurt when it could potentially just be me at risk, but I wanted to hear his justification. “What makes you think that?”

“Because I’m a Wulver, too.” His expression glowed with pride. “I know the way you think, because it’s the way all of us think. It’s the same line of thinking that had you constantly ostracizing yourself. So best we all come up with a plan that includes that then you come up with your own.”

I blinked a couple times, but kept my initial thoughts to myself, deciding it was better if I tracked him down some other time to ask some of my questions.

Thom seemed to recover the quickest. “So first we need to figure out how much time we have. As much time as possible to get her fighting up to snuff.”

Cody nodded in agreement. “And then the strategy we are going to pitch to the alpha that will cover our tracks.”

“I don’t know if I can lie to Oliver again, especially if it risks her,” Trevor said quietly. “He’d never forgive me, especially if she got hurt.”

I looked over at Trevor. He was tired. The weight of what was happening, what he was convinced he had caused, was taking its toll. I felt bad for him, but I wasn’t about to let others take part in a fight that was not their own.

“If this is too big for you, you need to leave now. You leave now, and you won’t have anything to lie to Oliver about. You stay, and I’ll have to figure out how to do that command thing so you don’t talk when you start to feel guilty. Either way works for me.”

I could feel Thom and Cody looking at me, but I didn't take my eyes off of Trevor. I watched the internal battle play out on his face, trying to decide where his allegiances lie.

“I’d listen to the Luna if I were you, Trevor,” Thom said. “She scares me a bit more than Ollie Pop does.”

Trevor nodded once, indicating we could continue. “Yes, Luna.”

The term knotted my stomach, emotions rolling through. It felt wrong. I felt like an imposter. It was everything I was meant to be. It was right.

“We’ll meet again after training tomorrow,” Cody announced. “I’ll get the scouts over there to give me an idea how long we can drag this out, and all of us will have an idea to bring to the table. Once we have a better plan, we can move forward with what we need to tell Oliver.”

Thom and Trevor stood up to leave, and I followed suit.

“Lya, a moment,” Cody called. I slipped back into the room, closing the door in Trevor’s face.

“This is going to be dangerous,” he warned me.

“I know,” I said with a nod.

“I can’t guarantee you’ll make it out alive.”

“I know.”

“You’ll need to make sure we don’t lose the alpha in all this, too. I know you marked him, but you can’t let him mark you and complete the bond,” he stated. “If you want to back out, you need to say so now.”

I didn’t break eye contact, and I knew. I knew what my decision was, and I hated it. “I have spent my entire life running, Cody. Running from what I am and who I am all for the sake of protecting those I care about. I am still going to protect those people, and to do that, I cannot run just because things are a little tough. I won’t let this pack suffer.”

Cody gave me a small smile that was far from reaching his eyes. “Well spoken, Luna.”

I turned and left, not even bothering to say goodbye. Time was becoming something we didn’t have much of, and I wanted to spend the rest of the guaranteed time I did have with my mate.


The Runaway Rogue
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