Chasing His Kickass Luna Back novel Chapter 426

Abby

I bolt away from the party and up the stairs, my heart pounding in my chest. Tears stream down my cheeks as I fumble to find my room key.

I need to get away from that party, away from the chaos, away from Karl’s shocking announcement. Finally, I find the key and jam it into the lock, twisting it with shaking hands until the door clicks shut behind me. I lean back against the door, taking shuddering breaths, my mind reeling from what has just happened.

It feels like a surreal nightmare, but I know it’s all too real no matter how much I wish I could just wake up and find out that none of this ever happened.

I want to go back to this morning, redo everything; hell, right now I want to go back to months ago, back to when Karl first walked into my restaurant. I want to go back and send him away and tell him to never speak to me again.

I stumble to my bed and throw myself onto it, burying my face in the pillow as sobs wrack my body.

How could Karl make an announcement like that, especially in front of everyone?

It’s a lie, a cruel twist of the knife in my already wounded heart. The idea of us being together again and starting a family, especially when I know I probably can’t have kids, feels like a cruel joke.

Amidst my despair, my wolf’s comforting presence whispers in my mind. “Karl must have had a reason for doing this, Abby,” she says gently. “He always has a reason, doesn’t he?”

I sniffle and wipe away my tears with the back of my hand. “I don’t doubt that he had a reason,” I murmur out loud under my breath, “but he should have talked to me first, gotten my point of view, my permission, before blatantly announcing it to everyone in our pack. Now, if I pull out of this, I’ll just seem like the bad guy once again, and everyone will hate me.”

“That’s not true, Abby. They won’t hate you.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “You think so? First, they thought I was a cheater, then a washed-up ex-Luna turning myself into a servant by running a restaurant, and now they believe I’m the fraud who poisoned everyone at the Alpha gathering. If I tell them I’m not with Karl, they’ll see me as a no-good floozy who took advantage of him for his help and then dumped him.”

“They won’t think that,” my wolf says, but I can hear the uncertainty in her voice.

“Listen,” I mutter, “I’m well aware of the fickle nature of people, and I know how this will end. I’m trapped, and it’s all Karl’s fault. I mean, how could he do this to me? I thought he changed, that he was becoming better, not just a cold Alpha who only thinks about himself.”

My wolf falls silent. I can still feel her comforting presence, but I know that she’s run out of things to say. That’s because it’s true; Karl has used me, taken advantage of me, and for what? After everything we’ve been through together, he would do this?

As I continue to cry into my pillow, my thoughts drift back to earlier tonight, when Karl and I were alone in the forest.

It was a moment of vulnerability, of opening up to each other. I allowed myself to set aside my inhibitions for a little while because I thought that maybe, just maybe, things would work themselves out.

I let myself be weak. I let him comfort me with his words and with his body. I let him ruin my dress on the snowy ground when now I know I shouldn’t have done any of it.

And now, it feels like he took advantage of my feelings for his own gain. He must be using me to look good for the election, I’m sure of it.