Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 209

Chapter 209

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Home. The estate closes around me the moment we cross the threshold-the specific warmth of it, the scent of it, the particular quality of a place that has become yours without you noticing the exact moment it happened.

I’m home. And there’s no denying Iny heat is here. Fully, completely, with the vengeance of biology that’s waited eleven months and is not interested in waiting any longer. My wolf is awake and certain and has decided she’s been patient long enough.

Nicolai carries me straight to the bedroom and closes the door behind us. And it finally sinks in. “Us” means both

of them. Here. With me.

For the first time since this whole impossible year began, nobody is tiptoeing around the truth of what we are. Nobody is being careful. No one is performing patience or restraint or the careful choreography of three people who care about each other trying not to break anything.

It’s just us.

Nicolai speaks first, setting me carefully on my feet but not allowing much space between us. “Before this goes any further,” he says, cupping my face gently in his hands, “I need to know you’re truly okay. Not what you told the doctor. The truth.”

Not what I expected. Not what my wolf expected either, based on what she’s currently doing, pumping out pheromones, signaling her need. But it’s Nicolai, and he reads me first, always.

“I’m okay,” I answer too quickly and hiding a grimace.

“Skye.” He says my name without inflection, his own brand of scolding.

“I’m-” I start to double down but stop abruptly. They’re both looking at me. Jaxon with the attention of someone who knows the difference between me saying I’m okay and truly being okay, which he should, because he lived with me for three years. Nicolai with the expression he has when he’s already decided he’s going to wait as long as

necessary.

I sit on the edge of the bed, squeezing my thighs together to quell the throbbing but knowing that particular problem will be addressed much sooner if I just tell them what they want to know..

“Savin came,” I tell them. “He introduced himself. Asked me about Woolf operations-the eastern alliance structure, which packs would defect. I didn’t tell him anything.” I rush to assure him but his expression tells me he’s not the least bit concerned, not about that. “He left me time to think about it. Said he’d be back.”

“He won’t,” Nicolai says. Very quietly. Very certain.

“I know.” I look at my hands, gathering my courage for the next part. “Then Tatiana came.”

The quality of the air changes, charged with the scent of angry Alpha.

“Tatiana Volkov?” Jaxon asks.

“Yes.” I nod.

I tell them everything. The things she said about Nicolai being meant for her, about my arrangement making him look weak. I tell them about the unlocked door. About what she said would happen, trying and failing to suppress a shudder at the memory. And about Benji-what she said about Benji.

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Nicolai makes a sound. Not a word. Just–something low and controlled that is, I understand, what it sounds like When a man who’s just learned his mate was about to be raped if he’d been any later realizes he cannot, under our current circumstances, give in to the fury assaulting him.

His jaw is set. His hands are still. “You were working on the restraints when I got there,” he says finally.

“Yes.”

“How close were you to getting free?”

“Close enough.” I’m not actually sure that’s true but he wasn’t too late so it doesn’t matter now.

He holds my gaze. I hold his. We both know what “close enough” means and what it means that it was only close enough and not done.

“She will not,” Nicolai says, with a specificity that makes it clear he’s not speaking hypothetically, “be a / consideration for either of us again.”

“No, she won’t,” I say, letting him know I have no qualms about whatever his plans for Tatiana Volkov might be.

Jaxon crosses the room and crouches in front of me-mirrors what Tatiana did but is so completely its opposite that I almost laugh. He takes my face in his hands. Careful of the cut on my cheek.

“Are you actually okay?” he asks. “Not okay like you’re safe. Okay.”

I look at him, my gaze nothing but earnest. “I am now,” I smile, running my hand along the stubble on his jaw, shivering at the thought of feeling it between my thighs. “I knew you’d come.”

“Always,” he says.

“Both of us,” Nicolai says, from behind Jaxon. Not competitive. Just: true. Adding his name to the always.

I reach for both of them simultaneously-one hand to Jaxon’s wrist, one reaching for Nicolai.

“I know,” I try to explain. “I felt it. Through the bonds. Both of you.” I look between them. “I’m not sure how. But even down there-I could feel you coming.”

“Good.” Jaxon says without missing a beat, like he doesn’t doubt it at all.

And like that simple declaration of trust was all I needed to completely let go, the heat makes its presence known in a way that ends any chance for more conversation.

Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

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