Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 242

Ch. 14

Cassandra

Managing to find someone to watch Liam so I can go to work is easier than I thought it would be. Unfortunately, 1 know it won’t last. I have nothing to offer in return except the money I earn and I can’t afford to give up too much of that and still keep my son fed.

Not that it matters anyway. My time at the Ashford settlement is limited. But I’ll take the work while I can get it and save as much as I can.

I haven’t even finished my first cup of coffee when Geraldine saunters over to my desk and waits for me to acknowledge her presence. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my nerves prickle with tension. Somehow I know what comes next won’t be good.

“The Alpha has made a decision about the accommodation program,” she starts, setting a single sheet of paper on the filing room desk. “It’s being scaled back. Political considerations. Nothing personal.”

I stare at the paper, trying to make sense of the words. But I can’t focus through the tears swimming in my eyes. I thought I had more time.

“I understand,” I force the words out.

“You’ve been useful here,” she says. It lands the same way her compliments always land-not warm, just accurate. “I’m sorry it’s not more notice.”

She leaves. I sit there unmoving, still staring at the paper I can’t read and a sick feeling in my stomach that threatens a reappearance of my breakfast.

Somehow I make it back to collect Liam. He’s playing with some of the other children, running around happily, laughing and shrieking like little boys do. I stand back and watch him for a minute, guilt churning in my gut for the news I’m about to deliver. My fault, the accusation reverberates through my mind. This mess is all my fault and he deserves better than me.

I have no idea where we’re going. I’ve already memorized the list of options and know there’s nothing good on it. So I focus on packing instead. It doesn’t take long. We don’t have much, Liam watches me from the bed with the focused attention he gives to everything.

“Are we going?” he asks, disappointment in his little voice.

“Yes, baby.” I tell him the truth. “We’re going.”

“Where?”

“I’m working on that,” I hedge and he accepts it easily. Goes back to the small figures he’s been arranging on the blanket.

That’s my fault too. He shouldn’t have had to be moved around so much he just accepts it as normal. I’ll fix it, I resolve. Whatever it takes, I’ll fix it.

We’re on the road by noon. Liam is in the back seat with his figures and the focused silence of a child who has learned that car rides go however long they go and asking repeatedly doesn’t change that. Another thing he shouldn’t have to know.

The first hour, I obsess over our lack of options. The second hour, I stop thinking about options because I’ve exhausted them and thinking about them again doesn’t generate new ones. It just generates the same list with the same items crossed off.

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At the edge of the third hour, I finally let myself think about the option I’ve been avoiding. Ironwood. Noah Stephens. Alpha now, from what I’ve heard.

I know what he is to me. I’ve known since the bond snapped and I felt it and decided, in the same breath, not to take it. I know what I did with that decision. I know what he said when he walked away, and I know he was right to say it, and I know that showing up at his gate with a four-year-old and nothing else is the kind of ask that you can only make if you’re willing to be told no by someone who has every reason to say it.

I can’t do it. I can’t walk back into the place I was thrown out of-the place I deserved to be thrown out of-and ask for mercy from the man I wronged. I’m resourceful. I’m capable. I’ll find something else.

I’ll find something else.

“Mama,” Liam says.

“Mm.” I answer absently, my mind struggling to switch gears the way it always does in those rare moments I allow myself to think of Noah.

“Are we going somewhere safe?”

I look at him in the rearview mirror. He’s looking out the window, not at me, with the casual delivery of someone who has asked the question before and knows the answer is variable.

“I’m working on it,” I say, knowing it’s not good enough.

He nods. Goes back to his figures.

We stop when it gets dark.

I haven’t found what I was looking for-the township I’d heard about, the possibility of a contact, nothing has materialized and I’m not going to drive through the night with Liam in the back seat. I pull off onto a side road, find a flat area off the track, and make the kind of camp that happens when you travel with a child and almost nothing else: sleeping bag from the trunk, Liam’s small blanket from his bag, the car doors as shelter enough.

Liam thinks this is an adventure. He’s four. I’m glad he doesn’t have to carry the same fears I have. That’s my job.

“Like camping,” he says, with satisfaction.

“Like camping,” I agree.

I leave him settled with his figures and his blanket and tell him I’m going to check the area-rogue habit, always know the perimeter. The road is quiet. The surrounding land is scrub and low growth, nobody visible in either direction.

I’ve been walking the perimeter for ten minutes when I smell them. Two of them. Downwind, which is why I didn’t catch it sooner. Rogue wolves-the kind that travel in pairs and almost never mean anything good. Opportunists who test what appears unprotected.

I was raised in an Alpha’s pack. I know how to fight but I’m not particularly good at it. Not like Skye always was.

The first one comes from the left. I turn toward him-don’t run, running is the worst thing I could do-and I catch his arm before he can get mine and I use my elbow the way I was taught when I was sixteen and thought I’d never need it.

He makes a grunting sound but it doesn’t slow him down.

“What do you want!” I scream the demand.

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The second one comes from behind. “Whatever we can take.” He laughs maniacally in my ear.

The hit lands across my ribs-the left side, the crack of something giving way, the immediate flood of pain that makes my vision white at the edges. I go down on one knee. Keep my hands up, keep my head protected, that’s the priority.

They’re not trying to kill me. At least I don’t think they are. This is just the cruelty of wolves who want a rogue woman to understand her position. I hope.

The second hit is to my shoulder and I go down completely. I whimper but try not to cry out again.

Liam. My only thought now is for Liam. If he hears me scream he might come looking for me and I don’t want him anywhere near this.

It’s my last thought.

And then I remember things less clearly for a while.

Cara Anderson

Author

Thank you for reading!

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