AURORA
Wolves from different packs gathered inside of Pink Moon Tavern, hooting and howling with each other. Ares led me into the neon-pink-accented building and around the groups of people until we saw Adrian. Typing on his phone and sipping on a chocolate milkshake, he sat alone in a teal booth.
Dark purple claw marks from last night decorated his throat.
When he glanced up, he dropped his phone and held his hands into the air. “I promise I wasn’t going to try anything with Aurora. She just asked me to meet her here for—”
“You don’t have to explain yourself, Adrian,” I reassured, pushing Ares into the other side of the booth and sliding in next to him. I narrowed my eyes at my mate. “Ares has something to say to you. Don’t you, Ares?”
Pressing his lips together, Ares flared his nostrils and refused to speak. I elbowed him hard in the ribs, remembering that Marcel had said it was his weak spot. He winced and cleared his throat.
“I … apologize for how I acted last night,” he said through clenched canines. When Adrian’s eyes widened in surprise, Ares added, “But I don’t regret it because you shouldn’t be ogling your luna.”
I glared at Ares’s profile. “What he means is that he let himself lose control and that it will not happen again.” Or else he would not get any of this pussy, even after the Luna Ceremony. “Isn’t that right, Ares?”
After Ares grumbled, he sat back in the booth and crossed his arms over his chest, making them look so damn thick that I had to tear my gaze away before my wolf urged me to rip his clothes off right here and now.
A light inside a charred mason jar swung above the booth as some rowdy kids behind us knocked into theirs. I steadied the light and sipped the water that Adrian had gotten for me.
“So, I wanted to talk to you about underground tunnels. There is a war coming that we can’t stop, and I want our pups to be safe.”
“Your pups?” Adrian asked with wide eyes. “You’re having pups?”
My eyes widened, cheeks flushing. “No, not me.”
“Not yet,” Ares added.
“Not ever, if you don’t want to fuck me,” I reminded him through the mind link.
I blew an annoyed breath out of my nose and pulled up the blueprints for my old pack’s underground tunnels on my phone. “I mean, the pack pups.” I handed him the phone. “This was my old pack’s blueprints for the tunnels. We had a central shelter under the pack house and some various tunnels leading from different areas of the pack. Since this pack is much bigger, we need to make improvements.”
Adrian studied the blueprints for a couple moments, and then nodded. “Who mapped this out? It’s very detailed and a smart idea for protection.”
Unable to hold back my grin, I beamed in my seat. “I did.”
“Damn, I’m impressed.” He sipped on his milkshake and handed me back the phone. “Send me these, and I’ll see what I can do under the landscape we have already. What kind of improvements do you want to make?”
“More hidden entry points, so hounds can’t find them. Also, I need you to evaluate the landscape to make sure there are no tunnels already underground. When we went to the cave, we saw hounds in an underground lair. If there are already tunnels within fifty feet of our property—whether or not they belong to the hounds—I want the walls to be made of cement, not dirt, so the hounds can’t claw their way into it.”
Ares placed his hand on my thigh, golden eyes glimmering under the dull light. His rageful red-tinted eyes from earlier had disappeared and were replaced with softer, prideful ones. “You’ve really thought this out.”
“Of course I have.”
I’d had so much time at my old pack to think about improvements. To be honest, that was all Mom let me do. I thought that she thought of it as busywork to keep me out of her hair. But I believed that having a hidden escape was essential, and it’d proven to be.
I wished Mom had made the improvements before the hounds attacked our pack, so we could’ve saved more than a handful of pups. But things would be different this time around. I was now a pack’s luna. I vowed to protect them as much as I could even if that meant with my life.
“This project needs to be done as soon as possible. How long will it take you?”
“If I stop all production we have elsewhere”—Adrian paused to think—“and there aren’t tunnels underground already, I would say it’d take six months because we’re on a huge plot of land.” He furrowed his brows and leaned back. “But I think—and I’m not positive—that there used to be a bunker underground after the fallout of 1754, during the War of the Lycans. If there still are some tunnels, it should take significantly less time. Say … two months, max.”
I glanced over at Ares. “Are there tunnels already under your property?”
“I believe that there is a bunker under the pack house, not sure if there are tunnels.”
“Start work on this immediately. Drop all your other projects. We need this done as soon as possible. We don’t have time to waste. If there are already underground tunnels or even just bunkers, expand on them. We need a safe space within the next few weeks. We can broaden the tunnels sections later, if we have time.”
Behind us, the Pink Moon Tavern door opened, its bell jingling. Adrian glanced up, his pupils suddenly dilating. He sat up in the booth, pushed his shoulders back, and inhaled deeply, canines emerging from under his lips—not in a vicious way, but a hungry one.
I glanced over my shoulder at Elijah, who stopped in the middle of the packed diner and stared at Adrian with lustful eyes under his thick-lensed glasses. Pink neon lights glimmering against his dark skin, Elijah pushed his shoulders back and recomposed himself.
“Second-chance mates?” I asked through the mind link to Ares.
Ares eyed them, leaned back in his seat, and relaxed for the first time tonight. “Goddess, I hope so. Get two guys off your tits. I don’t have to go after them.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and slapped him on the chest. “Stop it.”
He gave me a big lopsided smile and pulled me into his hard chest. “You know how crazy I am about you, Kitten.”
“More like psychotic.”
Elijah stuffed his hands into his pockets and sat in the booth, right beside Adrian. Adrian fumbled to scoot over and give the alpha some room. My lips curled into an even wider smile as I watched them. Goddess, if they weren’t second-chance mates, I would shed a damn tear. They looked so cute together already.
“Didn’t expect to see you two here,” Elijah said, wiping his palms on his black jeans. He glanced over at Adrian and offered him the same smile he used to give my brother. “I’m Alpha Elijah.”
Adrian swallowed hard, cheeks turning the lightest shade of pink. “Adrian.”
Unable to hold back my excitement, I smacked Ares on the thigh and grinned. Goddess, I loved love and fated mates, destinies that were bound to collide. My stomach fluttered with butterflies. Ares side-eyed me and rested his hand on my thigh, squeezing lightly.
After a few moments of staring at each other, Elijah tore his gaze away and gave me that don’t even think about it look. I had nagged him for years to find another man or woman who could make him happy. Maybe he’d finally found him.
“So,” Elijah started, “we’re preparing to dissect the hound tomorrow.”
“Already?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to run tests on him?”
“We ran some tests on him today. Everything came back normal, but there was something off about his blood. I haven’t been informed on what exactly it was, and my doctor hasn’t figured out much either. As soon as we do, I’ll let you know.”
I paused for a moment. “Have you … done any research on Jeremy?”
He tensed and looked at his hands. “I want him to rest in peace, Aurora. He deserves it.”
“You know he’d have wanted you to study him,” I said.
It was wrong to want to study my brother, but I needed to figure out how they’d brought him back to life. When the hounds had attacked, he had been ripped piece by piece. Even with necromancy, it would be a struggle to raise him from the dead. Sure, the stone might’ve played a part, but something else must’ve helped him too—the same things that’d helped all those other undead hounds.
“Let me study this hound first. I’ll see what information I get. If my doctor and researchers can’t find anything, I will consider it. But I’m not making any promises. He went through so much. I want him to run in peace with the wolves above.”
I nodded. If worse came to worst, we would need to use Jeremy to understand the hounds and give us some insight into this divine revenge because nobody understood it, especially me. But by the way that hound had watched me so intently earlier, I had a bad feeling this retribution had to do with me.