Chapter 493: Not My Luna
August could sense that something terrible was happening. It felt like her pack was being torn apart.
She arrived out of the portal that she created with Nedra’s guidance, but it didn’t place her in the council chambers as she would have liked. She was at the rear of the pack house.
There was an overwhelming sense of relief at finally being back here where the forest smelled safe and familiar and she could feel those who were here who all belonged together like a family. But then the urgency of the threat she felt had her sprinting inside the pack house and through the common room, up the steps the way she remembered and down the hall.
There were pack members lined up along the stairwell leading down into the chambers, and some males seemed to be entirely besides themselves trying to get in through the doorway as if some unseen force was propelling them forward despite the fact that they could not all fit.
August darted out of the way, avoiding claws and males who were growling and shoving each other. It was madness. She couldn’t understand what was happening, but she knew who was behind it.
She arrived inside of the chambers to see the same chaos that she felt inside of her as if it was tearing her apart from the inside, and her eyes desperately sought Graeme. Where was Graeme? Where was her mate?
The waves of males who were all lunging over each other with madness in their eyes were all directed toward one area up high in a row of seats that she recalled seeing the elders in when she was questioned in the chambers. It seemed so long ago now that she was at the bottom of this well. It seemed like ages had passed. Was she even the same person as she had been back then?
Graeme must be the focus of all of this rage and somewhere at the center of the attacking males. It was the only thing that made sense since she couldn’t find him with her eyes.
She stood there, overwhelmed with a helplessness that threatened to drown her as the chaos around her ensued. There were so many wolves, and she couldn’t recognize any of them. She had seen so few of these pack members in their wolf forms until now.
A sharp pain in her neck made her hiss, and she realized at once that it was not her own. Graeme was here, and he was being attacked. He was hurt, and she needed to stop it.
That’s when she caught sight of her. Violet was standing in the middle of the floor directly ahead with her back to August, though people were darting around between them in different directions, obscuring the way to her.
It was the most bizarre thing August had seen. It looked like dark rays spiraling out of Violet and directed all around her. It was a threatening aura that was scattered, infecting those it hit and sending them in a rage. And Violet seemed to be feeding off of it. She was trembling with power.
Maggie was on the floor when she caught sight of August glowing like the moon behind Violet. Their Luna had returned. Thank the Goddess.
"Luna!" Several people gasped, catching sight of the characteristic glow as well, and soon the soft gasps of recognition by those who were not furiously trying to attack their Alpha filled the chambers.
Violet turned, following the the bright, hopeful gazes of those around her who had found a beacon of hope amidst the darkness that had fallen over them. Sure enough, the intruder had returned. Graeme’s long lost mate.
August shook her head with sorrowful eyes, and the spiraling rays of fury that were projecting from inside of Violet’s heart all ceased. The noise in the chambers gradually died down, only a few snarls remaining until those final males were thrown off of Graeme and knocked to their senses.
Graeme finally caught sight of her. It felt like the breath had been stolen from his lungs. She was even more beautiful than he remembered.
August’s gaze found his long enough to verify that he was okay, and in that brief moment that their eyes connected it felt like he was struck with a bolt of lightening. His beautiful mate was back. She was okay. Despite the injuries he had sustained from this stupid trick of Violet’s, Graeme let out a heavy sigh of relief and gratitude. The center of his entire universe had returned to him.
August flushed at the connection she felt roar to life between her and her mate. They had been connected all this time across an impossible distance, but now that they were nearly within reach of each other, it was so much more powerful than it had ever been before. And it had been so long.
Even when they were united in that sacred place of healing, it was not like this. Goddess, how she longed just to touch him and know with her hands on his skin, feeling the warm life of his flesh under hers that he was okay.
Everyone else in the chambers and further out in the pack felt this connection bloom brilliantly between their Alpha and Luna as well. One pack member in particular grew even more furious than she had been. Violet thought she wanted August present so she could direct all of her rage toward ending her in front of Graeme’s eyes, but now that she was truly here, she wanted nothing more than for her to be gone once again.
The joy of seeing Graeme dimmed when August saw the dark rage in Violet grow larger before her eyes. There was the caged, irate maniac on Zagan’s island who was filled with all sorts of vile things, and then there was Violet here in the council’s chambers. August didn’t know which was worse.
"Violet, why?" August heard herself say with the tone of a grieving mother.
She knew something of the pain that Violet had endured, and she had wanted to help her. She had wanted to heal her. But now... she looked around at all of the destruction that Violet had caused... the females sobbing, the males a mess of blood and guilt, staring in shock at the injuries that they had caused each other as well as themselves. Violet had turned all of that inner pain outward and weaponized it, seeking to destroy as many as she could.
"Why would you do this?"
"Because of you. You are not my Luna," Violet snarled. "You do not belong here. You are an intruder. An abomination. A lie. And I will do whatever I must until everyone else sees it, including Graeme."
