Traded

“He will never believe you,” she winks, falling instep beside me.

We walk for a moment in comfortable silence as I contemplate asking her the question the Merikh shut down so angrily. Then I realize I have a right to know. It’s part of this pack’s history and I am supposedly this pack’s future. How can I move forward when I haven’t seen the past?

“Penny…”

“Yes?”

“If I ask you questions, do you have to answer me?” I ask tentatively.

She looks at me, confused. “I guess it depends on the question and how it’s important to you?”

“I want to know about Merikh’s ex mate…” I tread lightly with my words, looking around and waiting for a backlash. Instead, she throws her hands up with an exasperated sigh.

“Well, it’s about damn time,” she says.

“Wait what?”

“I’ve been dying to tell you, but you had to ask me first. Let me know you are serious about being Alpha’s new mate and our Luna.”

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“Uh…ok.” I say, not bothering to think much about what she says. I have questions and I want answers. “So,

what is her name?”

“Oh, you mean was?” She quirks a brow.

“Was? As in, she is dead?” I ask and she grins, nodding yes.

“Like damn dead. Lauren lost her head, kind of dead. She dead dead.” She says in a creepy way too happy about it, upbeat voice.

“Okay, she’s dead, but how?” I ask and she looks away for a second.

“You can’t freak out until I tell you the entire story. Okay? Promise?”

“Well, that’s already not a great start.” I admit anxiety squeezing my insides like it’s an orange in a juice factory.

“Yeah, well…it’s obviously not a fairytale considering her current location.” She chuckles.

I look at her weirdly and she grins, then rolls her eyes. “Because she is six feet under. Pushing up daisies. Yeesh, slow on the uptake today, Luna Letty.” she mutters.

“It’s a little weird how excited her death makes you.”

“If Alpha weren’t so hurt by it all, everyone would react like this. Lauren deserved her ending.”

“And yet you still tell me nothing.” I remind her.

“Okay, okay,” she sighs, peeking around the hall as we get closer to the room. “Lauren grew up here, everyone. sort of…well… she wasn’t everyone’s favorite pack member, but when they realized they were mates, it didn’t matter and it seemed like she changed, truly changed.”

“What happened?”

“She was a spy,” Penny says, a cloud of anger hovering around her now. She is hiding behind her jokes, but I can feel how much she truly detested the luna before me.

I give her an incredulous look. “A spy? For who? The rogues?”

“Worse…” she grins, waiting for me to guess. I swallow, not wanting to look like an idiot, as I rack my brain for a

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good guess.

“The…wi-”

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“Vampires.” she cuts me off and I say it with her like it was totally my guess too. Then my eyes nearly bulge from my head.

“WHAT!?” I cry out loud and she slaps her hand over my mouth, shoving me into the room.

“The vampires, damn, why are you so surprised? They are the most back–stabby supernatural being there are.”

“Right, obviously,” I try to play along.

It’s not like I didn’t know they existed, except that’s sort of exactly what I thought. Like I know, Merikh has said that there are other supernatural beings out there, but that was early in our relationship. I couldn’t tell if he was

joking or not.

“She wasn’t just giving them information but as Luna, she was able to invite them into pack grounds in the middle of the night. We didn’t just lose twelve warriors to one vampire, we lost our former alpha, Alpha Merikh

and beta Hayes Dad. They found Lauren talking with the vampire in question about where to find Merikh to kill

him next over his father’s blood let body.”

My heart feels like it’s in a vice grip and I clutch my chest, hoping to relieve some of the tension there.

“So he killed her.” I whisper, and I find I can’t blame him. I would have done the same thing without a second

thought.

“No.” she shakes her head. “He had a public execution and had her beheaded.”

The blood drains from my face, but not because of how he executed her or that he sentenced her to death and

watched it. But at how much it must have hurt him and his lycan to watch his mate die. To be the one to order it before his whole pack. Acknowledging he was wrong to choose her. His wrong choice led to a devastating loss.

No wonder he doesn’t want to announce me to the pack yet. Holy crap, no wonder he chose me. I am too weak to do anything like that and get away with it. He chose the weakest option, with no ties to anyone. Never again will he let something awful like that happen. No wonder he has no desire to find his second chance mate. How could he ever trust someone when the mate bond blinds him?