Reborn Luna's True Mate

Elle

“You can still change your mind.”

Dad said it from the doorway while Mom was pinning my veil into place. She caught his eye in the mirror.

“Mason.”

“I don’t give a shit how many people are waiting.” He looked at me. “If you don’t want this, we don’t go.”

“I want to marry him, Dad.”

“Then I’ll walk you down the aisle.”

His voice caught on the last word. That did it. I went to him, gathering my skirt out of the way, and he wrapped his arms around me with a rough little laugh.

“Don’t make me cry,” I said into his jacket. “Mom spent an hour on my face.”

He kissed the top of my head. “Still my girl, though.”

“Always.”

Mom came over to straighten the veil we’d already ruined. She wiped beneath Dad’s eye with her thumb, then took my hand and led me downstairs.

Soren called halfway to the church.

“Where are you?”

“Five minutes away. Possibly six if Dad keeps driving like there’s a cake on the roof.”

“Precious cargo,” Dad said, watching us in the rearview mirror.

Soren laughed. I pressed the phone closer, smiling at the warm pull beneath my ribs. My wolf stirred at his voice, impatient to get to him.

“Hurry up, sweetheart. I’m waiting.”

“I’m coming. I love you.”

He’d already hung up.

Mom squeezed my hand, and I was still smiling when Dad slammed on the brakes.

The truck came straight at us.

Dad swore and hauled the wheel around. Mom threw an arm across me. There was a crash so loud I felt it in my teeth, then the windows burst and the car rolled.

I lost track of which way was up before something hit my head.

When I opened my eyes, Mom’s hand hung beside my face.

Blood was running along her fingers and dripping off her wedding ring. I caught her wrist, confused by how heavy it was.

“Mom?”

We were upside down. My seat belt was cutting into my chest, and her head rested at an angle I couldn’t understand until I saw her neck.

“No.” I reached for her face. “Mom, look at me.”

I turned her toward me as carefully as I could. Her eyes were open. I wiped the blood from her mouth with my thumb, waiting for her to tell me I was hurting her.

She didn’t make a sound.

“Elle.”

Dad was in the front, his legs caught beneath the dashboard. He was looking at Mom, too.

“Help her,” I said. “Please, Dad. I can’t feel a pulse.”

His mouth worked before he answered. “Baby, I need you to undo your belt.”

“You can help her.”

He tried to turn toward us and cried out. I’d never heard that sound from him. My father was the Alpha of the Moonlight Pack; I’d watched grown wolves lower their heads rather than meet his eyes. Now he couldn’t even move his own legs.

“Get out of the car,” he said.

I pressed two fingers beneath Mom’s jaw again. She’d been laughing a minute ago. She couldn’t be dead while her hand was still warm.

“Eleanor. Look at me, damn it.”

I did, because he sounded frightened.

“There’s fuel leaking. Undo your belt and try the back door.”

The buckle wouldn’t release. I pulled at the strap, sobbing as it tightened against my throat, until Dad told me to brace a hand against the roof. When I finally fell free, my shoulder struck the broken sunroof and pain went through my arm.

I screamed. Dad flinched as if he’d felt it himself.

“Keep moving. Come on, baby. You can do it.”

I kicked the door until it shifted, then crawled through a gap that scraped the skin off my back. My veil caught on something. I ripped it out of my hair and dragged myself toward Dad’s window.

“Your turn.” I reached inside. “Give me your hand.”

He pushed at the dashboard. Nothing moved. His arms were trembling, and the hand he gave me barely closed around mine.

“What’s wrong with you?” The words came out angry because I couldn’t bear how scared I was. “You’re stronger than this. Dad, get up.”

“I’m trying.”

I pulled until my injured shoulder gave and my knees hit the road. He cried out again, then bit it off, trying to smile at me through the window.

“That’s enough, Elle. You need to move away.”

A flame caught beneath the hood.

“No.” I grabbed his wrist with both hands. “Don’t you fucking dare. Push again.”

He looked past me, searching the empty road.

There was nobody to give me to.

“I love you,” he said.

I started shaking my head. He shoved me away before I could take hold of him again, and the explosion threw me across the asphalt.

For a few seconds, all I could hear was a thin ringing sound. I rolled onto my stomach and tried to crawl back, but the heat burned my face before I got close.

“Dad!”

The car was on fire. There was no window to reach through anymore.

I kept calling him anyway, until my voice broke and I couldn’t get another word out. Then I tried the pack link, reaching for our Beta, for anyone, but I couldn’t hold a thought together through the pain. My wolf wasn’t answering, either.

I forced myself upright. Someone had to stop. Someone had to help me get them out.

Three wolves stepped out of the trees.

I stumbled toward them, pointing at the wreck, still trying to make my mouth work. The largest bared his teeth.

“No. I’ve just—”

He jumped before I could get another word out.

His weight drove me onto my back. I shoved a hand against his jaws, felt his teeth cut into my palm, and drove my other thumb toward his eye. He snarled and jerked away.

“Get the fuck off me!”

Another wolf caught my arm. I kicked, scraping my bare heels against the road, and screamed for my mate.

“Soren!”

The third wolf closed his teeth around my throat.

I was still trying to say Soren’s name when the pain stopped.

For a moment, I thought someone had pulled them off me. Then I looked down and saw my body beneath them, my skirt twisted around one leg, my hand still reaching for help.

I tried to get back into it.

My fingers passed through my own face. I pressed harder, terrified, willing my chest to move, but I couldn’t make it take a single breath.

I was twenty-five, and I was fucking dead. Mom was supposed to complain about the speeches tonight, and Dad was supposed to pretend he wasn’t going to dance. I’d promised him I wouldn’t make him do it in front of everyone.

I couldn’t leave them on this road.

I turned toward the burning car and saw Soren’s face in my mind. He’d come for us. He’d know what to do.

The road disappeared.

I was in the church, where the first pews were crowded with people. Soren sat between them with his face in his hands, shaking so badly someone had put an arm around him.

“I’m sorry,” I tried to tell him. “Soren, I’m so sorry.”

He lifted his head, and for a second I thought he’d heard me. Then he stood and stumbled toward the vestry, asking everyone to leave him alone.

I followed him. When he shut the door, I went to put my arms around him.

He straightened before I reached him and took out his phone.

“Is she dead?”

I stopped.

“You checked?” He listened, then shut his eyes. “Good. All three. That’s what I paid for.”

I watched him loosen the tie I’d bought him. He was smiling now, pulling it away from his throat as though the worst part of his morning had been having to wear it.

“And Mason?” A pause. “He couldn’t have. I poisoned his coffee myself. He should barely have been able to hold the wheel.”

Dad had tried to lift the dashboard. He’d been shaking, and I’d shouted at him to try harder.

“You son of a bitch.”

Soren ended the call.

I hit him. My hand passed through his face, and I swung again, screaming until I couldn’t hear anything else. I needed to hurt him. To make him look at me and explain how he could do this after everything we’d given him.

He checked his phone, smoothed his hair, and walked through me.

I followed him out to a black car behind the church. A woman reached across the seat for him, her face turning into the light.

Princess Rosalie. I’d watched her wave beside her father on the news. I’d thought she was beautiful.

Soren caught her jaw and kissed her, and I waited for him to pull away. Some stupid, sick part of me still needed him to stop. He’d paid to have me torn apart, and I was standing there wanting him to push another woman off his lap.

I hated myself for it.

“They’re gone?” she asked against his mouth.

“The whole family.” He slid a hand beneath her thigh. “I’ve got a fucking pack now. Your father can’t keep treating me like some stray you’re feeding.”

“What about Elle’s people? Won’t they ask questions?”

“About an accident?” He kissed her again. “Let them grieve.”

I could see the little nick on his jaw from shaving. I’d touched it that morning while he drank coffee in our kitchen. Mom had offered him more.

I’d sat beside the man who poisoned my father and asked if he was nervous about marrying me. I’d told him Dad would come around. That I’d make sure of it.

I’d loved this bastard enough to help him kill us.

I threw myself at him, trying to get my hands around his throat. I wanted him to see Dad trapped in that car. I wanted him to hear what Mom’s name sounded like when I couldn’t wake her.

He couldn’t even feel me.

“Moon Goddess, hear me now!”

Something pulled me backward. I fought it, still reaching for him, but the car blurred and I was back on the road.

A man knelt beside my body. He slid a hand beneath my head and lifted me, gathering the torn skirt over my legs.

I moved closer. His mouth was moving, and I tried to hear him, tried to make him look at me instead of the dead girl in his arms.

My feet touched the blood beneath him.

Heat went through me so violently I screamed.

I dragged in a breath that burned all the way down.