CHAPTER THREE: GET IN,LUNA

I didn’t get in.

I stood there in the rain staring at that open passenger door like it was a trap, because it was. Every door at Wolf Creek had been a trap. Pretty fairy lights and then public humiliation. A borrowed dress and then laughter. A bond and then a rejection.

The rain was hammering so hard it hurt. The white lace was transparent now, stuck to me, and I crossed my arms over my chest without thinking.

The man in the truck didn’t look away. He didn’t do that slow, gross up and down look the ranch hands did either. His gray eyes stayed on my face, on the mark on my neck that was still burning.

“Amelia,” he said.

My blood went cold. I hadn’t told him my name.

“How do you know my name?” My voice was raw from screaming.

He didn’t answer right away. He pushed his black hat up a little and I could finally see his face properly. Older than Kaden, maybe thirty. A short beard, rain in it. A scar cutting through his left eyebrow. Not a pretty boy like Kaden. A man.

“I know everyone on my brother’s ranch,” he said.

Brother. Alpha Stone was his brother. My stomach dropped and I took a step back, my bare foot sliding in the mud. Another Stone, here to finish the lesson.

“I am not going back there.” The words came out shaking.

“You think I am here to take you back?” He made a sound, almost a laugh but not mean. “Girl, I just watched you run barefoot through a storm in a ruined wedding dress. The last place I am taking you is back into that barn.”

The rain was in my eyes, in my mouth. I was shivering so hard my teeth were clacking.

He leaned across the seat and I flinched, but all he did was grab a flannel shirt from the back seat, big and heavy, red and black checkered. He tossed it at me through the open door.

“Put that on before you freeze to death. Then get in. Your mother is worried sick.”

My mother. “How do you”

“Eliza Quinn called the main house an hour ago. Said you didn’t come home after your ceremony. Mrs. Holloway told her what happened. Your mom tried to walk up here herself. I told her I’d find you.”

My knees went weak. Mom had tried to come for me, and something in that undid me more than the rain had. I grabbed the flannel and pulled it around me. It smelled like woodsmoke and coffee and man, warm from the truck heater, and it went down to my knees.

I climbed in. I had nowhere else to go.

He didn’t pull away right away. He reached into the glove box and pulled out a clean rag and a small tin, dabbed something cool onto my neck where Kaden’s rejection was still glowing red.

I hissed.

“Silver burn salve. Stops the smoking,” he said quietly, his fingers careful, barely touching me. “Breathe through it, Luna.”

“Stop calling me that.” My eyes were filling up again. “I’m not a Luna. I don’t even have a wolf. I’m nothing.”

His hand stilled on my neck. His gray eyes snapped to mine.

“Look at me.”

I did.

“My brother is a fool, and my nephew’s a coward. Neither of those things has a thing to do with what you are.”

He closed the tin with a snap and threw the truck into drive. The headlights cut through the rain down the long Wolf Creek driveway, away from the barn, away from the fairy lights and the laughing.

“Where are you taking me?” My voice came out small.

He kept his eyes on the muddy road, jaw tight.

“My name is Jax Stone,” he said. “I own the North Ridge, past your mom’s trailer. That truck that picked you up was mine before Kaden’s dad took it. That barn you were humiliated in, my father built it. And that title my brother threatened Kaden with should have been mine.”

He glanced at me then, and for the first time I saw real anger in those storm gray eyes, not at me. For me.

The truck hit a pothole and we both bounced, his hand shooting out instinctively to steady me, to keep my head from hitting the dash. Warm, big, calloused. He didn’t let go right away.

For the first time since the bond snapped, since I fell in the dirt, that empty, bleeding place in my chest stopped howling.