Page 121 of Forever My Siren Luna

I haven’t seen her since she was sent to a pack in the south. A pack that my father had always had nothing but horrid things to say about. She used to be solemn, weak, her eyes always staring at the ground. She was like a frightened mouse in the past and I didn't think she would survive a mating with a vicious alpha.

I didn’t recognize her at first, because weak and solemn is not anything like the woman leading my father through the crowd with a blood-covered tree branch pressed to his back.

Father looked ragged. He was completely naked, cuts and scars everywhere on his body and a thick metal collar around his neck. It matched the ones he put on the slave girls he brought with us here.

Elelira looked savage. She was wearing rags that were torn in most places, the fabric hanging from her body. Her golden hair was wild. The green of her eyes could be seen, even at a distance. They seemed to shine like jewels. Her entire being seemed to shine, like a diamond covered in mud and filth.

She looked deadly. Her small frame was imposing. Even the demons and dark creatures around her were eyeing her warily, giving her a wide breadth.

After falling to my knees out of fear from the dark lord’s touch, I studied his expressions as he stared down at her.

I have seen that sick look in his eyes plenty of times since coming here. Every night, as he did with me what he wanted, demanding I fulfill my duty and provide him with a powerful heir. The way he is watching Elelira brings horrid recollections to the forefront of my mind.

He is impressed by her. By everything he sees. He is salivating just watching her defiance.

Defiant she is. She isn’t bending to anyone’s will any longer.

When she reveals why it is that she came, all on her own free will, I look towards the castle’s doors where the Lycan hides, fearful of what is about to ensue.

~

Elelira

“Oh, really? Then what, pray tell, have you come here for?”

The dark fairy was gazing down at me with sinister superiority. He did have the upper hand, but I had a plan. Val and I were discussing how to get Nilo and Beretta out of here, speaking about how we could use the magic still inside us to win this, even though the situation was not in our favor.

We came up with one way, and it was something we never could have considered in the past. Something so grotesque and shameless that even suggesting it would have sent me into a panic before.

I just need him to take the bait. If I can get him alone after I guarantee my loved ones’ safe passage to the south, I could finish this, and there will be no need for endless bloodshed.

“I have come to trade myself for the prisoners you took from my pack,” I stated boldly. “I wish to give you my life for theirs, as long as you allow them to return home unharmed.”

A vicious snarl ripped through a mind link that I recognized coming from Nilo immediately. He must be near. He must have heard. Maybe they are out here, somewhere in this crowd, imprisoned to be escorted to the border to use as leverage against my mate, as my uncle said they would be if he did not show up with me.

I can not see him, but I can feel Nilo’s intentions. He was not happy with what he had just heard and was ready to show it.

“Stand down,”I commanded him. “Do not interfere.”

“Luna,”his voice was strained as he fought the command, “please.”

No words can describe the anguish I felt in him. I heard a deep growl somewhere behind me, but didn’t risk turning around to find it. Not when Lord Tenebris is still watching me with the vulgar look in his onyx eyes. His eyes narrowed, thinking the sound came from me.

“You think that you, a misborn daughter of a whore, are a worthy trade for a notoriously powerful Beta Lycanthrope and my newest pet?” He tilted his head in a mocking gesture, his sharpened smile stretched wider on his cruel face. “Perhaps I could trade a whore for a whore, but the Beta will remain unless you can provide me with a reason you hold more value than he.”

He’s challenging me. I could see the intrigue in his eyes, and I could see that he already thought I was caught in his snares. Why wouldn’t he believe that when he has such a massive army of monsters all around me, ready to close me in at any moment?

“That Beta is not your target’s mate,” I said, pulling the fabric from my throat and moving my hair, displaying my mark for him to see. “I am the Luna, the rightful fate Luna to Hidden Cove Pack and the fated mate to Alpha Lachlan Stiles. I hold far more value for your intended purposes than our Beta.”

The perverse gleam in his eyes told me that he wanted me.

My cousin, still on the ground after buckling to her knees, was gawking at me, her eyes moving to something behind me and back to the mark on my neck several times, very noticeably. I wondered what it was that she could be looking at.

“Look at his eyes,”Val hissed at me. “They’re changing.”

They were glowing. Their centers were burning a crimson red. A low rumble could be heard among the monsters standing around me, and I realized he was communicating with them the way we mind link.

After they faded to a dull glow, he said, “I must ask, after hearing from your dear uncle,” he waved to the broken man kneeling on the ground in front of me, repressed with some sort of dark magic, “that you were some weak mutt with no power or influence, how did he come to be in such a state?” He made a point of scratching his chin. “Did you perhaps have help from another?”