Page 97 of Forever My Siren Luna

“It is,” the warrior looked overcome with fear. “It’s a miracle I made it out to deliver this message to you. Beta Nilo tried to send-” The warrior seemed to just notice me, a panicked expression crossing his face.

Gamma Meldec furrowed his brows, looking from me to the warrior. The siren looked annoyed by my presence, but urged the warrior to continue on.

“Out with it,” he snapped.

The warrior recoiled, but continued.

“The girl. Miss Beretta. He commanded her to leave with me, right at the start of the fight. He had to command her because she refused at first.” He pressed his lips together, making the most broken expression. “She was captured first. Like I said, it is a miracle I escaped. No one else did.”

Oisin snarled furiously through me. Not my Beretta. Not her.

Pathetic doesn’t come close to describing how tormented I will forever be if I lose her too.

~

Beretta

It happened as we were resting by the campfire, enjoying the start of our dinner of jerked beef and dried fish with crackers. One of the men had picked wild herbs while collecting firewood, and one of the towns we had passed through had offered the Beta jared vegetable stew for our dinner. We were waiting for that to heat up over the fire, and the kettle of wild chamomile and mint tea to brew.

The day had been interesting. I would even go so far as to describe it as fun, though riding all day was hard on the body.

I got to see the outskirts of the pack’s territory, and it truly was a magnificent place. The beauty of the land inward matched the beauty of the sea. The lush greenery and fields of wildflowers were vibrant with wildlife. Deer and elk were in abundance, not even scared of our movements as we passed through. The towns were picturesque and added to the scenery instead of taking away from the natural wonder of it all.

You could see evidence of war in many of the towns, but even the destruction that once had been was now overcome by the nature around it if it hadn’t been repaired. Vines crawling up the walls of lone chimneys, the houses that once held them burned to the ground. The crumbled walls of ruined wells were covered in moss, now giving life to the crawling creatures of the ground.

The men were well received in every town we had been to. Beta Nilo was loved and adored by all. I noticed that in each town, there were at least one or two ladies pining after him, stealing sultry glances and whispering conversation if they could manage to get him alone.

Good for him. He is single and unmated. The women seemed to only want to bed the man. He works so hard at the packhouse, it’s good to see he knows how to work his pecker enough to let off steam when he needs to. I was scared the Beta would only ever get a hard on if his alpha ordered it of him. The man lived and breathed for his Alpha. For his pack. He deserved some pleasure too.

The men were great company. There was a lot of teasing about my lack of underwear, but nothing wildly inappropriate like I expected. They didn’t leave me out of conversation either for being a woman. Many would. It almost feels like a crime at times to be a woman. You get made to feel guilty about the strangest of things.

These men held comradery, even with me, and the fact I was a woman was only brought up when Nilo tried to claim he was the prettiest one out of the bunch.

It was a different sort of comradery than what I always experienced on the ship with the rest of the pirates. Though it was still well and good, I found myself missing the smell of the ocean, and little things like Little Joe’s persistent questioning, and Lucky’s whistling out of tune the same song over and over again.

I also found that riding a horse for long hours on end was not an easy feat. My pussy was snarling at me, sore from the unpleasant pounding. It wasn’t the worst pounding it had ever received, so I inwardly told it to shut the hell up and not to embarrass me by walking bow-legged every time I dismounted. It was a hard thing to do, as my thighs and calves were equally as sore. Even my back began to hurt, no matter how much my beast healed me.

I would much rather be riding some other beast for hours on end, but that beast had pissed me off greatly before I left.

Even so….

I missed Jack above all. Yes, he drives me mad, but there is a need inside me now to see his face at random times. I even missed his slurring of words, and the woodsy scent he had mixed with the smell of rum.

I was lost in thought, gnawing on a hard piece of meat, thinking of that blasted coin he always had on hand when it happened.

The most terrible smell I had ever smelled in my life reached my nose at the same time as the horrid cackling, like hyenas picking apart a felled buffalo, started ringing through the night. Nilo, who had gone off to scout the surrounding area with another man, came racing back on his horse, signaling for everyone to prepare for battle.

I didn’t know what we were about to face, but I did as he said, getting my mount ready and grabbing the weapons available to me to meet the fight head on until the right moment to shift.

Beta Nilo, the fool, tried to order me away. I took great offense, and tried to go against him, and that’s when he gave the command.

It had been years since anyone commanded me to do anything. The pain of my will being stripped away made my eyes water as I grit my teeth. I had no choice but to do what he said, retreating with the other warrior who was fleeing to the packhouse for reinforcements.

That should have been my first warning that we were in something deep. Beta Nilo was merely preparing to hold the line long enough for me and the warrior to get away. The look in his face was set in stone, full of resolve and finality. He believed it was the end of the rest of them.

As I was racing after the warrior, my horse following his, that’s when I saw the first of the creatures. A massive humanoid being, with horns growing out of its head, with his entire body looking to be ablaze with black flames. Only its eyes were of any color. Brilliant glowing red. Its razor teeth were even black and it's flaming breath smelled of sulfur and death.

It cut me off from following the warrior, and with one swoop of its taloned claw my horse was ripped out from under me and I was thrown to the ground.