Page 16 of Forever My Siren Luna (The Hidden Cove #2)

Beretta

What an informative and insightful evening. So, so insightful.

I thought that maybe Ela was ignorant of the Captain’s feelings because she was so young, and she was just jaded from her mate. It happens often. I didn’t want to even think about men after what my mate put me through either.

Hearing that she truly just thought of Jack as a brother and nothing more was almost as much of a shock as seeing her confess to still loving her mate. She said she didn't want to, but that was as much of a confession she loved him as if she outright said it.

I thought she had gone through what I once had, suffering from betrayal as well as being abused by the one fated to love you. Even though after hearing all she went through, I was sure she went through worse than even me, I was also sure she had no desire for our captain.

More important than me being sure, so was my Lycan, Bella.

Bella and I always cared for Jack. Deeply. He was our savior. What started as admiration and trust in the first man in our lives grew to something more. Lycans tend to desire powerful Lycans as chosen mates, so it took me a while to realize it wasn't just Bella attracted to Jack. I was too.

The past few years, I had considered letting my feelings be known, but held back, knowing Jack was suffering a true loss of his mate. He still drank himself to sleep every night, crying her name on the worst of days.

I myself had to drink a special tea before bed to keep the nightmares of my past at bay. Using alcohol and herbal substances to forget was common among our group. Sometimes it seems that it is the only reason we plunder; to buy the means to forget our pasts.

Then, Jack brought Ela back to port with him after attempting to stash treasure on one of our islands, and the change in him was instantaneous.

He still drank, but not as much, and our crew stopped hearing the wailing for his mate coming from his cabin.

His beast wanted Ela, and that was distracting both his beast and himself from suffering in past memories. He was living for the future for once.

Once Ela started to open up to him too, no longer fighting Jack and trying to escape, I thought them getting together would be inevitable. Every full moon, I expected it, but it never happened.

I would wake the next morning, reluctant to go to breakfast, suspecting I wouldn’t like what I saw if they had chosen each other and were still in the mating process, but it never happened.

He never claimed her, and as I saw how naive she was towards men and their advances, I knew that Jack was being patient for her benefit.

She was merely 18. She suffered Alpha Wayne’s pack, the same as me, where women had to hang their heads and not notice men at all in the hope they wouldn’t notice them either.

All men were pigs, and you could only pray that your fated mate would treat you well, or at least better than most.

She didn’t know Jack’s kindness towards her was not just brotherly affection, but desirous intent. He wasn’t watching out for her to be a good man. He was taking steps to earn her trust and to win her heart.

Her heart, it now seems, still belongs to another.

After witnessing the way the Delta of this pack treats her, as well as the other men from that dock, I can see why she mistook Jack’s intentions.

All the men she trusted and who genuinely just cared for her out of innocent kindness in this pack treat her as Jack does, and all the men who she knows have desired her have treated her like shit.

No wonder the girl is so naive. Unless you grab her tit or smack her ass, she might not get it.

One thing is for sure now; Jack will not have an easy time winning her over. Maybe if he treated her a little more roughly, or came onto her a bit stronger instead of being just patient and kind. She might have caught on to his intentions then and might have seen him as a man.

There is not really a chance for that now.

Her passion when talking about her mate revealed how totally the man still encompassed her mind, and overtook her thoughts.

Even now, sitting at the bar in some brothel, speaking to a madam who goes by the name of Lady Vera, her eyes are still scanning the door as if she hopes someone else might show up any minute.

It’s not Jack she is looking for. He is already here, sitting in a corner booth with a bottle of amber liquor and an impendingly empty glass.

He was watching her constantly, but besides a quick greeting when we got there, her eyes hadn’t met his once.

She is too busy searching and longing for another.

“Another glass?” The pretty woman behind the bar asks.

“Please,” I grinned, pushing my empty one towards her with a wink.

Cherum, the pack’s Delta, is eyeing me warily. “Do you really go both ways, lass?”

“Go both ways?” I eyed him, knowing what he meant but wanting to give him a hard time.

“You know,” his thick neck and freckled cheeks painted over with embarrassment, making me smirk. “I, uh, mean, do you like the ladies as well as the men?”

“Depends on your definition of like. You will have to elaborate a bit more, Delta.”

“Flipping tails, you’re a frustrating one,” he groans. “You good and well know what I mean, lass. Do you get your fancies tickled by both sexes? Do I need to worry about warding you off my Luna as well as your Captain over there?” He nodded towards Jack.

“Are you worried about my Captain over there?” I turned the question around to him.

“Well, after the man declared his intentions to my Alpha concerning Ela, I am.”

“Shouldn’t your Alpha be worried about her and not you, then?

” I wasn’t sure how Delta's duties or their bonds with their Lunas worked, since I was merely a lowly warrior’s mate, never allowed to mingle or leave the house, but I thought it was simply helping to keep Luna safe and calm her when need be.

Ela and her mate are not mated and marked, so I didn’t expect this level of protectiveness from all the men in her pack, including the Delta.

“I expect the man is worried about it, but he also won’t interfere. He won’t try to impose his will on her, no matter if it hurts him.”

“Then why do you care?” I raised my eyebrows, taking a sip from the new glass the bartender had just set before me.

“She’s my Luna. Of course, I want what is best for her, and I don’t think it is that man drowning himself in liquor with the commander of our scout platoon.”

I eyed the hulking gentleman sitting beside Jack, blending into the background like he was just there for decoration. He hadn’t touched a drink the entire night, and it seemed as if Jack was working hard to pretend he wasn’t there.

“I wouldn’t say he is drowning himself with your stiff as a board commander. He’s drowning himself in front of him. Your commander isn’t participating.”

“He can’t. He’s on escort duty. Alpha’s orders.”

“Alpha’s orders? He ordered us to be escorted now? Does your Alpha not trust us, Delta?”

“Trust is earned, lass. The last time we had outsiders roaming the pack freely thinking we could trust them to show our members respect, a woman was tied down with silver and wolfsbane and brutally raped in this very establishment.

My Alpha protects our members before protecting our visitors' pride now.”

“How noble,” I stared back at him after taking another big swig of my drink.

“Tell me, what did your alpha do to those men who brutally raped a woman in the brothel? I bet she was just a whore. Most of them here are just humans too. Did he avenge her, or is that just an excuse to be watchful over us and babysit your own Luna so she doesn’t run away again? ”

Cherum stared at me with disapproval, not liking my accusations, but it was the woman behind the bar that answered me, not him.

“Our Alpha had Yasmin’s own mate kill the men who raped her,” she glared at me.

“He then had Yasmin execute the one who set her up. He is a fair and just Alpha, and severely protective of all his pack, not just Luna. We may be human whores to you, but to him and her,” she nodded at Ela, “We have always felt just as important as the warriors and elites. No one will take well to you questioning our Alpha’s integrity or intentions. ”

A loud snort, followed by an order shouted for more rum could be heard from Jack. He must have heard our conversation. His interaction with the Alpha must not have gone well for him to be this upset. I haven’t seen him this way since before Ela came.

His heart is going to be completely broken if she doesn’t choose him. He is going to go on a downward spiral.

That thought upset both me and my wolf. Greatly.

The woman sighed, reaching for another bottle. Before she could move around the counter to take it to him, I reached out to stop her.

“I’ll take that for you,” I grinned, slipping the bottle from her hands, “as an apology for speaking ill of such an honorable Alpha.”

I moved across the room to his table, waving at him with the bottle in my hands. “Mind if I join you for a glass, Captain?”

“Of course not!” he slurs with too much enthusiasm. “Move,” he glares at the commander. “You’re in her seat.”

The man sighed, but moved to sit by Cherum in the spot I had just left, leaving Jack and me alone.

“I’m sorry, lass. I’ve got only one glass,” Jack lifts it to show me.

“Why don’t we share it then?” I bat my eyelashes, flirting in my usual way, though he’s too tipsy to care much.

“A pirate never shares what’s his,” he leans in to whisper, “he takes what he wants, then never lets it go.”

A small smirk plays on my lips. “I declare this mine then,” I steal the glass from in front of him. “Thank you for reminding me, Jack, what a pirate should live by.” Steal what you want, and never let it go.

“Aye, lass,” he grins, touching his finger to my nose. “A fine pirate you turned out to be.”

~

Lachlan

“ Alpha!” Cherum’s voice echoed in my head through the mind link. “ Alpha. Help!”