The Rogue's Luna

Hunted

The howling continued. Thorne and I just stared at each other. I was half-sitting, half-slumped against a stack of pillows. Every muscle in my body ached like it had been carved out with a dull blade. I still couldn’t breathe without feeling it in my ribs. But pain wasn’t what made my blood run cold. It was the sound. Not one howl. A chorus. Long. Distant. But wrong. It was layered, the way trained wolves called through the trees when they were hunting, not when they were claiming territory. Coordinated. Low. Too many voices for a passing patrol. My hands curled into the quilt. The fire had burned low, throwing more shadow than heat across the walls. I waited as I held my breath, but the howling didn’t come again. Thorne shot up from where he had been sitting in the chair across the room. His eyes were already glowing faintly. Wild. He didn’t look at me. He was listening. Stillness fell over the cabin like a storm cloud. Heavy. Waiting. And then more silence.

“What was that?” I asked curiously. Thorne glanced at me.

“Pack movement…east ridge, maybe further,” he answered, but there was something in his tone that indicated he was just guessing. Of course, he had no idea.

“Your pack?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t have a pack,” he stated firmly. Oh. Right. I almost forgot that he was a rogue. A lone wolf. Exiled from his pack for reasons unknown. He turned toward the door like he expected it to burst open. When it didn’t, he shifted back toward the fire, and the tension still clung to his shoulders. His jaw ticked as he glanced over at me. “They aren’t hunting deer,” his words dropped like stones, and I sighed softly.

“You think they are looking for me?”

“I know they are,” I pulled the blanket tighter around my legs.

“You said I was too far from the border. That no one would come this deep,”

“Yeah,” he muttered. “I was wrong,” we sat there, locked in a silence neither of us knew how to break. And then he shook his head. “You should leave,” I stared at him in surprise.

“I thought you said I needed rest,” I reminded him.

“Will you go back to…Bloodhowl?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Or at least closer to the outer zone,” I said. I wasn’t entertaining this idea of his that I should leave. So, I decided to play along. “Maybe you are right. I should leave,” I tossed the blanket aside and winced in pain.

“You can’t even stand,” he pointed out as I hung my legs off the side of the bed. The pain was unreal, but I forced myself to push through it. “You can’t even walk properly,”

“I’ll crawl,”

“Don’t be stupid,” he snapped, and I hissed at him in response.

“Then stop treating me like a burden,” Thorne didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then he turned toward the fire.

“I’m treating you like someone who almost died and still smells like wolfsbane,” he said, and I groaned. He was really starting to get on my nerves.

“I didn’t ask you to rescue me,” I whispered.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t plan to,” he said. His hands flexed at his sides like he wanted to hit something, but there was nothing here except books, fire, and me.

“I’ll leave tonight,” I said again.

“No,” the single word came quick and sharp.

“You just said—”

“I said you brought trouble here. I didn’t say I would let you walk into it alone,” he said. Heat crawled up my throat. I didn’t know if it was shame or gratitude or something else entirely.

“I can take care of myself,”

“I’m sure you can,” he muttered as he rubbed the back of his neck. “But not like this,” Thorne then moved to the window and peered through a slit in the curtain. His shoulders relaxed slightly. “They aren’t close…at least, not yet,” I didn’t ask how he knew. I didn’t doubt him. His senses were better than mine. His instincts were sharper. How long had he lived out here? Alone? Not that it mattered. Thorne was of Alpha blood. Rogue or not. He turned back to me, his expression unreadable. “You can stay. Until you are strong enough to run,” I don’t know why, but that stung more than it should have.

“Thanks,” I said softly. Once again, the silence hung over us. We didn’t talk. We didn’t even look at each other. Thorne stoked the fire while I sipped on some water. Every breath still ached, and my side pulsed like someone was digging their fingers into old bruises. But even through the discomfort, all I could really think about was him. This man. This stranger. This rogue who had saved me, fed me, and patched me back together with quiet hands and storm-heavy eyes. This man, who didn’t trust anyone, didn’t want anyone, and yet he hadn’t let me go. He was untamed. Sharp-edged. More growl than grace. And still, my wolf recognized him. We recognized him as our mate. Neither of us had said it. But it clung to every breath between us. He hadn’t brought it up, and I wasn’t sure if that meant he didn’t know or didn’t want to know. I watched him now, across the room, the way he hovered near the fire without speaking. Like he was still deciding whether saving me was a mistake.

“I can feel you watching me,” he said, so suddenly that I gasped in surprise. I carefully pulled the blanket back over my body.

“Do you always talk to your wolf out loud?” I asked. His head snapped toward me. s**t. I hadn’t meant to say that. Or at least, I hadn’t meant for it to come out like that. “I mean, I do too sometimes,” I admitted.

“You have heard me?” he asked, his expression unreadable.

“I have…not that I understood any of it,” I said. That was a lie. He stared at me for a long moment before he sighed softly.

“His name is Ace,” he said finally. I blinked in confusion.

“Ace? Ah…who?”

“My wolf. He talks more than I do. He has…opinions,”

“About me?” I asked. Thorne hesitated.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. I wanted to know more, but I didn’t dare ask. The fire crackled, and somewhere beyond the walls, an owl called. And then the wind changed. I caught it the second he did, and our heads both turned toward the window at once. That same howling. Faint, but closer this time. Still far enough to pretend it didn’t matter. But neither of us pretended. Not anymore. Because maybe Thorne was right. Maybe someone was coming for me. I shivered at the thought.