Chapter 3: Chapter 3 Tsuki

All we had done was go to get coffee, and I was exhausted. Figured. Once upon a time I had lived on coffee to survive finals; now it made me sick more than anything, acid burning the back of my throat and my eyes watering as I swallowed repeatedly to fight the urge to be sick. I was nauseous more often than Brandy was, and that was saying a lot, because morning sickness kicked her ass.

That thought had me looking sideways at Brandy. She'd kept a stormy silence the whole way home, but I could tell she was worried. Her bottom lip was gnawed raw, showing little spots of blood, and her eyebrows only furrowed like that when she was concerned for me. It made me curious about her conversation with Rickon. I knew better than to ask, though, and didn't say a thing until she had slammed on the brakes and thrown the car into park.

"Thank you for taking me out," I said, making sure my voice was soft and contained nothing but gratitude. "It was a nice change of pace."

"Change of pace?" Brandy repeated before snorting. "Yeah, you could say that. Where's Neo? I don't want to deal with him on top of all the other crap right now."

I didn't blame her, so I did the thing I hated most. I reached out and purposely focused on the bond Neo had forged between us. Ice poured through my veins, making me shiver as I used the bond to see into Neo's thoughts more clearly than the constant, oppressive haze of emotion. The chill increased as I matched my vision to his; it was the strangest thing, but I might have thought it was cool if it didn't remind me about the mark on my neck.

"He's in the front hall." My words sounded distant in my ears, nearly drowned out by the voice of the Moon Guard official who was thanking Neo for his time. "Allen is finally leaving. Neo is going to escort him to his car because of the violence recently. He's hoping I'm outside. Allen wants to meet the omegas Neo has spoken so much about, and we're always together, so-" My words cut off in a startled yelp as I was wrenched out of Neo's mind. "Brandy, what the hell are you doing?" I snapped, glaring at her hand around my wrist as she towed me away from our house.

Brandy didn't say a word, just shook her head and quickened her pace. The distant sound of the front doors opening made her flinch. "He can't see you. You need to run."

"Can't see me? I'm sure Neo wants-"

"Not Neo, the Moon Guard official! I said run, now run. I'll distract them for you." Brandy used her grip on my arm to fling me forward, the constant dizziness almost bringing me to my knees. I managed to find my feet again with only a few stumbling steps. It was agony, exhaustion and nausea both screaming at me to stop right alongside my confusion over Brandy's actions, but I ran like she had told me to- in large part thanks to my wolf's anxiety, which had risen the moment Brandy turned to face Neo and Allen like a woman going to war.

Thank god I was used to running and hiding to survive my childhood, and I knew the winding streets of the pack town like the back of my hand. Two left turns, a right, and another left and I was in front of the tiny bookstore where I used to spend what little money I could earn.

The chime of the bell over the door was familiar and comforting as I entered the store. My racing heartbeat began to ease as I was swallowed by the dim lighting, surrounded by the soft smell of books and dust. God, I had missed the simple comfort of a quiet bookstore. The dust I smelled puffed up when I collapsed into one of the armchairs in front of the coffee cart. I closed my eyes, leaning back into the chair and enjoying how the much loved furniture attempted to swallow me into its soft cushions.

It was in an effort to calm myself, and it worked- but as my breathing softened, and I relaxed, I dropped my guard and was drawn back into the bond I had worked open to peek into Neo's mind. In a terrifying second, it had drowned me in Neo's world so thoroughly that my world didn't exist anymore

"Where the fuck is he?" My voice was a deep rumble, scraping at my throat.

The woman in my grip trembled, but it didn't show on her face; defiance blazed in her eyes, and the wolf in me roared with blind fury. How dare she look at me like that, deny me what I wanted? This bitch-

"Hey!" The voice came with a hand wrapping around my wrist, freezing my raised hand in place. "Look, man, it's not that important. I can meet him another day. With the direction your pack is heading, I'm sure I'll be seeing you again soon."

"What did you just say?" I released my grip on the front of Brandy's shirt so I could turn my snarl to the Moon Guard official. "Are you challenging my ability to lead this pack? That insult didn't end well for the last one of you pathetic bastards who came crying to me about your problems."

Allen stiffened, mouth set into a thin line. "Is that a threat?"

"What don't you ask the stupid son of a bitch I proved myself to last time? Oh wait," I paused, my lips curving up into a cruel smile, "Is he still on watch at the hospital? My bad."

"You stupid asshole," Allen hissed, face pale and hands clenched at his sides. "The Moon Guard may not want to get on your bad side, but I don't give a damn about the rumors they're so obsessed with. I've hated you from the moment I met you. You're a cocky piece of shit with more than a few screws loose in your head, and I am not afraid to kill a wolf."

Anger sparked through me, hot and wild, and my wolf was straining my already fragile control. "You wouldn't dare. I'm a legitimate pack leader; kill me and you earn yourself a death sentence."

"Ferr thought he was a legitimate pack leader too, and the Moon Guard did everything they could to end his life. It took Alyx's interference, along with several rogue agents, but that fucker is six feet under now. Do you want to be next? I can make sure Ipomoea fades into obscurity just like Cereus."

Dimly, I was aware of the choked sound I made when Allen mentioned the outlawed pack I had run away from. My heart hurt as memories of the people I had left behind burned my chest like acid. After everything that had happened, I never would have thought I would miss them, but my heart betrayed me.

Thankfully, I was pulled back into Neo's mind before I could get any deeper into the only train of thought bound to make me want to throw myself off the nearest cliff.

My face stung, and an animal growl rumbled low in my throat as I got back to my feet. I knew my eyes would be glowing unearthly wolf blue, and my gums itched with the need to produce fangs. "You piece of shit." My entire being vibrated with the urge to shift, to rip and tear and kill the idiot who had thought punching me in the face was a good idea.

Allen pressed his hands together, cracking his knuckles and wincing; a blow hard enough to hurt me must have hurt like a bitch for him."You were asking for it, Maeda. I'm not Liam- you can't scare me. You're just a pup with paws too big for his body, trying to figure out how to run and falling on your face every damn time. If this is how you act around your mate, then I feel sorry for the poor-"

The blow I gave him shut him up, and knocked him to the ground. I was on him in the next second, my bared teeth an inch from his nose. "Leave Tsuki out of your violence!"

"Tsuki?" Allen's eyes widened. "The male omega is your bonded mate? I thought…"

I followed his gaze to Brandy, who looked pale and horrified. "Brandy carries my child and is to be my wife, but I would never bind myself to her." The words were cruel, and I expected Brandy to wince or look hurt; she did neither, just stared at Allen with chaotic, fear-filled eyes.

"Impossible," Allen breathed, disbelief written clearly on his face. "You can't bind a male omega. They serve no purpose under the moon, they can't even shift. They're no better than humans!"

I snorted at him, taking snide pleasure in his ignorance. "Whoever gave you that information has no idea how wolves work. Tsuki shifts just fine, and his heartbeat running under my own marks him as mine as blatantly as the mark on his neck. He is…"

"Impossible! He's impossible! Our information comes straight from the records of your Grand Council, and he is impossible."

I couldn't argue with him then; the Grand Council ruled all of the country's wolves, composed of the eldest of the children of the stars and their mates, and they held every bit of information our people had ever learned, every moment in our history written in their books. If they said it was impossible, it had to be. But Tsuki, he was different. I had to admit that. His pheromones had always been stronger than Brandy's, and it was only more so since he had come back to me. His shift brought him no pain now. And his eyes- that glowing silver, instead of the ashen grey I loved so much, they were different.

"Tsuki isn't just an omega. He's-"

"Neo, don't!" Brandy shouted at me, but it didn't matter.

My voice had already broken off in a strangled cry of pain, a hot flare of agony across my back met with dull pain in my hands and knees despite the fact that I hadn't moved. The bond with Tsuki vibrated with a new, intense feeling unlike anything I'd experienced before. And it only relayed pain- blinding, breaking pain as if somebody had tried to snap my spine in two.

"In pain," I finished my sentence on a gasp, despite that not being my original intent. "Tsuki's in pain. Brandy, we have… we have to help him! Somebody… somebody is hurting him."

Hurting… me? It took me an uncomfortable minute to shake myself out of the bond, dragging myself out of it like I'd been drawn into quicksand, struggling so hard it was exhausting. When I did come out, it was all at once in a dizzying rush of new sensation. Neo was right- it felt like I'd been bent in half, and a whine slipped past my lips as I tried to push myself up from my hands and knees.

That whine became a cry when a booted foot was placed on my aching back and pushed down hard, until I had no choice but to give in and press myself to the floor. My forehead was against the dusty wood before they let up. Heavy steps came around me, until I was yelping as fingers tangled in my hair and wrenched my head back.

"Welcome back to the world of the living, freak." The last word was spat, and I found myself face to face with Louis- one of the wolves happiest to beat me to a pulp when we were pups.

Not good. He was going to hurt me worse than he already had, and that was not good. And judging by the all-consuming fire of rage I could feel from Neo as he headed in my direction, it was only going to get a hell of a lot worse.

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