Blake’s POV
My mate better think long and hard about my gracious offer. I will not ask her again. My men already knew the plan. They had already been given the signal I had told them to look for, they knew what that meant. I won’t go through another night of pain like I did last night. If that bitch thinks that she can just leave me high and dry, and her not come back to me, she has lost her mind. I was being more than fair to her, I am giving her another opportunity to get it right. To make the right decision here. I was her mate, and she needs to realize that she is holding on to grudges that she doesn’t need to hold against me anymore. I went a whole year, toeing the line, celibate, and waiting patiently on her to realize that I was her only choice here. Only for her to make the wrong choice.
My men are all ready to go right now. If Cheryl makes the wrong choice here, there is going to be severe consequences for it. That is why I had to give her a last warning. She even tried to give me an ultimatum, is she serious? Her walking away and leaving me standing here at this gate like a fucking idiot. Like I am not an Alpha and didn’t matter to her anymore. That leech fucking dared to threaten me like that, in front of my men. They will both be paying with their lives if Cheryl doesn’t wise up and soon. That is exactly why I called her back to the gate. I won’t be just letting her get away again. This is it, she either comes with me, and takes her rightful place as my mate, and Luna, or she can die right here today.
I smiled at her as if I was confident that she would make the right choice. I can see her thinking, or at least it looks like she is thinking about it. Maybe searching her heart to do the right thing. That is all I am asking of her. I know how much she loved me. I know how much our children meant to her. She doted on them, and me. I feel my heart clench thinking about what she said about Graham coming to her first to start this. That she shut him down and refused to listen. I knew it for the sling it was, I won’t be making that mistake again. I will treat her so much better. I will make sure the pack knows the mistake that I made and they will treat her properly too. I had mentioned it in one town hall after she left, but most didn’t believe me. They thought I was covering for her, that I was just upset by her leaving. So I was just waiting on her to come home to straighten it out.
I will make it right for her, and for Kevin. The pack will all know that they are mine and that the only one to make a mistake here, was me. That was what I was planning on doing. My men got closer, as to do this and make it out of here, I was going to have to hit the deck and they were going to fire into the pack. The problem was that they didn’t trust us, and didn’t open the second gate up very much. They honestly didn’t have to as we just needed to face each other to allow me to accept the rejection. I had planned on killing that bloodsucker, but after I got hit with more pain this morning, I changed my mind. Her absolute happiness at whatever happened before they had sex had hit me hard. I have never felt her that happy before and it was a real slap in the face. Let alone the pain that started right after it. I almost couldn’t walk to the SUV. So I had my men go to arm themselves while they were waiting on me to get over the betrayal pains.
After that, I wanted them both dead. That is the goal if we can get them both perfect. But if it had to be one of them, I am good with it being Cheryl. That was what I had told my men too. The sheer brazenness of her being with him like this. She is not herself, she is like a shameless woman now, where she just does not care about how she appears to others. She never did anything like that with me, and that hurts, as she seems completely different now. So much more confident than before, and she is spreading her wings and flying away from me as fast as she can. Like right now, she is standing there looking beautiful in a dress that is clearly meant for a much younger woman. Yes, she looks good in it, but who is buying her clothes? When I offered to, she shot me down. So I guess his money is better than mine? It seems like everything about him is better for her than I am.
I grind my teeth together in anger. How dare she stand there, looking better than she did for me, utterly happy. I had to take her down a peg or two. She is too bold now. I felt bad when she looked like she was going to cry. I was going to tell her I didn’t mean it when we got to the SUV to go home, but that fanged jerk beat me to it. The nerve he had to be touching what is mine, and right in front of me. Rubbing her bare back to comfort her while he is going off on me. How dare they act like that right in front of me? If I had been armed, I would have shot them both myself right then. That is when I had mindlinked my men to let my men know that they were both going to die today. I knew I was going to do my best to charm her, but I knew in my heart that it wasn’t going to work. Her body curving into him, and taking comfort like that was the biggest slap in the face. I was standing right here, how dare they act like I am unimportant. I was her mate, and she was going to die being my mate.
That was smart of her to send her little lover boy off out of harm’s way with Kevin. I was actually glad that Kevin was safe. I had told them all to make sure he wasn’t hurt. I will be getting him back too, whether he wants to come, or not. I will petition the council to get him back. With his mother dead, they will have to give him back to me. He has no family here, they are all at Black Moon, with me. They knew what to do, we just needed her answer. I see her look up and smile at me, and I made my smile bigger. It seems like she realizes how foolish she has been. I take a step closer to the gate and I want to reach out to try to take her hand but she is about 5 feet away on the other side of the gate. I couldn’t reach her, not yet. But as soon as she agrees to come back with me, I will hold her in my lap all the way back to Black Moon. I will kiss her, and show her, tell her, what she means to me. I close my eyes just thinking about taking her scent in again.
“I will not be returning to Black Moon, Blake,” Cheryl said and those simple words are like a vice squeezing my heart. I dropped to my stomach on the ground, and in the second that it took to do that, she disappeared from sight. So many things happened at that time. The small opening at the gate slammed shut. The shots my men took were not penetrating the gate. I hear something else being put into place, and I already knew that they were completely secure. There was no need to hurt a vehicle trying to ram the gate. They were a fortress right now. As far as we were concerned, impenetrable. I stood up slowly and wondered how she managed to move so quickly that none of my men could shoot her. What in the hell just happened here?
“You crazy bastard. You would attack Black Adder because you made choices that cost you your mate? Your mate and son were right here at the gate. You were willing to kill them both? Do not ever come back here. The only exception that I will allow is to bring the children to see their mother. You need to give 24 hours advanced notice to do so. You and your warriors are no longer able to come onto our packlands. You will drop them off outside the gate, and then leave. As far as I am concerned, you are no longer welcome here ever again, Blake. You need to leave as soon as you accept Cheryl’s rejection. I will take exception to anyone left outside my gate in the next few minutes” Brandon's voice carries over the gate.
“Blake, accept my rejection. Right now, I cannot believe you intended to kill me. You are the most malicious person I know, and I am including my father in that. Not quite as bad as your hero Graham, but terrible nonetheless. Accept it, and leave here. Take care of Robert and Casey, or I swear to you I will make you pay. Now reject me before you cause innocent lives to be lost” Cheryl yells out to me. She is angry and now demanding things from me. I do not want to give her up. I do not know why I just can’t let her go, but in my heart, I know that this is not over. I will get her back and I will make her pay. But I know that I do need to get this done. I hate it, as I do not want her to be able to be claimed by that piece of shit blood demon, but I have no other choice. I have to let her go, or I know that tonight will be much, much worse than last night.
“I, Blake Roberts, Alpha of the Black Moon pack accept your rejection, Cheryl Peters, Luna of the Black Moon pack” I managed to get out before I fell to my knees from the pain of the rejection. I could hear that it affected her too, but I know that the Goddess is putting the bulk of the pain on me. The Goddess is known to be a vicious adversary when you cross her. She is probably angry at what Cheryl suffered at my hands. She is probably punishing me for what I just tried to do too. My men help me to the SUV, and I heard Cheryl’s voice come over the gate to me saying. “I, Cheryl Peters, refuse any further connection to the Black Moon pack, or its pack members. I deny any further ties, and am no longer the Luna for Black Moon at this time.”
I bet Raven or Brandon had her say that. She is cutting all ties that she had to the pack. She is free from any of her duties, or anyone in our pack. She severed everything, and there is nothing more binding her to it. Her wanting to be free from me in every way hurts. Knowing that this was completely my fault, hurts even more. There is nothing that I can come back on her now with. She is free and clear of Black Moon, and I am left with nothing but pain. I see movement in the trees ahead of us, and I see that his freaking coven was here. Silently watching us, waiting to see what we were going to do. I forgot that bastard can read minds. I bet he took her from the opening to protect her. My anger reignites, at him being allowed to be her savior. I just let him be the good guy, which will make her love him that much more. My roar of fury cracks the window in the door. It isn’t even shut yet, as my men were all preparing to leave, but I couldn’t hold my fury in.
I hate that she refused to give me a fair shake here. I have waited patiently for her to realize that I learned from my mistakes. I did everything for her, and she has the nerve to do this to me. I slam the door shut, and the glass shards fly all around. My face is cut by the glass, but I could care less. Graham will have to pay for this happening to me. I will also make plans for my ungrateful ex-mate. The anger that fills me needs an outlet. I need to punish someone for this, and Graham is going to be the one to get it. He was the fucking reason for this whole thing to have happened. Someone is going to have to pay, as it wasn’t my fault this happened. I sent out some texts and then deleted them from my phone. I have been careful since I made some backup plans. I trust him much more than I can anyone else. I have been stressed out ever since Cheryl left. I have made several changes in my pack that not everyone agreed with. I have been watching my back, but I have a few people that I no longer trust, and therefore demoted. I needed to be more careful now, as I realized that I was spending so much time trying to get my mate back. I may have allowed too much to slide back at the pack. I will have to take care of that issue after I take care of Graham. His usefulness to me is no longer, and he is too much of a wildcard to leave alive. He cannot be trusted, and I already decided that today will be his last day to live. I wanted Cheryl to kill him herself when she returned, but that won’t be happening now. There is no further need to let him live.
I refuse to accept the fact that I lost her, and I will be putting together some plans to get her back into my pack. I won’t do that until I get my pack straightened back out again. As soon as we arrived in the city, I have my men stop to get the shattered glass fixed, and the window retinted. I am silent all the way back to the pack making plans for what I need to do in the coming months. I can feel the fear radiating off my men who are still in here with me. Two of them chickened out and rode back in the other two SUVs to get away from me. The silence stretches on, and I head straight into the packhouse, and down to the cells. I already know that the warriors with me are calling for Travis and Grady to come to stop me, as the rule was that I would hurt him, but I wouldn't kill him. I demoted Garrett and Marc about nine months ago. They started this ball rolling with what they did by telling a bunch of lies to Michael, about Reagan. It got Graham to make up this crazy plan of his. Yea, I know he did it with the intention of taking over Black Moon like the leech said. They needed to be punished, and they were. There were still pissed off that I had stripped them of their ranks. I had also toyed with the idea of keeping their children from taking over their previous positions too. That was what really did it. They knew that they were at fault. But they wanted their sons to take over as Beta and Gamma. I hadn’t decided if I was going to let them or not yet.
I am already stripping off my shirt as I went down the stairs, it is my favorite shirt and I won’t be able to get the blood stains out of it properly, so I just take it off and throw it on the floor as I head down the hallway. My anger is palpable and I know that Graham can feel it radiating from me when I get to his cell. I know that the reinforcements are coming, and I need more of a challenge today. I opened the door to his cell and then motioned for him to run. I can see the fear in his eyes, and he shakes his head in the negative. He is refusing to run away from me. It isn’t a choice for him. I am going to get this done, and he cost me a mate. As far as I am concerned, today is the day for him to die. I roar out, “Run or die here, Graham” into the hallway and Graham takes off.
I knew that he had been exercising and keeping in better shape lately. I have caught him doing sit-ups when I came down here a few times quietly for his punishment. He had his legs laced through the bars, hanging upside down, and doing situps. I have no idea why he was working out, other than boredom. There was no point for him to try to keep in shape down here. He had been doing it for months and I was wondering why in the hell he would need to do it. He was down here to be used as a punching bag until I was ready to kill him. Today was the day, there was no reason for him to be kept alive anymore. I let him get a 1-minute head start. Even if he was exercising, he hadn’t run for a while. His legs wouldn’t be letting him get too far, well, not very fast at least.
I followed him easily and passed by the training ground where a class was now standing and watching what was happening. I see Forest peel off from his training to come with me. I see Garrett and Marc, follow him too as I continued to hunt down Graham. I am fuming as I allow Kona to track that asshole. I am thinking about nothing but making him pay, and I am allowing my pain and anger to surround me. My head hurts, my heart hurts, and I need to take my anger out on someone, and Graham deserves it. Someone is going to have to pay for me losing my mate to a bloodsucker. I was making plans for exactly what I was going to do to him when I see Graham in a clearing just ahead of me, he was just standing there. Like he was waiting on me to come to him. I growled and ran toward him to spear him and take him down. I was honestly looking forward to what I was going to do to him.
I was leaping right at Graham when I was broadsided by a large dark grey wolf that I never saw coming. Before I can get up, I am held down by Garrett and Marc. My son Forest who was 16 years old stood near me, pulling on basketball shorts with a smirk on his face. Before I can even ask what is going on, I heard Graham’s laughter ring out.
“Oh, you should see your face, Blake. I guess it never occurred to you that you were paying your men to play nice with you. Now that you demoted them, they are no longer on your side. They helped me out a lot while I was in the cells. I got better food, a better mattress, and best of all, they brought the new Alpha down to the cells to listen to another option that he had. One that didn’t include him having to wait to take over the pack, or come into money. One where he doesn’t have to wait for his mate to take over the pack. All he needs to run this pack is me, Garrett, and Marc. We don’t need you anymore” Graham cackles out.
Graham has gotten worse and worse as the year had progressed. I took out a lot of frustration on him, but it was the fact that Cassandra’s death being his fault, that broke him. He is mad now, and I am scared for my pack. None of them are thinking clearly to have teamed up with Graham. I don’t know how they plan to get away with it. I felt a prick on my neck, and I see Travis smirking above me as I start to get drowsy. I am trying to fight it, as I pray that the plans that I made stay in place. Tomorrow at noon, it should be known that things are not right here. I am worried about Robert and Casey now. It is clear to me now that Graham, my son, and my men had a plan that they were going to stick to. I hate that the warriors gave them a heads-up to be prepared for me to kill Graham. I am almost sorry I wanted to hunt him down now. I wished that I had killed him inside the cells today. I guess I will find a way to kill him later I think to myself before I lose consciousness.
Held against his Will