Can't be your luna

"Oh, this will be fun." I turned back to him, noticing how his eyes skimmed over my bare skin.

"Hey, they're at least excited to meet you from what he told me. But there are other Alpha's in the city and the meetings with them aren't going as smoothly without me. They're on edge, and some of them might be secretly against me. There's a lot going on."

"Something is always happening in the world. They just all seem to be happening to us right now." I gave him the closest thing I could to a comforting smile, one that wasn't a mask. I needed to be real with him. "Luckily, we can handle your wolves with little interference."

"Our wolves, you mean." He corrected and my brow pinched together. "We're mated now, officially. You bear my mark and I'm the Alpha. That makes you their Luna by wolf law."

I rose from the bed, setting my feet on the cold floor and closing my eyes as I steadied myself. "Apollo, there's still a chance we won't make it out of here alive. The wolves, that's easy in my mind. After all the things I've done in my life, it just seems... like any other day."

Propelling himself from the bed to follow me, Apollo was on my heels as I walked into the adjacent bathroom. His body was against my back before I could turn on the sink. "You don't want to be my Luna?"

"I can't be your Luna if the organization kills us." And I wasn't worthy of the title. Alpha DNA in my blood or not, I was a killer, not a leader.

"Callie," Apollo started, but I put my hands up to stop him.

"Can we talk about it if we live through all of this? I don't want to plan for a future if there might not be one."

"How can you be so confident about handling werewolves, but this organization stops you from being free? You are your own person, and we can't let them impede our life." I could feel the tension rolling off Apollo in waves as he spoke.

"Killing and handling deadly situations is what they taught me to do. If you think I'm dangerous, you have no idea how bad it would be for us if they came for me next. No doubt you're still on their list, and I'm sure I am now too. We're both marked for death by a group of powerful people." I ran my hands through my hair and huffed. "It would be foolish to dream of a future. As much as I would like to."

Strangely enough, I did want to think of what I could have with Apollo. Maybe it was just the instincts of the wolf inside of me, but having something, anything, with my mate in the days to come sounded... like pure bliss.

"I just can't have that conversation right now, Apollo. One thing at a time, please."

Just as my shoulders drooped, Apollo wrapped his muscled arms around me and pulled me back into his warm chest. A sense of calm blossomed in my chest and spread through the rest of my body as he embraced me, and I wondered how he could have this effect on me.

All the walls that had kept my emotions safe for over twenty years were crumbling down around Apollo. Add on the new bond connecting our souls, and I knew deep down no one would have ever gotten to me the way he did.

"Okay," he finally relented. "One thing at a time. I won't bring up the next part of our future until we handled this hurdle."

He kissed the top of my head and breathed deeply with his face buried in my hair. It was hard for us to pull apart, but after a few moments, we separated.

Time passed in a blur as we left the abandoned house and made our way through the city. The sun continued to rise, and we snuck into the hotel before the crowd became overwhelming. Wolves were everywhere, and with the awakened Alpha DNA in my blood, I could sense the others in a way I never would have been able to as a human.

It was an understanding on an instinctual level. We had a beast hidden under our skin and that primal energy connected us all together.

And I was only a hybrid. It made me wonder what Apollo felt and experienced as a pure Alpha werewolf. I knew he was powerful and strong, but I wondered how far that went. Even though I didn't want to daydream about a happy ending where we rode off into the sunset together, my mind still wandered with ideas of days spent with Apollo. Testing my new abilities, sparring with one another, or fucking under the full moon.

Things that seemed so simple, and yet I yearned for a simpler life with him all the same..

"Well, all of my clothes are here, but since you have nothing, I ordered something brought up for you." Apollo met me in the bathroom as I stepped out of the steaming shower in the luxurious hotel room. It had been hard to get out of the spray of scalding water, but my skin would be raw if I scrubbed it any longer.

After his shower, Apollo had dressed business casual in all black, and the button-down dress shirt and dark slacks fit his tall and muscled frame so well I had a difficult time looking at anything other than him. There was a dimple in his cheek that told me he was trying to hide a smirk. The Alpha knew I was eye-fucking him, and he loved it.

"If you don't mind, I picked something out for you." Mirth danced in his eyes, and I bit my tongue to hold in a smart remark.

"Go on," I lowered the tone of my voice and peeled away the white fluffy towel from my body as Apollo straightened up to respond. The next words he would have said died on his lips and the towel pooled around my feet on the cool tile. His eyes roamed my skin and a shaky exhale slipped from his lips.

"Apollo?" I questioned as he stood there staring with his heated gaze on my chest. "You were telling me about this wonderful outfit you picked out for me."

"I was, wasn't I?" He blinked, but his gaze never left my body as he took a step forward. "I seem to have lost my train of thought."

"I wonder what could have distracted the mighty Alpha Mathison," I remarked, placing my hands on my hips. Apollo now stood before me, only a sliver of space between my bare skin and his black shirt.