I Moved On, Why Don't You

No More Backing Down

Devlin's pov

"Will you stay with my mate?"

Henry turned from where he was checking Joel's vital signs and nodded at me, hesitating before saying what was on his mind.

"After you make your intentions to challenge your sire known to the pack, you should send your mate somewhere safe."

"You said my sire has been watching me this whole time , that he knew every move I made because he was watching me, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Then where am I supposed to take him? There is no safe place I can take him."

"If he stays here, someone in this pack will eventually finish what my sister started. Even if it's not completely safe, he needs to be taken somewhere else as soon as possible."

"I know . . . I failed to protect him before and when I brought him here, I believed that we could handle anything my sire threw at us as long as I stayed by his side.  He deserves better than this pack  . . . better than me."

"Do you love him, Alpha Devlin?"

"He's my mate."

Henry narrowed his eyes at me, but didn't reply and I found myself unable to hold his gaze.

"Yes, I love him."

Sighing, he came over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"What happened to Luna Joel isn't your fault. You left the pack five years ago to fight in a war for the rights of every pack that exists today and while you were gone, your sire changed. How could you have known that things would go this far? I mean the sire you knew would chase off potential love interests with threats to banish them from the pack lands. He wouldn't . . . wouldn't_____________."

Henry suddenly dropped his hand from my shoulder and stood up, making his way back to the bed where Joel lay motionless.

"Whatever you tell me will not leave this room, Henry."

"He wouldn't grab you and your mate while you were in the middle of marking each other and have his men hold you down and rape you in front of them, waiting until you couldn't hold in your screams any longer to claim you were unfit to protect them and how much better he would be for them."

"Your mate . . . did . . . did they_____________?"

"She called him a monster and spit in his face. I begged him to let her go, but he slit her throat in front of me, while his men continued passing me around until they were satisfied and I was unconscious . . . the true reason I became so fascinated with poison is because I wanted to use it to kill everyone that was involved that day."

"What they did to you, if I had been here, I could have_______."

"No! Don't ever say that again! I would rather have suffered a million times over than to watch him bend you to his will! We need the you that's here now, Alpha Devlin!"

"You are an amazing person, Henry."

Henry let a small smile cross his lips, but didn't reply.

"After I challenge my sire, I'll destroy the men that hurt you."

"No."

"I can't let them get________."

"They didn't, that's the thing about justice, it comes when you least expect it . . . each of those wolves was killed by hunters. Not at the same time and no one knows how it happened, but each of them were in their wolf forms and completely feral by the time the  humans came across them."