The Human Luna

Kill or be Killed

Ailani's P.O.V

"There was no way I could stop it, I knew it was bound to happen." The three of us – Catalina, Solomon and I were in the car speeding towards the pack house. "We exposed ourselves to them, they know who we are."

"But they don't know where we are, so we have nothing to worry about." Solomon replied, shifting into 5thgear. I hadn't said a word for about 15 minutes. Not since I heard the gunshots and the sound of a large crowd roaring in horror and outrage.

"Are you kidding me? You know the hunters are out there looking for us. When word gets around, they're bound to come searching around these perimeters. It's only a matter of time before they find where we are located." Catalina was trembling and rambling on to the point where her mouth sounded like it needed water.

"The hunters are the least of our worries." Solomon looked at me through his rear-view mirror. "Ailani, not only is Adrian in trouble, but your two friends are as well. We believe they are being tortured."

My hair stood on end at the sound of my friends in danger, and I balled my hands into fists as I fought the urge to open the car door and hurl myself out onto the road. It was my fault they were in this mess. As fearful as I was though, my mind could not avoid Adrian's situation. My heart yearned for him, and although he had technically rejected me as his mate, something deep inside my soul couldn't stop pining for his touch. He was still mine.

"What do we do?" I asked.

Solomon sighed and glanced over at Catalina, who looked just as clueless as himself.

"We improvise."

**********

Adrian's P.O.V

"Look, we brought you company."

I glanced up at the sound of key chains rattling the prison door open, only to see Jack and Katie, faces bruised and bleeding, being hurled into the same cell as me. I averted my gaze from them, turning to face the wall so that they couldn't see their Alpha drowned in defeat.

You're not their Alpha.

My wolf was right, they didn't belong in my pack, or any pack for that matter. They weren't werewolves, they belonged on the outside of the supernatural world, or in the grave.

My nails lengthened into claws, and I began carving the names of Ivan's pack members one by one, a list of the people I needed to kill. The air was silent, apart from the frequent sniffles Katie kept making, and the sound of Jack's shoes tapping impatiently on the ground.

"You're fucked you know that, right?" Jack said venomously. I ignored him and continued to scrape my claw on the wall, forming the perfect F.

"You're fucked, which means your whole pack is fucked. Dare I say the whole of your kind."

I looked to the left of me, not turning around fully, and began to ask questions.

"What do you mean 'the whole of my kind?'" I asked gravely.

"Well Ivan is talking about a war, something about how he's tired of the amount of packs there are; how he thinks that there should just be one pack instead of many."

"Who told you this?" I said spinning round and glaring at him.

Jack jumped back in surrender with a grin on his face. "Easy there mate, no one told us anything. We overheard his pack members talking about it when we were in the other cell."

My wolf was beginning to growl. This was why Ivan and I were never on good terms. He was always lusting over power, envious of the Alphas with the strongest and greatest packs. We could never be friends, let alone allies.

"The other packs would never agree to that-."

Jack scoffed. "I think Ivan already knows this, that's why I said he wants a war. Apparently, he is going to introduce his idea to the Council or whatever, and if they don't agree then he is going to declare war, or just start killing all the Alphas."

Silence filled the air again, and I turned back to the wall to think. I could feel Jack's eyes staring holes into the back of my neck, but I refused to face him. After 5 minutes of no one talking, Katie spoke up.

"You were wrong to reject Ailani, she is your mate and you know it."

The sound of her name sent chills down my spine, I couldn't tell if they were chills of anger and betrayal or hurt and regret.

"You are in no position to tell me when I am wrong or right!"

"What because I am a female, or because I'm not a werewolf? Or both?" Her sniffles had completely gone, and now she was up for an argument.

"Ailani is not my mate."

"Only a fool would say that," Katie replied angrily.

"I am no fool, Ailani is human, to be someone's mate you must be a werewolf, it's that simple."

"What if it's more complicated than that?"

I scoffed at her suggestion that the legend of the Human Luna was true. "That story is fairy-tale bullshit. That's never happened. It's probably something that the Hunters made, a way for them to deceive werewolves into believing that there is a way for us to co-exist with each other."

"How can you say it's a load of fake stories, when even your elders agree that the legend is true?" Jack argued. "We found that book in your library when we first arrived here, why – if it's all fake, would you even have it in your pack house in the first place?"

**********

Ailani's P.O.V

"What did Marcus say?" Catalina asked as we pulled up onto the driveway behind the pack house.

"There's no one in the pack house at the moment that we should be concerned about. Apparently, everyone has been called to Lake Limpiar by Ivan." Solomon stopped the car and sat still for a moment. Anticipation hanging in the air like a foul smell.

"Where are we supposed to go?" I asked, desperate to see Adrian and my friends more than anything else.

"You go straight to the top floor but use the stairs – there's cameras in the elevators, so if anyone sees you, they'll just stop the lift and take it from there. Marcus is waiting for you, he will tell you the plan." Solomon turned the engine off and went to open the car door.

"What about Adrian?" I questioned desperately. I forgot about Katie and Jack.

"Adrian still doesn't believe you're his mate. If he sees you now, it will only make things worse." Catalina answered me calmly. I knew she could sense the hurt in my voice.

"Here, take this." Solomon handed me a small handgun, it's silver glinting in the sun. It felt cold and unusual in my hand, like it didn't belong there.

"A gun? You want me to use a gun on someone?"

"It's for your own protection Ailani. You're a target now. Perhaps the only target that really matters. Everyone knows that you are not one of us, and werewolves are taught from a young age that humans who step on our territory are to be killed on sight."

I thought back to the friends I had made here. Amanda, Maddie, Gisela, Lionel, Robyn and Megan. Surely, they wouldn't want me dead, right? How can you go from being so close to becoming enemies? It hadn't even been a full 24 hours.

"Ailani, are you with us?" Solomon asked.

I turned the weapon around in my hand. I knew how to use one, and I wasn't afraid of using it on one of Ivan's people. But Adrian's pack, Amanda's pack? I would never forgive myself.

"Only when you feel threatened." Catalina said to me, smiling encouragingly.

"Only when I feel threatened," I repeated, whispering the words into the air as if it made a difference.

Here goes nothing...