The Nameless Luna – Book One: Chapter 4

The Exiled King pulls me in close, draping my hand over his shoulder. His fingers slide under the bend of my knees, and my simple dress ruffles around me as he picks me up like I am little more than a rag doll. He stands with ease, and the crowd parts around us, letting us pass without question.
“Take care, little king,” Viktor says as we cross the courtyard. “And know that the next time either of you sets food in my territory, I will not be so generous.”
Tristan doesn’t even glance over his shoulder, not deigning to reply to the threat. Instead, he carries me out of the estate and away from my pack, leaving my uncle’s final warning ringing in my ears.
Soon enough, music starts up again in the courtyard as everyone returns to the celebration. Still, even the noise from the party fades in the distance eventually. Tristan says nothing the entire time, walking with ease and stoic determination, carrying me in silence until we reach the edge of the woods at the base of the valley.
All my life, I’ve never ventured beyond this point, and I cannot help but wonder if I will ever see this place again.
He sets me down on the massive trunk of a fallen tree, and I let myself look at him again, properly taking in the sight this time. He wears plain pants and a simple, long-sleeve black shirt which he is now unbuttoning, much to my alarm.
“It’s a full night’s run to Rover territory from here,” he says plainly, and my eyes widen as I glance back up to meet his gaze.
The Bane pack is located on the western side of a mountain range known as Silvertooth Peaks. These highlands are all shifter territory. While I know there are a handful of other packs that occupy the area, my understanding of the politics and borders between them is limited at best.
The confusion must be evident from my expression because Tristan smiles dryly and explains, “Rovers. It’s the name of my pack.”
Rovers, It is a kinder word than rogues or rejects. I have a vague recollection of Viktor mentioning the rival pack of lone wolves, castaways, and vagabonds. I’ll either fit right in or get torn to ribbons by them. The former seems more likely, considering the little I’ve heard about them paints a rather vagrant and vicious picture.
My uncle called Tristan my new master, and I know better than to think of my life as my own.
I belonged to one Alpha, and now I’ve been given to another. Will I be a servant to these Rovers just as I was to the Bane pack?
Or… worse?
“If you shift into your wolf form, can you walk?” Tristan asks, pulling me away from my grim thoughts. He nods toward my ankle before taking off his shirt; my cheeks burn as I avert my eyes. “Will you be able to run?”
I will not.
But that has little to do with my injury. I’ve never manifested a wolf form, so shifting is entirely out of the question. I do not want to imagine what this strange new Alpha will do if he finds out he’s been saddled with a defective mate. I also do not trust myself to lie to him, not when those catlike golden eyes of his are peering into mine with an intensity that could pierce right through me.
I bite my lower lip and shake my head ‘no.’ Not a lie, just not the whole truth.
Tristan sighs, surveying me as I wrap my arms around myself, curling into a little ball. I can feel his gaze roaming over me as he unbuttons his trousers, and I realize he must have stolen the clothes from my pack when he arrived at the celebration.
With unpaved roads and the rugged terrain of the mountains, it was probably easier to make the journey as a wolf than in a car. But even with enhanced strength and speed, it probably took him all day to run across the territories and reach us.
He’s traveled a long way to be disappointed. “Then I’ll take you,” he says plainly, and before I can ask what he means, he transforms before me.
He shifts in a matter of seconds, his wolf tearing through him like a burst of ancient, feral power. My lips part in surprise as I look at him. He is larger than any wolf I’ve ever seen in my pack, his fur a warm honey-brown with flecks of auburn and black. He dips his head, watching me expectantly, ears slicked back with predatory attention. It takes me a few seconds to realize I’m expected to climb onto his back. Slowly, I unfurl myself from where I’m sitting on the trunk, taking a few hesitant steps toward him. My ankle aches where I twisted it when Oscar shoved me, but I barely register it. He is massive, at least four or five feet tall at the shoulders, and strong as a bull.
As I approach, the wolf lowers himself in an elegant sort of bow. It is one of the strangest scenes I’ve ever witnessed, let alone been a part of. It’s a surreal sensation to have a creature so wild and powerful bow before me, like a mountain bowing to a gentle breeze.
I reach out, trailing my fingers along his coarse, dense fur. He shakes his head, and the shiver seems to ripple across his fur as his tail flicks impatiently. I pull myself onto his back rather ungracefully, but he indulges my squirming until I’ve mounted him. Beneath me, his muscles shift, taut and solid beneath his fur as he takes a few steps, letting me adjust to the movement.
He should be far more terrifying in this form, but as I lean forward and hold on tightly to him, all I can feel is a dazed sort of awe. My uncle’s wolf form, which always seemed so impressive and mighty, now seems unimposing and unstable by comparison. I feel so small— or smaller than I usually feel—but not in an unpleasant sort of way. I am minuscule besides Tristan’s wolf, but not meaningless.
His steps quicken and, before I know it, we are racing through the forest. Trees, rivers, mountains, earth, and sky all pass me in flashes, and the world itself becomes a blur. I’ve never experienced anything like this before, never been allowed to interact so closely with my pack in their wilder form.
I’m the bastard freak, the orphaned girl with violet eyes and no wolf. I would never shift and run through the woods with my pack. As Tristan carries me away from the only life I’ve ever known, I can no longer tell the difference between the soft crunching of leaves and twigs beneath his large paws and the thundering in my own chest.
Fate has a funny sense of humor. Being sold to a stranger has been almost… liberating.
I wonder if it’s always like this for wolves. I wonder if the world usually seems so vast and limitless when they shift and if running like this makes them feel free and infinite. I wonder, also, if I will ever feel this way again. Because, as lovely as it is to watch the forest fly past us, the Bane pack’s territory vanishing like a single spot on the horizon, I cannot deny my reality.
I have no name. No home. No wolf of my own.
My entire existence has been placed at the mercy of a man I don’t even know.
While he gave me the option to reject him, he also made it abundantly clear that he would only offer that choice once. There is no turning back, and once we reach the Rover’s land, I will have no escape.