Paranoia was taking over. I didn’t even want to trust the Emerald pack right now.
The deal with the Redgraves felt like the only one that would hold.
A deal couldn’t save us if I messed up the appeal.
Was there a way to stop this feral cycle from overtaking me?
I’d done some fighting in the hall outside our cell, letting off steam with the Emerald pack. Stood under cold streams of water until my skin ached. Spent time cuddling Crescent.
Usually I’d go to the gym to burn off the energy, or sign up for a rut fight, but it wasn’t something we could risk.
After a threat like the caged crescent moon, we needed to lay low until we figured out what was going on.
But if I lost myself again, I dreaded what would happen—even without the possibility of it fucking up our appeal.
What if I touched my mate and then forgot her?
My aura was constantly trembling, instincts threatening to dive in and take me back to that place where there was only want and need and blood.
It had happened before. Even the grounding of a pack bond hadn’t been enough to make me remember who Phantom was after a particularly bad rut.
I’d had to meet him all over again. I had never regained any memories back of the months we’d known each other before that happened.
One day I’d forget again and they’d leave me behind.
And so would she.
Now, on the top bunk above the nest, with the rest of the pack handling the confinement far better than me, I fought for something—anything—to keep me grounded.
I kept my fist curled around the hard length of my cock through my thick sweatpants, squeezing the life out of it to keep my erection down. My knees were spread wide, and it would be so easy to make myself come and get some goddamn relief, but Crescent was in her nest in the bottom bunk, right below me.
Even if I shut myself out of the bond, she would scent me.
Eyes closed, I tried to think of anything but her, but what else was there to think of?
The rut fights? Bloodshed? A chunk of my time was spent feral and the rest was trying to make sure I didn’t lose myself again.
Unsuccessfully, because my aura didn’t stabilize when I bonded Sin, so why would it stabilize at all?
A gentle throat clearing had me snapping my eyes open, meeting Crescent’s golden gaze. She’d popped her head over the railings, and her teeth nibbled her bottom lip as she tried and failed to avoid looking at my hand gripping my cock.
“Need something, Moonlight?” I didn’t move, mainly because I liked the pink flush to her cheeks as she glanced down to my crotch.
She cleared her throat, her hands coming up to grab at the bar of the upper bunk. She could barely see over the edge of the mattress, and I bet she was already on her toes. Maybe even standing on the bottom bunk’s frame.
“Can we go walk around the wing? My legs are stiff.”
Her legs weren’t the only things that were stiff.
I nodded, reluctantly releasing my clothed cock and adjusting my sweats so they didn’t accentuate the bulge.
Swinging my legs over the edge of the bunk, I jumped down to the ground.
She nearly fell over trying to jump down from the frame of the bottom bunk, but I caught her around the waist.
Her breath hitched, my cock jumped, and we froze in tandem for a long beat.
Fuck, she was pretty.