Luna of Mine, Book 8 The Grey Wolves Series Read online

  Luna of Mine

  Book 8

  The Grey Wolves Series

  Quinn Loftis

  Published by

  Quinn Loftis at Smashwords

  © 2014 Quinn Loftis Books LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it, and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Photography KKeeton Designs

  Dedication

  This one is for everyone who has stuck with this series now for 8 books! Thank you so very much! I am so honored and humbled.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me and cheered me on as I wrote this book. Thank you so my husband who puts up with the late nights, and does laundry, cares for our son and eats tons of fast food. Thank you to Megan and Amanda for all your thoughts and input. Thank you to Candace for taking time to read my books and give me your honest opinions. Thank you to the Hellcats for being my voice of reasoning when I become unreasonable. Thank you to the wolf pack for helping me get the word out about my books! You all simply amaze me. Thank you to my family for supporting me and for believing in me!

  Thank you to the readers for taking time to read my books when there are so many other things that they could be doing not to mention other books they could have picked. I am truly honored.

  Other Titles by Quinn Loftis

  The Grey Wolves Series

  Prince of Wolves

  Blood Rites

  Just One Drop

  Out of the Dark

  Beyond the Veil

  Fate and Fury

  Sacrifice of Love

  Luna of Mine

  Elfin Series

  Elfin

  Rapture

  Gypsy Healer Series

  Into the Fae

  Stand Alone Works

  Call Me Crazy

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Romanian Proverb #1

  Romanian Proverb #2

  Romanian Proverb #3

  Romanian Proverb #4

  Romanian Proverb #5

  Romanian Proverb #6

  Romanian Proverb #7

  Romanian Proverb #8

  Romanian Proverb #9

  Romanian Proverb #10

  Romanian Proverb #11

  Romanian Proverb #12

  Romanian Proverb #13

  Romanian Proverb #14

  Romanian Proverb #15

  Romanian Proverb #16

  Romanian Proverb #17

  Romanian Proverb #18

  Romanian Proverb #19

  Romanian Proverb #20

  Romanian Proverb #21

  Epilogue

  Clicks by Amy Evans

  Prologue

  Prieten adevãrat este acela care te sfãtuieste spre bine,

  iar nu acela care îti laudã nebuniile.

  I cannot be your FRIEND and your flatterer too.

  ~Romanian Proverb # 0

  “We’ve called a girls’ weekend,” Jen announced as she strode into the dining room of the Romanian pack mansion as if she still lived there. “I’ve had a baby, Jacque is knocked up, Sally is about to embark on some crazy wild goose chase with Peri, and we need some serious estrogen time.”

  Vasile looked from his mate to Jen and then back to his mate. “Is she actually asking for my approval?”

  Alina laughed. “I highly doubt that, Alpha. I think she is just informing you that she’s kidnapping me.”

  “And do you wish to be rescued?” he asked her with a mischievous glint in his blue eyes.

  Jen scoffed, “Psht, as if. You and what army could possibly rescue her from my clutches?”

  “Jen, tone it down a little. I think your post pregnancy hormones are still getting to your head,” Jacque piped in, as she drug out a seat at the table.

  “Was it too much,” Jen asked with squinted eyes.

  Jacque held up her hand with her fingers separated by a tiny sliver of air. “Just a tad.”

  “I think I can handle the girls for a weekend,” Alina told her mate. “Besides, I think it’s time they heard our story.”

  “Mina!” Vasile’s voice was full of warning.

  She shrugged innocently. “What? I won’t make you look bad.”

  He huffed knowing there was no way to make him look good. Vasile remembered their courtship like it was yesterday, though it had been over two centuries since he took Alina as his mate. He had matured a lot in those two centuries, thank the Great Luna for that.

  “So we’re finally going to get to hear how the great and mighty Vasile claimed his mate? Or is this more of a fall from grace sort of story?” Jen asked as she grinned at the frowning Alpha.

  “I would say it’s a little of both,” Alina told her. “Do you all want to go to the cottage?” Alina asked them.

  “If it is a no testosterone zone, then by all means, the cottage it is,” Jacque answered.

  “So eager to get away from me, Luna?” Fane’s voice whispered through her mind.

  “I love you, Wolf-man, but I need a couple days of girls, chocolate, and no possessive mates. You can help Decebel with Thia and get some daddy practice in.” Jacque laughed at the low growl her mate gave her. He hated when she was away from him, especially now that she was carrying their child, but he also knew she needed space or he would smother her, and that in turn would lead to her smothering him―with a pillow, while he slept.

  “I heard that,” he huffed.

  “I’ve told you to stop eavesdropping and then you won’t hear things you don’t like hearing. If you weren’t so hardheaded you would take my advice and mind your own business.”

  “Stay safe, love, and come back to me quickly,” he told her, totally ignoring her snide comments, as he often did.

  “Love you,” was her response.

  “How long will you be gone?” Decebel asked Jen as she tossed some clothes in a suitcase.

  “Just for the weekend, B. You totally got this dad thing down, and Vasile will help if you run into any problems,” Jen said with a reassuring smile.

  “I’m not worried about taking care of Thia; she’s a piece of cake compared to you,” he told her with a smirk.

  “Dude, I can totally stay gone a little longer if you think you got this,” she threatened as she met his amber gaze.

  “No, you couldn’t,” he purred as he took a step towards her and then another until he was standing right in front of her. “You would miss me too much.”

  Jen rolled her eyes. “You get me knocked up and suddenly you think I can’t keep my paws off of you.”

  “Do I need to refresh your memory of the past week?”

  Jen actually blushed. “No need to be bringing up old stuff, Dec.”

  “Oh, I definitely think there is a need.” His voice seemed to drop even deeper.

  Jen held up her hand to hold him off. “No means no, my insatiable mate. I have a chicks’ weekend calling my name and you, my furry love, have the wrong equipment to come and play. I love you.” She leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss and dashed out of his reach before he could grab her. She headed over to Thia’s bed whe
re she lay sleeping and leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Give’em hell, mini me,” she whispered to her daughter. When she turned to face her mate she saw that he was standing in front of the door blocking her escape. He looked quite confident in his ability to keep her from leaving. Thankfully, she had planned ahead. She smiled sweetly at him as she picked up her suit case and then counted down under her breath. “Five, four, three, two, one . . . any time now.”

  Peri suddenly appeared right next to her. She grabbed Jen’s arm, gave Decebel the finger, and then flashed out of the room.

  Decebel growled as Jen’s laughter filled the room and then she was gone. He stared at the place she had just stood and then he chuckled. “Well played, Jennifer, well played. Just remember what you always say about payback.” He sent to her.

  “Bring it, baby,” she whispered back.

  “You’re sure this is a good idea?” Vasile asked his mate for the second time.

  Alina narrowed her eyes at him. “Vasile, I bonded with you because of the man you were, not because of the man you were destined to become. It is good for others to see that you are not perfect. We have both grown and changed over the centuries; I think for the better.”

  “Then why is it necessary to share with them all of our past mistakes?” he grumbled.

  She laughed. “Oh mate, you know the answer to that. It is our mistakes that make us who we are. Without our mistakes we would never grow in character, or mature. Without our mistakes we would not be able to tell our children and grandchildren that yes you will fall, but then you will get up, brush yourself off, and be stronger because of that fall. You know this better than most. Let me have this time with the girls. Let me share with them how you came to be the most powerful Alpha in our history, and let me tell them how you won my heart.”

  Vasile took her face gently in his hands as he looked down at her. His female who had taken him on time and time again, who had loved him through good and bad, who knew the ugliest parts of his soul and still claimed him, looked up into his eyes. “You tell them what you think you need to, but in the end the only thing they really need to know is that I am the man I am today because you gave me the honor of becoming my true mate.” He kissed her deeply, with all the passion of two centuries worth of love, pouring into her mind the images and emotions of his feelings for her.

  When he pulled back she was breathless and her cheeks were flushed just as they had been so many times in the past after he had loved her. “Have fun, Mina, and then come back to me.”

  “I always do, Alpha mine,” she whispered.

  Romanian Proverb # 1

  “Cine se face oaie il mãnâncã lupii.”

  “He that makes himself a sheep, shall be eaten by the wolf.”

  “So how did all your men take the girls’ weekend?” Jacque asked the group as they settled in the living room of the small cottage.

  “Well, if Peri and I hadn’t planned for her to steal me, I might still be in my bedroom with my Neanderthal of a mate,” Jen laughed. “He was actually standing in front of the door attempting to keep me from leaving.”

  “Fane just hates that I’m not within his reach now that there’s a bun in the oven. He seems to think that for some reason pregnant equals invalid.”

  Alina smiled at her daughter-in-law. “Unfortunately, Jacque, the further along you become, the worse that will get.”

  “She means the wider your ass gets the more incompetent he will find you, or in my case irresistible,” Jen winked.

  “You are so disturbed,” Jacque told her with a snicker. “I wonder when Sally will show up?”

  “She shouldn’t be too much longer. She and Rachel were going over some things for Peri and whatever this secret mission is that she and Costin are a part of,” Alina answered.

  “Oh, as if you don’t know,” Jen scoffed.

  “I might know something, and you would too if you would ever show up to the Alpha meetings,” Alina pointed out. “And,” she held up her hand cutting off Jen’s argument, “don’t say that you have to watch Thia. You have a pack full of females, not to mention the healers and your best friends that would all but rip that baby from your arms.”

  Jen flung herself onto one of the empty loveseats dramatically. “Yes, but only 'my girls' produce what she wants, and it is at the very moment those droll, boring Alpha meetings begin, that Thia always gets hungry. Weird coincidence, I know.”

  “Uh-huh and since when did Decebel’s man boobs begin producing milk?” Jacque asked dryly.

  Jen groaned. “Dude, that is so wrong. Why would you even put that out there? I mean first of all you have seen his gorgeous chest and know that he has the furthest thing from man boobs, second. . . .”

  “Oh shut up, blondie. The point wasn’t to insult your man’s wicked sexy chest; it was that you can’t claim to have to be nursing Thia during the meetings because you are spending an entire weekend away from her and she is obviously getting fed somehow,” Jacque growled.

  “Jacque, you’ve been to those meetings; you know how boring they are. You would be making up breastfeeding lies to get out of them too,” Jen whined.

  Alina was laughing at the two friends when the cottage door opened and in walked a tired looking Sally. “Anyone call for a healer?” she said as she smiled at the three women.

  “Crap, it’s about time you show up. Geeze, you’d think you were off getting ready to save the world or something.”

  Sally shook her head. “Ah-ah-ah, Jennifer, no more business, we are officially off-duty. I’m not a healer, you’re not a mamma, Jacque’s not a princess, and Alina’s not an Alpha. We are simply the chicks, having a chick weekend.”

  “Yeah, well tell that to my boobs because they don’t seem to understand the milk factory needs to shut down,” Jen huffed.

  “Has she been doing the whole whining about breastfeeding thing again?” Sally asked Alina and Jacque. “Because I thought we had nipped that in the bud.”

  “It’s our fault. We brought up the Alpha meetings she keeps missing,” Jacque explained.

  Sally made and “ah” motion with her mouth.

  “Oh, give me a break. I had one little meltdown over the whole experience, and now you are acting like I complain about it all the time.”

  Jacque rolled her eyes. “Jen, you were screaming at the top of your lungs that it wasn’t fair that you had to give up your perky rack, and you were sick of your nipples feeling as though they had been stuck in a pencil sharpener while salt was poured on them.”

  “How do you even know that? I was at the Serbian pack mansion when I had my moment,” Jen growled.

  “Your mate put you on speaker phone,” Sally said trying not to laugh.

  “In his defense, he was panicked when he called because you were freaking out. When I asked him to clarify he simply said listen for yourself and then he put you on speaker.”

  “It had been a rough night,” Jen admitted. “Nobody prepared me for how rough motherhood could be. Crap, nobody prepared me for how rough being mated slashed married can be.”

  The three girls all nodded, each pondering their own relationships and their own difficulties. A clearing throat brought them back to the present.

  “That is why I suggested this weekend,” Alina spoke up. “You three have become like daughters to me. You have each been brought into the Canis lupis world for different reasons, but the outcome has been the same. You are now mated. Not only are you mated but you are mated to very dominant men who are used to getting their way.”

  “You forgot to mention old,” Jen tossed out there. There was a ripple of laughter.

  “True,” Alina smiled. “Some of them are older, though they look only as old as you, and with that comes an entirely different set of issues. Things seem to have quieted down, at least for this brief moment in time. So I thought we could steal away this weekend and I could share with you my story, which naturally includes Vasile. I think you might find yourself encouraged to know that w
e did not always have it all together.”

  “Let me guess,” Sally smiled. “Vasile was not super happy about you wanting to tell us y’all’s story.”

  Alina laughed and the musical sound danced around the room. The twinkle in her eyes as she thought about her mate and his reaction betrayed all the love she felt for him. “Oh, he was definitely not super happy. Men, especially Alphas, never want their failures, or what they perceive as their failures, aired for all to see. What he does not realize, and what I tried to explain to him, is that it is when we are weak that we can be made strong. It is when we realize that we cannot do it on our own that we will finally truly understand the value of a mate.”

  “Please tell me you brought popcorn, and―for the love of all things carnal―please tell me we are going to get some yummy details because it is your job to educate us younger chickadees,” Jen purred.

  “All you have to do is ask, Alina, and I’ll use some of my magic on her,” Sally said smiling sweetly. “I’ll knock her right out.”

  “Uh, Sally dear, you do remember that thing you were asking me about? That certain position…,” Jen asked as her eyes narrowed.

  “You wouldn’t,” Sally warned.

  “You know me better than that,” Jen smiled. “I most definitely would.”

  “Crap, sorry Alina, you’re on your own,” Sally said absently as she leaned back into the chair she had commandeered.

  “Why don’t we all get settled down for the night? Go wash your faces, shower if you need to, and then meet back in front of the fireplace. Though we don’t need it for warmth, I’m sure Sally can conjure us up one simply for ambience,” Alina suggested.

  Once the girls were back gathered around the unnecessary, yet somehow appropriate, fire― surprise! hot chocolate in hand―Alina took her place on the floor by the hearth. She took in their eager faces and then let her mind wander back to a time long ago, a time when Canis lupis packs were still recovering from the great werewolf wars. Their magic was growing weaker because the fae had retreated to their realm, no longer offering aide to the supernaturals in the human realm. Children born to their race were few and far between and most did not survive because there were no healers to ensure the birth went smoothly. It was a trying time, a scary time with the future of their species uncertain. The Great Luna, their Creator, seemed to have turned them over to themselves as they warred with other packs instead of working together and building unity between themselves. But though it had been a time of uncertainty, Alina had hope for the canis lupis. Something inside of her told her that if she would just be patient, just not give up, they would someday soon see their race restored. But she had no idea just how pivotal her role in such a change would be.