Rejected Luna's Return, Forbidden Bonds

Lyra POV

I drove my wolf down to the uttermost. Trying to hold back a river with bare hands was like it, but I had taken five years of training with the Council, learning how to keep my wolf, learning how to be strong. I could do this. I could handle this. I was a policeman and policemen did not lose their temper.

Keep off, everyone, I said, and steeled my voice. It was to have something to grip to, that it made sense, that I put my hand to the weapon at my side, though I did not believe I would use it.

Ethan took a step toward me. "Lyra, we need to talk about--"

I did not want to hear it, so I interrupted him. My voice was sharp as a knife. "I came here to do a job. Not to see any of you."

Dane came a little nearer, his eyes, which were silver, never leaving my face. "You don't understand. This changes everything. You're supposed to be..."

"Supposed to be what?" I snapped. "Your mate? I am already a rejected mate to someone, remember? I do not want to have that experience again.

I punched Ethan the way I had hit him with words. Good, his jaw tightened, and pain flashed in his face. I wanted him to have the slightest idea of what I had experienced five years earlier when he stood in front of the whole pack and informed them that I was not good enough to be Luna. When he had broken all I thought about fate.

Owen pushed his pair of glasses higher on his nose, an intrusive gesture of mine, which I had recalled many years ago. This is biologically impossible. There are no several mating bonds in the contemporary world. Marcus may have a clue to this, but the history is so ancient that--

I have nothing to do with what Marcus knows, I said. I am concerned about doing my job and going.

Zane hadn't said anything. He was merely standing there staring at me with those deep dark eyes. Something about him crawled my skin and my wolf at the same time was desperate. He resembled what he would roast the whole world in case of my request, and that scared me more than the situation that no one could have imagined.

You can feel it, Zane said to himself. His voice was not refined, as though he had not talked a lot. "I know you can. Stop pretending you can't."

My hands felt trembling and I despised that he could notice it. I have no idea what you are talking about.

Your wolf," Dane said as he came nearer. "She's calling to us. We can hear her. We can feel her."

And I came to think of something horrible. My wolf was not attempting to either attack them or run away. She was attempting to bond with them. All the instincts of my body were urging me to allow her to do so, to unite with them somehow. It was the most natural thing in the whole world and the most dreadful thing I could think of.

It was not happening, I said, and I meant it. I swiveled about and began to walk back to my car.

"Wait!" Owen called after me. "We need to explain. You must know what is actually happening.

I didn't stop walking. It was just instinct that drove me back to my car with my legs. The door to the car slipped out of my hands and I entered, shutting it behind me. I could see them all through the windshield standing in the clearing watching me. Dane looked desperate. Owen looked confused. Ethan looked angry. And Zane looked dangerous.

I turned the engine on and drove away without colliding with them as quickly as possible.

This had brought me down here on a mission to find out a rogue uprising by the Council. No one had told anything about this. No one had informed me that I would come back and have four mates instead of none. Nobody had told me that the whole world would turn upside down the minute I stepped on the territory of my old pack.

My phone rang as I was driving. The caller ID was revealed to be that of Kira, who is my best friend and training partner at the Council. I had worked with her for five years, since I came out of this place. Kira was mean, intelligent and never looked down upon me because of the pain I had. I was the only one who I had allowed to be close to me during this time.

"Where are you?" Kira responded immediately when I replied.

Driving away a situation that does not make sense, I said. Will you come and get me at the old rendezvous? I must get out of this and reason.

There was a pause. "Lyra, what happened? Your voice sounds weird."

I didn't know how to explain it. What would I even say? That I had been home and found not one, but four mates? That I had all my vision of my body and my own destiny? It seemed that a man who I had despised for five years was one man who had caused my wolf to rave with the desire to be in his presence?

"Just pick me up," I said. "Please."

I could not stop my hands shaking, and my wolf could not stop pacing in me as I drove. When I returned to this place there was something different. The universe had changed something and I did not know or cannot do anything about it. That was the worst of all to a person who had spent five years making walls and knowing how to make everything in her life work.

I could see the figure of Dane standing in the road behind me and watching my car fading away.