Blue Moon Brides: The Complete Series (70 page)

Five minutes to take apart the wolves who didn’t run for the doors. Five more to get Z-Pain on the floor and start taking the male apart inch by inch. Methodically, he hammered blows into Z-Pain’s ribs. Then arms and legs. He’d save the face for last. Make the male wait for it.

“Hit the pause button for a minute.” Cruz yanked on his arm.

No could do. Pounding Z-Pain into extinction was his only mission.

Cruz tightened his grip.
Oui
, he might have gone a little crazy.

Luc slowly resurfaced from the haze of red surrounding him.
Fuck.
He’d made one hell of a mess. He wasn’t worried about the bar—the place had been trash long before he’d stepped foot inside—but he did need to have a conversation with Z-Pain before wrapping things up.

He scanned the bar, looking for trouble. Dre and Landry would be covering the exits and cleaning up any four-legged loose ends. A few bikers groaned on the floor, limbs bent at unfortunate angles. There was also a fair amount of blood. At least he wasn’t the one doing clean up.

“You ready to talk?” Cruz didn’t let go of Luc’s arm until Luc nodded.

What he was
ready
to do was to get back to Gianna. Since it was now well past midnight, he was burning his hours with her. He didn’t have to get inside her every night, but he was damned sure sleeping wrapped around her. He looked down at the wolf pressed beneath his booted foot.

Cruz followed his gaze, checking out the damage to Z-Pain. “Yeah, we should definitely talk.”

“Talkin’ is over-rated.” Luc pressed down harder, heard something crack.

“Hey, you give him an opportunity to spill.” The wolf’s face twisted, like the man was torn between sticking around in human dick form versus going wolf and taking on chance on clawing his way free. “Maybe, he knows something helpful about this hit that was ordered on Gianna Lynn. Shit that we should know too.”

“Don’ be such a fuckin’ sheriff.”

Z-Pain tried to break free, but Luc wasn’t allowing that. He renewed his beat-down.

“I am what I am.” Cruz didn’t sound concerned—or like he minded overly much that Luc was assaulting another Alpha. As long as the threat to Gianna was removed, good job. “Gianna Lynn don’ mind.”

And…fuel for the fire.  Luc bared his teeth. Tonight was no night for fucking subtle.

“She’s my Blue Moon mate.”

“Well, that’s the thing.” Cruz crouched beside Z-Pain. “You should ease up some, the guy’s gotta breathe sometime.”

Killing the wolf would be satisfying, but the aftermath could be messy, particularly if the death happened in Baton Rouge territory where it would be interpreted more like an act of war or a fuck you. Break the wolf’s neck and the entire biker gang would come knocking, first on Cruz’s door and then on Luc’s. Sometimes, being the Alpha sucked.

Cruz nodded when Luc eased up some, but kept right on talking. “My Pack, we don’ hold with that blue moon stuff.”

“Your sister married because of it.”

“Yeah, but I’m thinkin’ she’d have fallen for your brother anyhow.” There was no accounting for taste as Luc knew. Cruz might not like to think about his sister spending the rest of her life as a member of Luc’s pack, but he also knew better than to disrespect her choice. It was her life, her choice. She’d gut him if he tried to stomp all over her. Riley had plenty of courage.

Cruz ploughed on. “Gianna’s goin’ to choose the male she wants. That was your deal anyhow. She gives you a shot and you let her walk, no fuss, no muss, if she decides she doesn’t want to stick around any.”

Fuck him if the other male didn’t look too happy about it. Right. Because they both needed to win. They both needed
Gianna
.

He clipped Z-Pain on the side of the head, knocking the wolf out. Cruz could do his law man stuff if that got Z-Pain locked up for the next twenty years or so. For a werewolf, that time wasn’t the deterrent it was for a human, but it would buy Luc time to take out the rest of the pack.

So Z-Pain and The Breed weren’t the problem.
Cruz
was.

He looked over at his rival. “We can’t both have her.”

Cruz followed him outside. “You may be right about that,” he said, and he wasn’t talking about Z-Pain. Cruz would call in that particular mess and Z-Pain would head downtown. Snapping the other wolf’s neck still seemed simpler, but Gianna was human. And a lawyer. He didn’t have to ask to know she wouldn’t be on board with that plan.

Gianna
.

Dre had her in his truck, safe behind a wall of him and his brother. Striding toward her, Luc knew, without a fucking doubt, that he’d lost the one fucking battle that mattered. He’d promised to let her go.

He kept his promises.

He always had.

So he’d fucked up. He’d gotten a taste of her, taken her and ridden her. Kissed her and held her. She was under his skin and that was a mistake he couldn’t undo. When he closed his eyes, she was right there, waiting for him in his memories, and he’d do almost anything to keep her in his arms. He couldn’t forget her. And he almost couldn’t force himself to open his arms and let her go.

Because there was no shaking his memories of her naked body. Bared to him. Open and needy and honest. He’d had her brown hair all spread out over his pillows in a soft cloud and her pretty, pretty legs spread open for him. It was more than that, though. She made him want to be gentle and tender. Made him want to be all those things he wasn’t. He was a soldier and a warrior, but he wanted to tell her just how beautiful she was. Wanted to find some kind of words to give her, to explain the emotions 4-1-1-ing him right now.

Even now, he could have walked away. Could have shut down his senses and stopped this sensual bombardment of hers. He didn’t have to suck in air like the worst kind of addict, but he wanted this much of her. Wanted to remember what she smelled like. The taste of her.

“Got your Blue Moon bride right here,” Landry said, motioning to the truck.

The windows were rolled down.
Fuck
. It wasn’t that the whole Blue Moon thing was a secret, but…he’d wanted to explain to Gianna in his own way and time. A time that might have been
when hell froze over
because, really, what could he say? I wasn’t looking for you and I didn’t know I wanted you, but Fate planted a biological drive in me to go after you and now I love you and could you possibly reciprocate because I’m fucking dying over here?

Yeah. Excellent plan.

He got into the truck next to her, turned the key, and warmed the motor up. Since Cruz was the cleanup detail, he got to stay behind and deal with local law enforcement, lucky him. Gianna didn’t say anything at first, but he could practically hear her thinking. Hard.

Finally, she asked the question. “What’s a Blue Moon bride?”

“Once in a blue moon, the males of our Pack can hunt for mates.”

“I know what a blue moon is. It’s the second full moon in a calendar month. It’s not some kind of dating service.”

He shook his head. “This moon is special. It really is blue and it leads us to the women who were meant for us, to our forever mates.”

She stared at him, which he’d have been doing too if he were in her shoes. “Fated mates,” she said finally. “Really? The moon comes out, points a blue laser beam at some poor woman, and you go after her like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow?”

No. Yes. Fuck him if he knew. He’d seen her and something had opened up inside him, had come alive. Moon or no moon, he’d have wanted to have her in his life. She wasn’t done laying into him, however, so he shut up. He owed her that much.

“So this wasn’t about me. Ever. It was about some freak natural occurrence that
you
decided gave you a hunting license.” She looked at Dre. “You got a watch? A Phone? A fucking sun dial?”

“Ah.” Dre hesitated. Luc gave him that. “It’s a little past midnight.”

“Good enough,” she said, opening the truck door and jumping down. “Seven nights. Game over.”

Chapter Nine

After catching an hour of shuteye, Cruz made a second trip out into the bayou. Z-Pain had been hauled downtown and Mirandized. He’d also lawyered up and, without Gianna’s recording, they wouldn’t have had a chance in hell of getting the charges to stick. Since Z-Pain had admitted on tape to ordering the hit on Gianna, that might be enough to put him away. If there was a Louisiana prison built to hold werewolves. Whatever. That was a problem for another day.

Luc had let him walk into the Breaux camp too, and Cruz had no idea if that was a good sign or a bad one. Now the two of them had their asses parked on the front porch of Luc’s cabin, but it was like they were sitting in a cone of silence. Not that Cruz wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Luc, but…yeah. They had more than a few loose ends.

Imagining Gianna here was easy. The man had a nice house, kind of romantic, in the way his sister and female cousins like, with a big four poster bed and a fireplace. He tried and failed to banish the images of Luc and Gianna from his head. Sharing sucked. Even if he’d climbed on in there with them and loved Gianna the best he could, Luc had been there too.

And Cruz wanted her all to himself. Wanted alone time with her, to show her he could be the right male for her. This woman could be his mate. No matter what fucking moon had led Luc to her, Cruz was here now too. He wouldn’t let her go. Wouldn’t lose her.

The sun was starting to set, twilight wrapping the bayou up in its embrace. A chorus of bullfrogs started making a racket, their hoarse song echoing off the trees. The bayou was peaceful, settling down for the night. Too bad it wasn’t contagious, because at best they had an uneasy
détente
going down on Luc’s porch. It wasn’t easy, getting Alphas to co-exist. And in the same bed? Yeah, good luck with that. Both of them were used to being in charge. They avoided dominance challenges by drawing lines. For the most part, Luc ruled the bayou waters and Cruz, well, he had the town.

Neither of them had Gianna.

He’d fight for this, fight for her. Fight for
them
. He’d been bred to fight, so that had to mean he had this one in the bag, didn’t it? Either his Pack would accept her and the possible enmity of Luc’s brothers, or he’d strike out on his own. Go lone wolf. Just as soon as he’d seen her through this he’d ask her what she wanted. If she wanted to see what kind of life she could make for herself with him in Port Leon or if she wanted a do-over somewhere else.

Maybe she’d say yes. Hell, he didn’t even know if she’d choose him. Just because he’d made his choice didn’t mean she’d made hers.

“That scratch of yours going to be okay?”

Cruz looked at his arm. A wolf had ripped his forearm up, but it was nothing a roll of gauze and some tape hadn’t patched up. It had absolutely not been worth going to the doctor for, plus the set of canine teeth marks would raise questions. State law required all dog bites be reported and Cruz wasn’t setting up some poor pet to take the blame for what had happened.

“She promised me a week.” There was no point in dressing up the words. After all, they were both thinking next steps with Gianna.

“
Oui
.” Luc hooked a cooler with his foot and nudged it closer. “You wan’ a drink?”

“Probably a good idea.” Alcohol couldn’t hurt this conversation.

Luc flipped the top and pulled out two longnecks. Extended one to Cruz. A quick twist of his wrist and he was sucking back a cold swallow.

“She’s my Blue Moon bride,” Luc pointed out quietly. “I don’ like the idea of Fate picking out females for us, but there’s no denying she does a good job. Gianna and I—we fit.”

Which left Cruz—where, exactly? On the outside, fucking looking in.

“When I first saw her, I thought I could be the wolf who was different, who gave his mate a choice about who she wanted. A chance to run, if that was her thing.”

“Gianna isn’t the kind of woman who
lets
a guy do anything.” Some things had to be said.

Luc nodded, looking pained. “I fucked that one up, all right. I found her and I mated her, then I walked away because that seemed like the best thing for Gianna.”

“And now that you’ve found her again, you’ve got a case of the regrets.”
Tough shit.
Maybe Gianna hadn’t felt the same way ten years ago in Vegas. Maybe, she’d changed and grown apart from Luc. The reasons didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was happy. And, if he was being honest, that he got his shot at making her happy.

“She’s my mate.” Luc looked straight at Cruz, not pulling his punches. “I love her. That’s how I feel about her.”

Cruz sucked back more beer. Too bad there wasn’t a fucking werewolf manual for this one. Luc’s Pack had a reputation for casual sex and sharing—at least until the guys mated, when everyone else went off-limits and they bonded with their females—and Cruz wasn’t judging that. He really wasn’t. Whatever worked between consenting adults, that was his motto. Two adults, three, multiples of whatever…he didn’t really give a damn. He’d just never imagined himself being part of a trio, and the lesser part at that.

“I wan’ my week. If she’ll give it to me, I’ll take it.”

Luc actually nodded.
Whoa.
“We both wan’ her—and we both wan’ her to be happy.”

“Dead right.” If she chose Luc and not him, he’d wish her well and he’d walk. Or he’d stick around and be her friend and her shoulder to lean on, if she’d let him be there for her. It wasn’t about him or even about Luc.

It was about Gianna.

“So we need to work this thing out between us.” Luc set his bottle down on the porch. Cruz got the feeling the other man might hurl the bottle out there into the bayou because he needed to break something.

“I don’ wan’ to sleep with you—or fuck with you,” Cruz said.

There was an answering glimmer of humor in Luc’s eyes when he said, “I’m right there with you.”

“So the question is: does Gianna pick one of us…or both?”

“You got a crystal ball?”

Luc flipped him the bird. “Left it in my other pants.”

“She’s not a timeshare where we alternate weeks.” That kind of attitude would be disrespectful of Gianna and he couldn’t imagine her compartmentalizing her life like that. If she loved both of them, she’d want to love both of them together. That was one hell of a thought.

“Any ideas?”

Yeah, all of which involved going after Gianna and begging. “I could do it, if it’s what Gianna wants.”

Luc’s nod was slow in coming, but it came. Maybe they both were on the same page after all. Maybe they could make this thing work. “We’d both be all about her. That sounds about right.”

The bullfrogs cranked it up, deafening the silence with a raucous storm of croaking. Those people who talked about the calm and peace of Mother Nature and being out in the bayou were full of it. There was plenty of noise, but the good kind. It almost filled in the silence between him and Luc.

Luc rubbed a hand over his head. “We’re a bunch of sorry asses. We don’ even have the girl.”

That was true. She’d walked on Luc. Fuck. Maybe she’d walked on both of them. He’d have to catch up with her to find out, wouldn’t he? Technically, if she was giving them their weeks back-to-back, his started tonight.

“We both have to ask her.”

“
Oui
. It doesn’t matter for shit if we like each other if Gianna’s not on board with the plan.”

“Glad to hear it.” Gianna’s voice. Coming from the dock below as Dre helped her out of a boat neither he nor Luc had seen coming. That was the problem with feelings and discussing them—they blinded you to everything else.

She smiled at them, a tentative, not-quite-sure smile, and his heart turned over.

~*~

Gianna had made it to her house, but floating around the place had only underscored how empty her life was. Although she’d spotted various Pack members keeping an eye on her house, she had all the space in the world there, but not the two men she…cared for. Loved? She was pretty certain that was the direction her heart was headed in.

Picking and choosing between the two of them couldn’t be as impossible as it seemed, right? One of these two guys had to be perfect for her, and yet…she wanted it all. So she’d driven out to Port Leon, found Dre, and come here. To see them both, to see where these feelings could take her.

The two pieces of her heart were sprawled on the bench in front of Luc’s house, shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing a beer. Not quite the mental image her imagination had spun up, but maybe she should have expected it. They moved apart, however, as she got closer, and Cruz patted the empty space between them. She took it, sinking into their heat and closeness. For a long time, no one spoke. The bayou got quieter and darker, the stars coming out overhead, while the occasional silverfish flip-flopped out of the water, took a look around the unfamiliar world above water, and dove back beneath the surface.

Cruz spoke first. “I’d still like that week you offered me.”

More silence followed. Luc didn’t say
no
, didn’t counter with an offer of his own. Then he reached for her hand, turning it palm up and placing something cool and round in it. A ring.

“I got this for you,” he said and she looked down at the ring in her hand, closing her fingers. It was old, with a delicate beauty and a patina of age. “It belonged to one of the princesses in the French court.”

“Not a queen?” she asked, trying to hold back unexpected tears.

“I didn’t think you’d wan’ a ring from Marie Antoinette. She didn’t get her happy endin’. But I was hopin’ we could.”

“The three of us? Or just you and me?”

“I love you.” He puts the words out there, plain and simple. Blunt.

She turned the ring over in her palm. It was so pretty and it represented so much.

“We’re not sure how to make this work,” Luc continued.

“But we wan’ to,” Cruz added, sounding both determined and forthright. “
Boo
, you got to know what you mean to both of us. I’m late to this party and Luc found you first, but that doesn’t mean I don’ feel every bit as strongly as he does. You’re a special woman and I love you.”

He plucked the ring out of her hand, sliding it onto her ring finger and rubbing his callused thumb over her palm. Easing the tension out.

“But you still want a week alone with me.”

“I wan’ a week for us, for you to get to know me. I wan’ a shot at the whole emotional enchilada. You lovin’ me and me lovin’ you.”

Luc’s arm circled her shoulders. “We’re wolves,
shug
. We’re territorial. It’s not nice and I can’t dress it up for you. My wolf, he’s not one for sharin’, but if Cruz here matters to you, I’ll be doin’ the best I can to let him in.”

Cruz nodded. “This is about what
you
wan’.”

Heat blossomed in her heart, warmth and caring for these two men who were working it out. Because they
loved
her. She reached for both of them, pulling them in close.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes to both of you. To all of us.”

Hers. Theirs
. Wherever this journey took them, they’d be going together.