Forever in the Past and Forever in the Future

Chapter 3

Bronx’s POV

“Kas, Baby, are you sure there’s nothing I can say to talk you out of this? I really feel like you need more time before we try this again.” I block the door to our apartment with my hands raised helplessly. She’s still upset from Sunday, which is very out of character for her. She is usually pretty forgiving and wants to talk through things as soon as she is feeling less troubled, but she has kept the bedroom door locked all night for the past several nights and this morning, didn’t come out until she was completely dressed and ready to go. I know it’s a useless plea, but I have to at least try to stop my mate from getting hurt again. “Yes, I’m sure, Bronx. Lex and I are ready this time,” Kas says defiantly, crossing her arms in front o f her chest, “Now let’s go, we’re going to be late.” Yeah. She’s still mad. 1 I sigh, and rub my hands on my face in frustration before letting them drop heavily and moving out of the way so she can leave. I can tell from her demeanor Lex is still influencing her. If that’s the case, nothing I say is going to make a difference. “This is bullshit, Bronx,” Saint growls, “Why does she want to do this so badly?” “She wants to prove herself to the pack, and she thinks this is how,” I explain to him, “The way we treated her the other day doesn’t help, Saint.” (1) “Well, I don’t care how determined she is…or how cute she’s when she’s mad.

I’m not rolling over like a damn puppy for this,” he huffs. His tone is antagonistic and playful at the same time. “I don’t expect you to roll over. In fact, we need to keep trying to stop her,” I reassure him. “Wait. Really?” He sounds surprised. “Yeah, think about it. If she’s able to do this, then what’s next? She won’t stop. Sometimes we need to protect her from herself, Saint.” “Sometimes you’re not as much of a dummy as I think you are,” he muses. 1 When I open the door, Kas’s personal guards, James and Marco, are already standing in the hall, ready to escort her. They give me a respectful nod, then pull her forward so they can speak with her privately. Honestly, she doesn’t really need guards anymore. She can take care of herself if she needs to, but trouble has a tendency to find her, so it gives me peace of mind knowing they have her back. James and Marco are two of my best warriors. James specializes in hand to hand combat and Marco is a master marksman. They both served with me in the military, so I know how capable and fearless they both are. I had assigned them to guard Kas since a week after she came to our pack. Back then, she needed them to protect her. Now she relies on them to keep her fighting skills sharp. In the past year, they have gone from teaching her how to defend

herself to training her to beat me in a sparring match. Kas isn’t just my mate and Luna of the Blood River pack.

She is also a goddess. That isn’t just me praising her. I mean, she’s my little goddess, but that’s only when we’re alone, if you get what I’m saying. But when I tell you she’s also a goddess, I’m talking about the literal sense of the word. Her mother is the Moon Goddess, Selene. Yeah, that Moon Goddess. Kas is one of fifty daughters called the Menae. Don’t get me wrong, Kas had a really rough life growing up. She was raised as a slave who was severely abused by her old pack. I was lucky I found her when I did. She probably wouldn’t have survived much longer. She didn’t know who or what she actually was until her seventeenth birthday when Lex woke up and told her. To be honest, for as much research as we have done and as much outside help as we have gotten, we’re still trying to figure out exactly who she is. My sister Lenora and Marco’s mate, Musu, have a special assignment through my security company to find Kas’s forty-nine sisters. I get to the training field after warmups and join in on a cardio workout. Afterwards, the trainer breaks us up into smaller groups to work on various techniques. I work with some of the high school juniors and seniors who are getting pretty big.

They need someone to show them how to leverage their body weight against opponents. I’m six feet six inches tall and two hundred and sixty pounds, so I’m the best person to teach them. I look across the field and see Kas working with kids who just turned twelve and allowed to start their training. She is only five feet three inches tall and about a hundred and twenty pounds, so they are close to her size. They are working on basic defensive stances and proper form. 1 “Bronx, some of those pups are bigger than Kas. Are you sure she’s safe?” Saint worries. “Oh, now you’re worried about her? Saint, she can take Milo and Reggie down in a two on one. She’s fine.” I roll my eye at his fussing. The whistle blows, and it’s time for grappling. The matches start with the junior warriors and progress to guards and, finally, ranked pack members. Kas and I stand next to the ring watching match after match. She stands a step further away from me than she usually does, silently showing her irritation with me. I can feel the tension in her growing as each match passes. The best match of the morning is my sister, Lenora, who is my Beta Milo’s mate and Musu, who used to be the acting female Beta in her old pack before becoming mates with Marco, so it is a Beta vs Beta match. They are both very competitive and excellent fighters. Lenora barely wins by locking on a painful-looking submission hold. The two women limp out of the ring, laughing and joking with each other. I notice Lenora grab a towel to wipe blood from a cut on Musu’s chin. She has become so much more motherly to everyone since my niece Codi was born. Now, for the moment I’ve been dreading. It’s finally time for

me to spar with Kas. Saint and I absolutely do not want to do this, especially after coming to terms with the fact that I shouldn’t have let him grab her yesterday. He says he understands what he did is wrong, but he doesn’t sound very remorseful about it. 1 In the past ten months, Kas has fought me four times but has lost every time. She has gotten better at each match, but she still isn’t able to achieve her goal. After each defeat, she gets more angry and frustrated. When she gets emotional like that, a purple aura glows around her body. Just one of her many supernatural abilities. Our pack is used to it by now, but it can still be a bit startling if you aren’t expecting it. While it may not sound like Kas fighting me is a fair fight based on our size difference, but trust m e. it is. I could describe her fighting style as a technician, where mine is more brute force. Thanks t o James and Marco, what she lacks in size, she makes up for in skill and technique. James even mentioned once that he thought she would make a good assassin. Over my dead body. Not that she has it in her to kill someone, anyway. She saw someone get shot dead in front of her once. She didn’t handle it very well. “Alright, Alpha. Luna. You both know the rules. You can use wolf strength, but no shifting, no biting, no clawing. Oh and no powers, Luna,” the trainer announces as Kas and I both step into the ring, “Match ends with three count pin, submission, or knockout.” I take off my eye patch and hand it to my Gamma Reggie. I rarely like to take it off in front of everyone, but with James educating her, everything is a weapon. Kas would definitely find a way t o use it against me. I lost my eye in a battle with a witch about six years ago when I was in the military. She carved it out with a cursed silver knife. She also paralyzed me and cut out a chunk of my liver. The tip of the knife broke off inside me. The witch probably would have killed me if it hadn’t been for Milo and Reggie. Even after several surgeries, there is some silver embedded so deeply that I have to live with it in my body. It’s not enough to make me sick, but enough that my liver will never fully heal and I will never be at one hundred percent strength. 12. The trainer blows the whistle and steps out of the ring. Kas takes a defensive posture, making her petite frame that much more compact. Her eyes flash black as her wolf Lex comes forward, then back to their regular bright violet, practically glowing with energy. She’s not my beautiful, caring mate right now. She is a cold blooded warrior. An apex predator, locked in on her target. Her sparkly silver hair is in a braided ponytail that bobs back and forth behind her as she lightly side steps just out of my reach. James and Marco call out instructions to her while some of the pack members cheer her on. The entire pack watches us intently. I take my stance and mirror her movements before stepping forward and taking a half-hearted jab at her, knowing full well she will easily dodge it. As I lean forward, Kas lands a series of jabs and a knee into my ribs. I hop back to avoid the full brunt of the blows. After a few more minutes of me not taking the match seriously, she stands up straight and glares a t me. “What? You done already, Baby?” I ask with a smirk, standing upright as well. “Fight

me, Bronx,” she snarls at me. “I am fighting you, Kas.” She steps forward and pushes hard against my chest, forcing me to take half a step back. I feel Saint taking notice now. “You told me if I beat Reggie and Milo, I could fight you. I beat them both at the same time. I have proven myself worthy of this match. So quit screwing around and FIGHT ME,” she yells, giving me another hard shove. “Knock it off, Kas,” I growl through gritted teeth. I can feel Saint trying to claw to the surface as his patience crumbles. He will not tolerate being disrespected, especially in front of our pack. Even if i t is from our frustrated mate. . A low rumbling growl comes from Kas as a purple aura starts to glow around her body. I cross my arms and stand my ground against her growing tantrum. I love my mate more than anything, but she is only nineteen and can be a bit immature at times. Just like the impatient Alpha warrior wolf I share a body with. “Don’t be a damn COWARD, BRONX!” she screams, her purple aura shining brightly now, and slaps me across the face. In that moment, Saint loses any semblance of restraint he was holding on to and pushes forward, trying to take control of my body. I struggle against him while trying to keep my composure with Kas. She notices something is wrong and steps back slightly. “Absolutely fucking not,” he snarls as I feel myself being yanked to the back of my mind. I can’t tell if he is talking to me or about Kas’s actions. Completely disoriented by the sudden switch in control, I watch helplessly as he takes over and lunges at her with an earth shaking growl. It’s been over a year since Saint lost his temper to the point where I can’t control him. I hurt people I care about and did things I will regret for the rest of my life. The details on what happened aren’t important right now. What is important is that I have been on medication and in therapy to help keep him calm ever since. Kas doesn’t seem to be surprised by Saint taking over and lunging at her. Instead, she braces herself like she was expecting it. In the split second it takes to reach her, I realize I have played into her strategy for the match. She used my wolf against me. She’s so damn smart. 1 As I grab under her armpits, she laces her hands behind my neck and pulls backwards. She arches her back and, using a combination of my momentum and her body weight, she shifts us to her right side, pulling us into a roll. We hit the mat with a hard thud. As we land, I feel an odd shift in the surrounding energy. A force that is not me involuntarily pulls Saint back and I’m suddenly in control of my body again. As my body comes to a stop out of the roll, I realize Kas is no longer gripping my neck. In fact, she isn’t in my arms at all. 1 I lift myself up and look around, but I don’t see her anywhere in the ring. The pack members around the ring look confused. As they realize she’s gone, their eyes go wide and people start murmuring to each other. “Kas?” I pull myself up onto one knee. Is this some sort of trick? I can’t sense her emotions and I can’t smell her fresh rain and lilac scent. She’s gone. What the Hell is happening? “Kas?” I yell more urgently. Kas has many abilities, but disappearing into thin air isn’t one of them. Marco and James both jump into the ring, sniffing the air,

searching for their Luna. “Where did she go?” I look at the two guards, trying to convince myself this is some sort of trick they taught her. “James, where is she?” “I-I don’t know, Alpha,” he looks around in disbelief. The people around the ring all look frightened now. “Well, she couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air!” I growl at him dangerously. “Alpha, this ain’t something we taught her,” Marco explains, still looking around frantically. I have never seen Marco panic before, but I think he is right on the verge. “Don’t just stand there! Split up and find her,” I bark at the dumbfounded faces around me, “She has to be here somewhere.” “Yes, Alpha,” the entire pack replies in unison and immediately starts splitting into search groups. “Search every inch of the territory until you find her! Musu, Lenora, if we don’t find her within half an hour, collect your things and meet me in the research library,” I order before turning away to help lead one of the search groups.