Out Of The Shadows; Rise Of The Fierce Luna
Alyssa wanted just one thing in life, to be loved by her family and her mate but after a near-death experience, she realized they don't care about her and they never will. Her family disowned her and banished her from the pack, her mate rejected her and mated with her sister who set her up and almost got her killed.
"They hate me for no reason! They don't want me and now I am going to show them! I am going to make them regret ever being mean to me."
Determined to make those who hate and want her dead pay, she goes on a journey of self-discovery with the help of Jace Carter, a powerful alpha who at first just wanted to use Alyssa to get revenge on the Dark Blood pack for what they did to his sister but found himself drawn to her.
"Be my Luna and I will stand by you and make those who hurt you pay."
His offer was too tempting for Alyssa to say no even though she knew better than to trust Jace especially because of the feud that started between their packs after one of her brothers hurt his sister.
"The enemy of my enemies is my friend,"
Alyssa is determined and nothing can stop her. With the power that comes with being Luna of the Wildheart pack, her full potential is finally unleashed! Healer? Seer? Mind reader? She got powers that she didn't even know of and one by one, she discovers them.
Now her family and pack want her. "Alyssa, you are a member of this pack, you have to come back to the Dark Blood pack."
Too late...
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Chapter 5
Alyssa
I didn't expect Jace to walk towards me, and I certainly didn't expect him to pull me into a hug. I froze when he wrapped his arms around me.
"Good choice."
He let out in excitement as he hugged me tighter, but I couldn't even move or say anything because my nostril was suddenly filled with the scent of him.
It would have been normal if I could smell other shifters, but Jace is the first wolf I have smelled his scent in a long time.
Something happened when I was younger, while I was still with the rogues who kidnapped me. They didn't want me to be able to smell my pack members and find my way home, so they did something to me that removed my ability to smell other shifters.
The only reason I was able to reunite with my family was because of the amulet that my grandmother had given to me as soon as I was born.
"Why can I suddenly smell?"
I whispered to myself. It was as if his hug broke a spell that I had been trying to break for years.
He let me go after a while and smiled at me. I didn't know what else to do as my mind was wandering everywhere, trying to make sense of what just happened, so I just forced a smile in return because I didn't want to be rude.
"I promise you that you won't regret it! I will help you become the most powerful Luna ever."
I nodded without a word because I was still dazed by both the hug and the fact that I could now smell.
"Say something!"
He let out when he realized that I wasn't speaking.
"You have a nice manly smell."
I blurted out the first words that came to my mouth without thinking and regretted it as soon as the words were out. Jace smirked in satisfaction.
"I didn't mea---"
He placed a finger over my mouth to cut me off.
"Don't deny it. We need some chemistry between us if you are going to pretend to be my mate."
I blinked in confusion.
"I have to be your mate?"
Talking with his hand over my lips made my tongue touch the finger he held over my lips.
"Yes. Not real, though. I don't need a real mate."
My eyes narrowed on him when he said that.
"Will I be a fake Luna?"
Since the mating wasn't real, then maybe the Luna thing won't be real.
"No! That's real. The only reason I said we won't be real mates is because we won't be doing stuff that real mates do."
"Making love?"
I asked because that was the only thing that came to mind.
"Yes, that. Unless you want us to---"
"No, I don't want that!"
I let out, and my face became red with embarrassment.
"No need to be so hostile. No pressure. You will be the real Luna, and it won't be temporary either."
I liked the part where he said it wasn't temporary.
"We will live together for one month after which I will introduce you to the pack as Luna."
One whole month with him?
"Just the two of us?"
I asked him and he laughed.
"Yes, why? Are you scared that I might jump you? Don't be scared! I am a gentleman and consent matters to me."
Our eyes met, and my heart skipped a beat. I blinked and looked down. My eyes caught something that made me gasp.
"My amulet!"
I let out when I realized something was wrong with it. It looked different. It looked fake.
"What happened?"
I looked at Jace and pulled off the amulet that my father had given back to me at the healing center.
"It's fake! This isn't it! He switched it and gave me a fake."
I let out and fought back angry tears. I didn't want to cry in front of him.
"Who switched it?"
It took a moment to answer his question because I had to calm myself down.
"The man who is supposed to be my father."
I explained to him about the amulet and its importance to me.
"Don't look so down. We will get it back."
He assured me.
"No, I will go get it. I don't want to drag you into it."
I told him. They told me to never return to that pack, but I won't listen. If they want me to leave for good, then they have to give me back what's mine.
"As your alpha and your mate, it's my duty to take care of you."
My heart skipped a beat when he mentioned the mate thing, but I had to remind myself that it's all fake. He isn't really my mate. He doesn't want a real mate.
"I get what you are trying to say, but leave this to me. I have to do this myself."
I told him. He looked like he was going to argue, but decided against it.
"Okay, I will let you do what you want, but if you need my help. Let me know. Anyway, you should rest. If you need food, just use the intercom and someone will serve you."
Jace explained.
"Okay, thank you."
I said and was about to leave when he spoke again.
"You will have to take some lessons from my mother. She retired as Luna once my father stopped being alpha, and I took over. She knows everything you need to know to be the heart of our pack, and she will teach you."
Even though I didn't like the idea of meeting his mom or his family because I am scared that they might not like me and tell their son to send me away, I pushed the fear aside.
The first trait of a Luna should be fearlessness.
"As long as I don't get treated terribly, I am willing to learn."
I told him.
"My mom is kind. The pack members are nice too. You will be welcomed."
He assured me as he followed me out of his office and pointed in the direction that I was supposed to go. As I walked to the room, even though I didn't look back, I could feel his eyes on me, and it made me self-conscious. Once I entered the room, I closed the door behind me and rested my back against it.
I dragged my finger through my hair as I tried to make sense of the last hour. I went from not having a place to go except the orphanage to having a big room to myself.
"I have a mate. I am going to be Luna."
The mate part was a sham, but the Luna part felt fake even though it was real. I couldn't imagine myself as Luna.
"You have to accept it! You already said yes! You can't take it back."
I told myself as I went to lay on the bed. I closed my eyes, but opened them again when I saw fire.
I haven't been able to sleep without medications since I woke up from a coma. I reached into my bag and pulled out the medicine that I was given, which helps me sleep. It was bitter, but I drank the dose.
I felt hungry, but I didn't want to call for food, so I just lay still in the big bed and plotted how I would get my real amulet back.
"I will go there tomorrow and I won't leave until I get my real amulet back."
I promised myself. I already know it won't be easy, but I will do everything to get it back. That's the only thing I have of my grandmother.
And the only thing that can lead me to my missing brother.
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8.2
At my ten-week ultrasound, I was supposed to be celebrating the future of the Falcone family. I was Isabella Falcone, wife to the most powerful Don in the south.
But when the nurse called my name, the man who stood up beside his pregnant mistress was my husband.
In the sterile silence of that waiting room, he chose her. He later confessed he was being blackmailed by her family-a weakness that was a death sentence in our world. That night, he moved his mistress into our home, into my bedroom, and locked me away like a prisoner in the staff quarters. He wasn't imprisoning his wife; he was guarding an asset. He needed the legitimate heir I carried to save his crumbling empire.
His betrayal was absolute when his own mother and my adoptive parents arrived while he was away. They forced me to sign divorce papers, then told me they were taking me to a clinic. His mother pulled out a gun and pointed not at my head, but at my stomach.
"We're terminating this complication," she said coldly.
As they dragged me from the house, my world went dark. But through the haze, I saw a fleet of black cars blocking the gate. An army of men poured out, led by a face I had only ever seen in a photograph. Days earlier, locked in my room, I made a single phone call to the only man more powerful than my husband: my biological father, the head of the Chicago Outfit. And he had come to collect his daughter.
8.6
I found the instruction manual for my own abandonment on a dark web forum while my husband scrubbed the scent of another woman from his skin in the bathroom.
The thread was titled "Burden Disposal Strategies."
The user, RatKing88, asked a simple question:
"How do I dump a loyal wife without triggering a war with the old guard? My parents love her more than me."
The replies were brutal. They suggested faking a dangerous mission, forcing a paper divorce for 'asset protection,' and then disappearing with the cash.
Moments later, Luca walked out of the bathroom smelling of cheap vanilla perfume and panic.
He grabbed my hands, his palms sweating, and spun a clumsy lie about a "Code Red" mission in Sicily.
"It is going to be a bloodbath, Sienna," he whispered, his eyes wide with manic energy. "We need to divorce on paper. It is the only way to protect you from the vendettas."
I felt a cold rage settle in my gut.
He wasn't a soldier going to war. He was a rat running off with his mistress and the family savings, leaving his stroke-ridden father and our daughter with nothing.
He planned to wait for his parents to die so he could return for the inheritance.
He thought I was just a naive, caged canary who would wait forever.
But he forgot that canaries are the first to smell poison in the air.
I didn't scream. I didn't expose him.
Instead, I looked him in the eye with carefully manufactured sorrow and signed the papers.
He thought he was escaping to freedom with a bag full of stolen cash.
He didn't realize he had just voluntarily abdicated his throne.
And I was going to take it.
9.3
I was the Mafia Princess of the Wolfe family, engaged to Daniel Marino to unite our powerful syndicates.
But during a hit at a speakeasy, we were both gunned down.
As my chest was torn apart by a Tommy gun, I looked at my fiancé, expecting him to reach for me.
Instead, there was no despair in his eyes, only a twisted, selfish terror.
We both died on that floor, but the devil sent us back to the day of my hospital discharge.
Instead of finalizing our wedding, Daniel stormed into my father’s study.
"I won't marry Isabella. I want Celine."
He demanded to break our engagement, claiming he wouldn't be collateral damage in a Wolfe family war, and declared his true love for my sweet, orphaned adopted sister.
He thought shedding me would save his life, completely unaware that the assassination was orchestrated by his precious Celine.
In my past life, I didn't know she was a rat who sold our patrol routes to rivals and plotted my murder just to take my place.
If I hadn't died once, I would have believed her manufactured tears and comforted her.
But this time, I remembered everything.
I buried the vengeful woman I had become and let my face pale as I pushed open the heavy oak doors.
"Daniel? You... you want Celine?" I whispered, forcing a heartbroken tear to fall.
This time, I would play the fragile victim, just so I could orchestrate their absolute ruin.
9.6
She came to St. Jude's to be invisible.
He made that impossible.
Elara Vance doesn't speak. Not because she can't, because the world stopped being safe enough to speak to. She's brilliant, she's careful, and she has survived worse than an elite private school full of students who treat cruelty like a sport.
She just needs two semesters. That's all.
Julian Reed was supposed to be background noise. The soccer star. The golden boy. The one everyone watches and no one really knows. She was not supposed to catch his attention. He was not supposed to keep hers.
But when Julian steps in to help her and accidentally paints a target on her back, Elara discovers that some enemies don't just want to win. They want to destroy. And some protectors don't know when to stop.
She doesn't need saving.
She needs to get through senior year without falling apart.
She's failing at both.
Enemies in the hallway. Secrets in the group chat. A stepmother at home who calls it honesty when she cuts. And a boy in the front row who keeps sliding notes backward and saying things like I pay what I owe like he actually means it.
Elara has one rule: don't let anyone in.
Julian Reed is very bad for her rules.
7.1
I never wanted any part in this. But I have no choice. With a deep sigh, I force down an invisible lump in my throat, looking up at the priest.
I press my fingers tighter into the flower I am holding, hoping it hides how much I am shaking. Dreading the words the priest is about to utter.
"Do you, Ariella Cecilia Boone, take Dermos Salvatore to be your lawfully wedded husband?" The priest asks.
I blink.
I badly want to say it, badly want to scream that I am not Ariella Cecilia Boone.
My lips tremble as I force the truth down my throat, "Yes, I do." I murmur, my voice a little over a whisper.
~~~~
Ariel Hannah Boone didn't know what life had in store for her when she woke up on her twin sister's wedding day, only to find out her sister had run away.
She went into panic when her mother insisted she take her place because Dermos Salvatore was no man to joke with.
Dermos was the most feared Don in the whole of Sicily, one who killed without care. A blood thirsty murderer with no remorse.
In an attempt to save her family from his wrath, she takes her sister's place at the wedding.
Pain, suffering, and betrayal are all she knows the moment she became his. Secrets begin to unveil as she realises her family isn't what it seems.
And when whispers of her sister's disappearance reach her, she finds out the truth.
He never wanted Ariella; it had always been her.
Ariel has to choose between a love built on lies or betraying her sister and family.
She was his bride, and he was her prison, yet he would never let her go.
8.3
I stood at the altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the daughter of New York’s most feared Don, ready to lower myself to marry a common soldier.
Then, a toddler in the front pew shrieked, "Daddy."
Liam didn't squeeze my hand for reassurance. He dropped it like it was a branding iron. In front of five hundred of the criminal elite, he ran down the aisle, scooping up his secret child and the mistress who had been blackmailing him.
He left me standing there, humiliated and alone.
Three months later, the "Jilted Princess" title still clung to me. Yet, Liam had the audacity to bring her to my father's birthday gala.
Sarah, wearing a dress far too tight and a smug smile, cornered me in the middle of the ballroom. She wanted to twist the knife.
"He hates you, you know," she screamed, loud enough for the Dons and Capos to hear. "He says sleeping with you was like sleeping with a statue. He chose real love! He chose a family!"
The room went deathly silent. Liam looked at me with pity, thinking he had won. He thought I was broken. He thought I was alone.
I took a slow sip of my champagne and set the glass down.
"I am not alone, Sarah," I said calmly.
I turned toward the shadows near the entrance.
"Ethan?" I called out.
The crowd parted instantly for the scarred, lethal man who stepped forward—The Ghost of Chicago, the most feared Underboss in Europe.
He walked over and wrapped a heavy, possessive arm around my waist.
"I’d like you to meet my husband," I told a horrified Liam. "And our daughter is waiting upstairs."