WILD

thirty three

Lorena woke up in her bed with a pounding headache. Her vision was blurry, and she didn't remember much of what happened to put her here. She looked around at the empty room and bit her lip, wondering why everything was so quiet.

She swung her legs around and stood up, immediately regretting it. The room started spinning and she fell onto her knees, resting her forehead onto the floor.

She felt a rush of heat course through her body and almost immediately started to sweat. She groaned and rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling and just fully experiencing and assessing the pain she was in.

Suddenly, her bedroom door opened and Orion came rushing in. He saw her on the floor and he gasped, picking her up and gently placing her on the bed.

"Lorena, don't move too much, you have to heal completely before you leave the bed."

He pulled a chair up next to her bed and grabbed her hand, rubbing his thumb over her smooth skin. "How are you feeling?"

Lorena gave him a confused look. "What happened to me? And what happened to your chest?" She reached out and lightly ran her fingertips over the scar that had formed over Orion's collarbone and down to his chest. She felt her eyes water and her bottom lip tremble. "W-who did this?"

Orion shook his head, trying to calm her. "Lorena, all is well. Listen, you were thrown off of a building by some man in a black mask but landed in the bushes. They cushioned the fall, but you were still severely injured. Alpha Warden, or my uncle I guess, tried to kill me so that he could enlarge his pack. That's where I got the scar from. He almost killed me, but you stepped in."

Lorena looked at him in disbelief. "How? How do I not remember this?"

Orion shrugged. "I mean, you fell off of a building. Some memory loss is to be expected, no?"

Lorena bit her lip and sat up, resting her back on the headboard. "Orion, I lied to you earlier. About why I didn't want us to have sex."

Orion felt some sense of validation since he had suspected something was off, but he also didn't like the feeling of being lied to by his mate. "Okay. What was the reason?"

She couldn't look him in the eye. "Well, at first I thought it was because I wasn't ready for it, but then I thought it was because I hated the fact that that bitch, Gen, got to have you first. Now I realize that I'm scared and I don't want to because I hate the fact that everytime I go into heat I always have to come to you to help me, and for some reason that bothers me. It might be all of those things though, so I don't know..."

Orion sat quietly for a few moments and just stared at his beautiful and confused Luna.

"Don't be foolish, Lorena."

Lorena's head snapped up and she looked at him in shock. She was not expecting that response. She wanted to say something back immediately, but Orion clearly wasn't finished scolding her. His jaw was set in determination and it was almost as if his eyes were telling her not to argue with him or even look at him a certain way until he was done speaking.

She looked down at her lap and he pushed her chin back up so that he could see her eyes. "Look at me when I'm talking to you so that I know you're actually listening to what I have to say."

She looked him directly in the eyes, almost unable to refuse his order. Her wolf recognized his voice as the only voice to be followed without question. She struggled with it still.

Orion rolled his eyes. "You are being ridiculous. I can understand that you feel unsure of if you want to have sex with me or not, that's fine. I respect that. But you are the Luna, my Luna, period. If I had wanted to be with Gen, which was an option, I would've been with her. End of story. Technically, I didn't have to pick any wolf in that arena, but I chose you. I chose you. You don't have to worry about anyone else or how good she was or if you will compare to her because you can't. She's her. You're you. And I want you."

Lorena looked up at Orion in awe. She liked what she was hearing, and dare she say it, she liked the fact that he took the time to somewhat berate her for thinking otherwise. She was always in her head too much and it ruined everything.

"And another thing, I know you think you don't need an alpha to care for you, but it's nature. Since I've marked you, you belong to me and I belong to you. When you're in heat like this, I'm supposed to take care of you. I promise that if you submit even a little bit like you're supposed to, things will go a lot smoother for you."

Lorena looked back down at her hands resting in her lap. "Everything is happening so fast and I can't keep up. I haven't even been here for two entire weeks."

"Just relax and go with the flow. I promise everything will start to make sense and you'll be able to settle in. You've been doing a pretty great job already."

She nodded. "Okay, Orion." He nodded in approval and grabbed her hand, giving it a light squeeze. "So what happens now?"

Orion shook his head. "Well, I let my uncle go. Hopefully he doesn't try anything like that again. If he does, though, I'll be ready."

Lorena was confused as to why he didn't just kill Alpha Warden immediately. That would have solved the problem much quicker and for good. "Where's Vera?"

"I'm sorry, Lorena. That Sean guy took her."

Lorena sat up with worry. "He's going to end up killing her! He hurts her, Orion."

Orion nodded. "I know. There wasn't much I could do at the moment, but I know where his pack's territory is. We can find her and get her out of there, but you need to worry about yourself right now, okay? Work on feeling better and then we'll talk about that."

She nodded and he stood up, kissing her on the forehead. "Get some more rest, alright? The more you sleep, the faster you heal."

Orion turned to leave, but Lorena grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks. "I want to say thank you."

He frowned. "For what?"

She shrugged. "Caring for me."

He smiled and nodded to her. "Get some rest."

He lett the room and Lorena sank further down into the bed and shut her eyes, quickly drifting off into sleep.