Her Noble Owl (Marked By The Moon Book 4)

by Kestra Pingree

  She didn’t understand him at all.

  Stella sat upright and glanced out the window overlooking the snow below. She was on the second floor and could see a clear view of the untouched snow and tree clusters not too far away from the cabin. A day ago, that scenery looked cold. It looked like a death sentence. Today it was beautiful, a glittering white wonderland. She hated to admit it, but Cedric had gotten to her too.

  A smile found its way onto her lips. Was this too much to hope for? Was it too much to ask to have a life like this after everything that happened with Tyler?

  Stella was about to close her eyes again when movement outside of the window caught her eye. There was a figure darting out from some trees. She focused on it, and her heart stopped. It was a wolf and not just any wolf. Tyler. His primarily black fur was a blight on the snow, and the sun lit up the brown blotches of his thinning coat. She tried to remember how to breathe as her skin crawled and her heart stalled.

  How? How had Tyler found them?

  Panicked, Stella jumped out of the bath, bringing a flood of water with her and dousing the polished rock floor. Her feet slapped in the puddles as she ran to the window and placed her trembling hands on the glass that fogged up at the heat of her touch. She rubbed away at the condensation with a squeak and pressed her face against the glass, but Tyler wasn’t there. She searched the snow for tracks. She couldn’t see any.

  “No,” she whimpered. “I can’t go back. Moon, don’t make me go back.”

  She grabbed her head, tangling her fingers in her wet hair as she dropped to the cold, hard floor below her. A sob escaped her lips as she tried to push Tyler out of her head, but she couldn’t do it. Every time he defiled her came back to haunt her in a repeated vicious memory cycle. She didn’t know if she would ever truly escape him.

  Cedric was seated in the living room, looking at that picture of his wife and daughter again. He touched their faces, memorized and savored their features, recited in his head what he was going to say when he saw them again. Or tried too. He didn’t know what he was going to say. It kept changing.

  Soon. Soon. Soon.

  So badly he wanted to make his little family work. If Terry would still have him, he would do his best to love her and their daughter. He would do his best to know them, to make them happy. He would hold on to his daughter even if Terry didn’t want to work things out with him. He was determined to have a decent relationship with Terry either way. She was the mother of his child after all, and she was a good mother while he was a poor excuse for a father.

  Cedric jerked his head toward the stairs when he heard a door slam. He heard wet feet pounding on wood, and then he saw Stella descending the stairs at an alarming rate. She practically jumped down the entire staircase in nothing but a towel she was holding together with one hand.

  Cedric’s heart rate sped up. He jumped off the couch when Stella ran to a window and pressed her nose against the glass. What was she looking at? He tried to see around her, but he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just snow and trees.

  Then Stella ran for the front door. She turned the knob and flung it open. Then she ran out into the snow, soaking wet, in nothing more than a towel.

  “Stella!” Cedric shouted as he sped after her.

  He grabbed her left arm before she could get far. His mark burned for an instant before she slipped out of his grasp thanks to the water making her skin slick. Cedric huffed and wrapped both of his arms around her waist. He hauled her back inside kicking and grunting as he shut the door behind them.

  Suddenly, she stopped fighting him. She just stood there frozen and shivered. Her lips were purple. He grabbed the coat she used earlier from off the coat rack and draped it over her shivering shoulders. Hot blooded or not, she could have gotten herself really sick pulling a stunt like that.

  Cedric picked up a low mutter of words spilling from her lips, but he couldn’t make them out even with his excellent hearing. Maybe Stella wasn’t saying words at all. She squirmed her way out of his arms again, and this time he let her. His back was to the door, so she wouldn’t be going out there again. He followed her as she walked down the hall. She knocked on the closed bathroom door Russel was behind.

  “You okay, baby?” she asked.

  “Yeah! I want to stay in a little longer if that’s okay,” he replied with a splash of water.

  “Okay.”

  Cedric folded his arms and followed behind Stella patiently as she made her way back to the living room. He sat down on the couch, trying to be as passive as possible. Stella didn’t follow. She stood there in front of him with a vacant expression, her eyes void of starlight. She shrugged the coat off her shoulders and dropped her towel to the floor.

  Any air in Cedric’s lungs expelled in a rush. Stella was every bit as beautiful as he had imagined, wide hips, full breasts that somehow kept their size despite so much of her being skin and bones. All she needed was some meat put back on her bones, and she’d be absolutely flawless and healthy, but he couldn’t simply appreciate her body and think about his persistent hard-on because something else caught his attention. She had scars. Everywhere. The only wounds he saw before were her new bruises. This was so much worse.

  Most of the scars were light, thanks to her wolf shifter healing he was sure, but they were a blatant white against her naturally tan skin. Her ability to heal hadn’t completely removed the marks, and that meant they must have been deep—or it could have been due to a lack of nutrition. She was so skinny. He could see her ribs poking out, the tiny bulge of her barely-there stomach that finally got in a good meal this morning. Her lower stomach had the worst scar of all. It was large, a deep painful gash that left an indent in her flesh.

  All words escaped him. He couldn’t do anything but stare. Beautiful Stella had been abused in ways Cedric didn’t want to imagine. All of those scars were bites, except for the one on her stomach. These bites… were they claiming bites? That was what male wolf shifters did when they found a female they wanted for their mate. He bit her during sex. Had she been claimed by a male wolf over and over against her will? His head was spinning.

  “I have been the property of a broken wolf for too long,” she stated. Her voice was flat, and her usual fire was absent. “Russel and I are never going back to that wolf. I’ll do whatever I have to and make sure of that.”

  They had to be claiming bites. He couldn’t know for sure because he wasn’t a wolf and couldn’t smell the bond a bite like that created. He could ask her for clarification, but would she tell? He didn’t know what would set her off and what would put her at ease. It was a constant guessing game with her.

  Abruptly, Stella bent down to grab the towel from off the floor and covered herself back up. She left the coat and went to the stairs. She left Cedric alone and shaken. He glanced at her fleeting form before she completely disappeared from view on the second floor.

  Why had she done that? Was she worried Cedric would throw her and Russel out? Was she worried he’d somehow give them up to this “broken wolf?” Maybe. Maybe not. She showed him her marks so he’d understand how bad of a place she and her son came from without having to give much of an explanation. She didn’t say it, but she was pleading for help.

  Cedric placed his hand on his Lunas Sigil when it started buzzing with energy again. That meant he was on the right track.

  Then it hit him. Blue Pack. Stella and Russel needed Blue Pack. Wolves had a need for that, and Cedric knew for a fact that Nickolas Sipe was a good Alpha. He would take care of these two where this “broken wolf,” had done the opposite. He wondered if broken amounted to Berserker.

  He needed more information and the right moment to bring up the idea about Blue Pack. He needed to make it sound good and present it in a way that wouldn’t send Stella running. If he wasn’t careful, she’d give him a big fat no before she even thought about the option.

  He sighed. This wasn’t easy, and he had no idea what he was doing.

  Moon, help me. />
  Chapter 9

  STELLA CUDDLED UP NEXT to her son on the same bed they had claimed the night before. They were under the big fluffy comforter. She was surrounded by warmth. Her racing heart had returned to a normal rhythm because everything was right. She had her son safe in her arms. And she was going to keep him that way. He was where she could protect him.

  But protect him from what? Tyler? Cedric? Tyler wasn’t here, and Cedric hadn’t made any aggressive moves. He was… nice.

  Stella ran her fingers through Russel’s hair. She had managed to keep it short despite Tyler giving them next to nothing. She had snagged scissors or knives at times, thinking she’d run them through Tyler’s heart. Turned out all they were ever good for was keeping her boy’s hair short. Besides, the one time she did try to confront Tyler with a knife he made her pay dearly for it.

  At least Russel didn’t have to go through as much hassle as she had to get the mats out of his hair. She hadn’t seen the true sandy blond, almost brown, color of her son’s hair in so long. Her boy was handsome, and to her great relief, he looked more like her than Tyler—not that she would have loved him any less. As strange as it sounded, Russel was the one gift Tyler had given her. Even though his conception, his birth, carried painful memories, she wouldn’t trade her son for anything in the world. She loved him. He was the one that kept her going all this time.

  She kissed the top of his head and squeezed him into her chest. Russel fidgeted out of her tight hold and turned around to face her.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “No,” Stella replied as she hugged him tightly once again. She rested her chin on the top of his head, burying Russel’s face into her neck.

  “Mom,” he complained, pushing away from her. “I can’t breathe.”

  Reluctantly, Stella let him go. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before rolling over to his side of the bed, back facing her. He was no longer close enough for her to plaster him against her. Despite this being the bed for a boy once Russel’s age, either Cedric or his brother at one point based on the model airplanes and boy clothes in the closet, the bed was plenty big enough for the two of them to sleep without touching. Luxury, luxury, luxury.

  Luxury felt cold and impersonal sometimes.

  Stella sighed and felt a little hurt that Russel wanted his own space. He was quickly opening up, putting all of their past worries behind them. He was acting like a boy his age now. She didn’t know a lot about boys growing up since she was the only pup in her pack, but when she was his age, she definitely wasn’t sleeping with her parents. This was normal. This was how it was supposed to be. Russel was his own wolf. He needed to grow up and become independent one day. She wanted that for him.

  But she also didn’t want to be left alone. Maybe it wasn’t Russel who needed comforting, but she did.

  She was stable now, but she was shaken by the thought that Tyler could be anywhere near them. So, she reached out her hand for Russel and rested it on his left forearm where his Lunas Sigil warmed up at her touch. Russel wordlessly shifted to his back and allowed her to comfortably keep her hand there. Her thoughtful boy understood she needed something, a little touch, to feel safe. He didn’t complain. His eyes were closed, and he was already breathing deeply.

  Eventually, Stella managed to nod off, but she fell into a fretful sleep, playing her worries on repeat. Tyler was there, chasing her, teeth bared. She ran and ran, but he caught up to her. When he leaped for her, ready to tear into her, she jolted awake. She tried to squeeze Russel’s arm to reassure herself she was safe with her son in Cedric’s cabin, but her fingers were gripping the comforter, not her son.

  “Russel?” She whispered.

  He wasn’t there. She sat up and patted all over the covers like a crazy person, like maybe her eyes were deceiving her, but he wasn’t there.

  Panicked, she left the bed in a hurry, tangling herself up in the sheets and comforter. She almost tripped but managed to catch herself, though the blankets on the bed weren’t so fortunate; they were demoted to the floor.

  She left the room, and her sensitive ears picked up voices speaking low. One she knew well, without having to think about it. The tone was young and clear. That one was Russel. The other was a voice she was quickly getting used to, baritone and resonating. That one was Cedric.

  She couldn’t make out what they were talking about, but she didn’t want her son around Cedric unsupervised. She didn’t know him. A good day didn’t mean much. It was a single day.

  She ran up the stairs with light steps and crept forward until she was at Cedric’s door. She was about to burst in on them, but she slowed when she heard Russel say, “Do you have anything that can help my mom sleep? She keeps kicking.” He paused. “She never sleeps good. I thought maybe tonight she would.”

  Stella reached the door and gently pressed her hands to the dark wood. There was a single crack of light shining in the dark hall where she stood. She made it larger when she pushed the door open wider. The first thing she saw was Cedric pulling a shirt over his head. She only saw his torso for an instant, but an instant was enough. His fair skin was beautiful and absolutely flawless, not like hers with all her knotted scars. The hard definition of his muscles created dark shadows that danced across his body as he flexed and moved to bring the shirt over his head. He was covered up in a second, but her body had already turned traitor.

  Heat flared in between Stella’s thighs, and she fidgeted uncomfortably at the thought that someone like Cedric Snow had the power to turn her on. She never thought she would want sex. Not after what Tyler had put her through for years. In her head, she knew she didn’t. She didn’t know why she was having this physical reaction. She didn’t want it.

  “I have some chamomile tea that’ll probably help. My mom was always into teas and natural herbal remedies, so I know a thing or two,” Cedric said.

  That explained the bath.

  Cedric and Russel turned their eyes to Stella as she hovered quietly in the doorway. Russel was pleading with her, his golden-brown eyes begged her to accept this. Her boy was trying to look out for her, but he didn’t know what else to do, so he went to Cedric, an adult male who had pampered them for a day and made them both feel almost normal.

  Russel never had that with Tyler. His own father wanted him dead. His own father saw him as a threat because his father was no father. He was a mindless animal.

  What did her son see in Cedric and what did he expect from him after one day? How had the snowy owl shifter so easily won him over? Because of Lunas? Because Russel wasn’t as broken as she was?

  Stella couldn’t betray her son’s good intentions, so she said, “I’ll take the tea.”

  Russel smiled brightly. Cedric shooed them both out of his room, and they made their way downstairs. They went to the living room first.

  “I’ll put something on the TV,” Cedric said. “Assuming it still works. Everything else does. Russel, look through these DVDs and pick one.”

  Russel eagerly went to Cedric’s side and browsed through the collection of DVDs kept inside a glass door of the large entertainment set.

  “How long has it been since you were last here?” Stella asked.

  Cedric was silent for a moment, considering her question. “Sixteen years. All of this stuff is a bit outdated, but you know.”

  Sure, not that Stella cared about outdated. She and Russel had been living like cavemen, for the most part, for his entire life.

  “What’s this?” Russel asked as he held out a DVD with a pack of wolves on the cover.

  “A documentary about a wolf pack,” Cedric replied as he took the DVD and inspected it. “Not sure I’ve ever actually watched this.”

  Russel crinkled his nose. “What do humans even know about wolves?”

  “Want to put it in and find out?”

  Russel shrugged. “Okay.”

  Cedric popped open the case and fed it to the DVD player. “Ever watch much TV?” Cedric asked.

>   “No, but I’ve seen them behind glass in stores when Tyler moved us sometimes.”

  “Tyler?”

  “Russel,” Stella warned.

  Russel zipped his lips and dashed to the couch, plopping down beside Stella. Cedric glanced at the two of them before turning on the TV and pressing play on the menu that popped up on the screen. The wolf pack that appeared on the screen was an ordinary pack of wolves, not shifters. They were smaller, and no wolf shifter would have allowed this kind of documentation of their life. Most wolf shifters didn’t live strictly as wolves. Being a shifter was living half as a human and half as an animal. When Stella thought of it that way, being a shifter seemed unfortunate. Did they truly belong anywhere? They hid from humans. They avoided other animals. Shifters were other.

  And yet, being a shifter was all she had ever known. She couldn’t know what life was better. Animal, human, or shifter. All she knew was that she and Russel had been dealt a bad hand in life because Tyler went Berserker. But that wasn’t anything new or special. Humans could be dealt a bad hand. Animals could too.

  That was life.

  Stella shuddered. She wanted to crawl out of that darkness. Was she strong enough to build a new life for her and Russel? She had a chance now, the stars had aligned in their favor for once. Maybe it was their turn for something better.

  The Lunas Sigil on Stella’s left forearm warmed her skin with a comforting energy. The Moon had allowed them to suffer, and now it had tied her and Russel to Cedric Snow. What game was it playing? Bitterly, she pulled down the sleeve of her sweater so there was no chance her mark would catch her eye.