I Was Only His Backup Mate, His Second Choice Luna Chapter 12

I Was Only His Backup Mate, His Second Choice Luna Chapter 12

They rushed him into surgery.

Sunna stood outside the doors with nothing left in her. She kept seeing him on that floor. When she finally turned to Aelia, she didn’t bother being kind.

“You asked me for help and I helped you. And my son nearly died in that room.”

She looked at the surgery light.

“Aelia, I don’t like Estella. I like losing Magnus a great deal less. This ends here. No more.”

Aelia’s head came up fast. Whatever she saw in the older woman’s face, there was no arguing with

She set her jaw and nodded.
“All right.”

It sat in her like poison.

She watched the red light over the door with tears running down her face and something close to madness in her eyes.

“This is Estella’s fault,” she said. “I’m not letting her walk away from it.”

Two hours later they wheeled him out.

He’d lost enough blood that he didn’t surface until the following day.

Sunna and Aelia were both at the bedside.

He gave them each about half a second, then picked up his phone and called the Beta.

“Did you find her?”

The Beta gave him an address.

He pushed the blanket back to get up. The wound in his leg dropped him straight back onto the mattress, sweat breaking cold across his forehead.

Sunna’s eyes filled instantly.

“You’re cut half to pieces and she hasn’t set foot in this hospital. You wake up and the first thing you do is go looking for her?”

Then, slower, “Don’t tell me she’s still sulking over Aelia. Has she actually left the house?”

Something in him gave out.

“She didn’t leave the house. She severed the mate bond. She doesn’t want me.”

His voice cracked on it.

“Move. I’m going to find her and explain all of it.”

Sunna’s mouth opened. “Severed the– she’d never willingly leave you.”

Beside her, Aelia’s eyes lit up.

“Magnus, if the bond’s already gone, then I-”

He shoved her away before she finished. She landed on the floor hard enough to go pale.

There was nothing in his face for her but disgust.

“Get out.”

The Beta’s text came through with the address. He didn’t look at either of them again. He booked the next flight to Pinebrook.

Estella was never allowed near Blaze family resources. When the gene work was finished they fostered her with the Blackwoods, which is how she got the name.

After she became Luna, Magnus had invited the Blackwoods to move into the estate more than once. They said they preferred how quiet Pinebrook was.

Mr. Blackwood had always told her the same thing. This is your home. It doesn’t stop being your

home.

Magnus bought out half a shop’s worth of gifts and went straight to the cottage at the treeline.

Estella’s point of view.

I’d been home a little over a week.

I came up the lane with the groceries and saw the cars first. Three of them, none of them local, parked outside the fence. Then the neighbors, a dozen pack members I’d known since I was small,

standing around at a polite distance and not pretending very hard.

Magnus was on the front path with his arms full of boxes and bags, and Mr. Blackwood was in the doorway, not moving.

“Magnus.”