Desert Heat (Complete)

{Allie’s P.O.V.}

I didn’t know which narrative Rylee needed to hear to soften the blow; she was certain the twins couldn’t be her sisters. Though there could be another explanation, based on their age gaps, them being half-siblings was the most likely scenario. Rylee demanded the lab technician draw another sample to run the test again, but I already knew her attempts would be futile. There was no denying it—one of her parents had an affair. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to it than that.

When the lab tech came in, I swear to all that is holy, I thought I had seen a f*****g ghost. Something wasn’t right though; he wasn’t transparent like ghosts are supposed to be. I’ve seen a ghost first-hand, I would know. This guy was no ghost.

“LUTHER!?!?” I screamed at the top of my lungs. The tech’s eyes doubled in size as he turned ghostly white. “LUTHER QUINN!?”

“L-L-Lu-Lun-Luna?”

“What the f**k!?! You’re supposed to be dead! The pack buried you! We named a f*****g fish after you!”

“Luna, wh-what’re you doing here?” he asked, still shaking. “How did you…”

“Luther, do you know the Luna of Desert Moon?” the doctor of Golden Moon asked him. Luther only bowed his head.

“If you will please excuse me, I have to—”

“DON’T YOU DARE MOVE FROM THAT SPOT, LUTHER QUINN!!” I roared at him.

“Allie, what did I say about screaming!?” Rylee scolded me.

“Rylee! This fucker is supposed to be dead!!” I shouted back at her while pointing at Luther Quinn, guilt written all over his face. “We buried him over three years ago!”

“Can we deal with my crisis first, at least?” she implored. I let out an exasperated sigh and nodded my head.

“Fine, but we will deal with this, Luther. You have a lot explaining to do,” I gritted my teeth. I was absolutely livid seeing him alive and well, especially with the recent drama back home with Dr. Quinn, Avery, and Celinda. If he’s been alive this whole time, then who the hell did the pack bury?

“Luther, I understand that it appears you have a personal issue to deal with, but the Luna of Blue Lake has requested another b***d panel be done,” the doctor of Golden Moon notified him.

“Sir?” Luther c****d his head to one side.

“Don’t bother,” I intervened. “Rylee, I get that you don’t want to believe it, but Luther Quinn was one of the best biochemists at Desert Moon. His mother is, actually, I should say, was the attending physician of our pack hospital,” I told her.

“What do you mean by was, Luna!? What happened to my mother!?” Luther exclaimed.

“Oh, now you care,” I retorted at him. He lowered his head and declined to say anything else.

“Allie, it can’t be true. As much as I would love to be sisters with Lexie and Lanie, my parents wouldn’t have done that to each other. They loved each other whole-heartedly. I watched that love every day. I may not remember a lot, but I do remember that much. My dad worshipped my mother,” Rylee said with tears pooling in her eyes.

“Maybe it’s not as easy as just stepping out on each other. Maybe you’re not half-sisters. I mean, you could technically be their aunt, or they could be yours,” I said, attempting to console her.

“Both of my parents were only children,” she answered with a disappointed whisper.

“Oh, well, it was worth a shot. The only other combination would be grandparent and grandchild, but that’s obviously not possible.” I scratched my chin, trying to speculate further.

“Luna, if I may …”

“Luther, stay!”

“With all due respect, you’re no longer my Luna,” he snapped.

“Fine. Lanie, please tell Luther to stay right where he is,” I requested her. Since he was a Golden Moon pack member, and she was the new Luna, he would have to listen to her. Shady and immature, I know, but he had a lot of explaining to do and I’ll be damned if he thought he could get away with this. Especially not after what Dr. Quinn has gone through. He owed it to her, at the very least, to explain everything.

“Ummm … Luther, stay. Please?” Lanie said. Luther looked at me like a petulant little child. I just snuffed him and gave my undivided attention to the larger situation at hand—Rylee and the girls.

“Look, I know you said you lost your parents at ten, but is there anyone else that knew either of them well enough to shed some light on this?” I asked.

“Grace and Ronan,” she replied, looking at me.

“Wyatt’s parents?” She nodded. “How would they know?” I questioned.

“Wyatt’s dad and my dad were best friends. Grace and my mom grew up in the same pack. My parents met at Grace’s Luna ceremony,” she answered.

“Come with me.” I grabbed her hand. As I opened the door, I turned back around. “You!” I shouted at Luther. “I will deal with you later. Don’t even think about running away. You owe it to your mother and daughter!” I watched as he gulped and nodded his head. I continued on my way and dragged her back up to the conference room with Lanie and Lexie following behind. When we got there, I didn’t even bother knocking and charged right in, stopping in front of the middle of the table and stared at Wyatt.

“Allie? What’s the matter? Why are you gripping Rylee that way?” he looked past me at Rylee. “Dearest, what’s wrong? What did you guys find out?” he asked even more concerned once he noticed that Rylee was upset.

“Wyatt, get your parents on the phone, please. Chad, do you have video call capabilities in this room?” I asked.

“Yes, Luna. Is everything alright?” he replied.

“I doubt it, but Rylee and the girls need answers,” I responded truthfully. “Rylee, do you want me to stay or leave?”

“Please, stay. I need someone who is level-headed to stay with me,” she said, holding onto my arm. I nodded my head.

“Everyone, I know that we have battles to prep for, but this is important. Chad, Brent, Wyatt, and William, please stay. Everyone else, I kindly ask that you all leave the room for the time being. Get some rest or continue the preparations elsewhere. Without answers, Rylee won’t be able to function correctly.” I instructed them. Everyone nodded and stepped out in a single file line. Before he left, Dorian came up to me.

“Baby, do you need me to stay with you?” he asked while cupping my cheeks.

“No, I’ll be fine. This isn’t for me; this is for Rylee and the twins. I’ll mind-link you if I need anything,” I answered. He gave me a chaste k**s and was the last one to leave. I turned back to Rylee and double-checked that she wanted me in the room, and she nodded again. I sat her down next to Wyatt, and the girls went to Chad and Brent, respectively.

“Allie, will tell us what you all learned?” Wyatt asked me while holding Rylee’s hands.

“You’ll see, just please video call your parents,” I requested. Wyatt texted his parents the video conference number and, a few short moments later, a video call request came through.

“Wyatt, son, what is going on? Is everything alright?” Ronan answered while appearing on the screen.

“I don’t know dad. Allie asked me to call you,” Wyatt answered.

“Luna Shaw, what is the meaning of this?” he asked me.

“I’ll get to that in a second, Ronan. Where is Grace?” I asked.

“I’m right here,” she answered, appearing behind Ronan.

“Okay, so there is no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to flat out say it. Rylee, Lexie, and Lanie are related. A DNA test was done here at Golden Moon, and about half an hour ago, it was confirmed that the girls are half-sisters.” An eerie silence took over the room. Yet it didn’t seem that Ronan or Grace was all that shocked. “Okay, I don’t need mind-reading capabilities to know that you two are hiding something,” I told them.

“Dad? Mom? Do you guys know something we don’t?” Wyatt asked them. Ronan and Grace looked at each other.

“Allie, will you please leave the room?” Grace asked.

“I’ll only leave if that’s what Rylee and the girls want,” I said immediately. “This affects her directly, and I’ll do what she asks of me.”

“I want Allie to stay,” she said without hesitation. They looked at each other again and nodded.

“Rylee, there is no easy way to tell you this, but we’re not surprised that you have half-siblings,” Grace said. “We’re only surprised that it’s Lexie and Lanie.”

“What?” Rylee retorted.

“Sweetheart, when you were just over a year old, your mother went missing,” Ronan said directly. My eyes widened. That I did not expect. “Your mother went missing for over seven months, but your father knew she was alive. The problem that he faced was that he could feel your mother being intimate with another.”

“NO! MY MOTHER WOULD NEVER DO THAT!” Rylee screamed as she stood to her feet.

“Listen to us, Rylee, it’s not what you think,” Grace said calmly.

“Then what!?”

“After the seventh-month mark had passed, your father just about lost hope, because he thought the same thing you did. He thought she ran away with another and broke their bond, but that wasn’t the case. One day, while we were there trying to comfort Mitch, a guard came running into his office frantically and said that your mother had returned. Before the guard could say anything else, Mitch ran out to greet her. We followed after him, but instead of seeing the Megan he loved, what we found was a malnourished, beaten she-wolf. She had apparently been thrown from a car in front of the Silver Lake pack border,” Ronan elaborated.

“What!?” we all exclaimed.

“Your father had her rushed to the hospital and after multiple tests, b***d work, and scans, we found that your mother had been forced into s*x multiple times and had given birth.” I couldn’t stop the gasp that came out of my mouth.

“And based on what you’ve told us, it appears the pups she gave birth to were Lexie and Lanie,” Ronan concluded. I was right, there was a lot more to this, but this was not what I had expected.

“Hold on, I don’t understand how that’s possible. Lexie and Lanie are descendants of the moon goddess. I’m missing something,” I said, looking around the room.

“Luna, allow me to fill in the blanks,” William said. I nodded my head. William went on to explain the Lunar Kingdom, and how gods and goddesses born find their mates. They can either take a mate from within the kingdom or someone mortal. Kendrick’s story about his mom made sense now.

“So, you’re saying that the kidnapping of the girls, or treasure, occurred as soon as they were born in the kingdom. And when they were taken, their souls were reborn to a mortal, and in this case, Rylee’s mom?” I confirmed and William nodded. “Okay, but still, you would need a s***m donor for that to happen.”

“My assumption is that whoever took the girls from the kingdom was the donor. Powerful magic is needed to implant the souls of a god or goddess into a mortal, and the timing has to be perfect. I don’t know all of the details on when, but I do know the how,” William said.

“Wait, could Marvin be the donor?” Chad asked. Everyone’s face contorted in complete disgust.

“We can’t speculate on who the father is, but now we know where their Alpha b***d comes from. Not just from the moon goddess, but from Megan as well,” Ronan said. A very awkward silence fell over the room, and I felt that was my cue to leave. I quietly got up and removed myself. When I was safely outside of the door, I turned around and jumped back.

“Ah!” I screamed and held my heart as if it were going to explode out of my chest. “DON’T DO THAT!” I screamed at the group of people standing around. And people called me nosey.

“Well!?” All of the girls shouted, including Amber.

“Not my business to tell!” I answered.

“You share our s*x lives with other people!” Sin clapped back.

“s*x is s*x! That…”—I said, pointing to the door behind me—“is different!” They all grumbled in disappointment. I glanced back towards the door, unable to even comprehend how messed up things were going to get for Rylee and the twins. But that’s when I remembered a very important dead person who wasn’t really dead. “Leroy, Dorian, come with me!” I said, grabbing both of them and dragging them down to the pack hospital. I went straight to the doctor’s office and pushed the door open. Thankfully, he wasn’t currently with a patient.

“Luna?” the doctor stood up.

“Where is he!?” I shouted.

“Ummm …”

“Where’s who, baby?” Dorian asked me.

“I won’t ask again! Where is he!?”

“He asked that I give this to you. He said that he will be waiting.” He handed me a note, and it had directions to a cottage on the pack grounds. I didn’t think twice before I took off, following the directions and going towards Luther’s house.

“Damn, for being three months pregnant, she sure can move!” Leroy commented, trying to keep up.

“Allie, slow down! You’re going to fall!” Dorian shouted at me. I paid him no attention and kept going. We ended up at the cottage and I double-checked the number. It was the right one. I knocked on the door and a few seconds later, the door opened.

“WHAT THE f**k!?! LUTHER!?!” they both shouted as soon as he came into view.

“Alpha. Luna. Leroy. Please, come in,” he said and opened the door for us. We all walked into his very small yet spacious cottage and sat down on the sofa with me in between Dorian and Leroy. Luther sat down on the armchair directly across from us. We all just stared at each other. I know I already saw him earlier, but this was still freaky. “I’m sure you are all surprised to see me, alive,” Luther stated.

“Surprised is an understatement! I watched you die!” Leroy shouted.

“No, you watched a clone die,” Luther said.

“A what!?” we exclaimed in unison.

“It’s a long story, but the short version is that I enlisted the help of your Wiccan friends, Luna. The ones that helped you conceal your pregnancy with the Alpha twins. I told them what was going on with my family, and that I needed a way out without having to actually die.”

“Wait, are you saying that Maxine and Claudia helped you fake your death!?” I asked in shock.

“Yes.”

“Ooh! I’m going to kill those bitches!”

“Allie, you’re not going to kill anyone,” Dorian said, rubbing my back. “Luther, if you needed a way out away from Avery and her betrayal, why didn’t you come to me? You could have rejected her, and I would have released you from the pack,” Dorian told him calmly.

“Alpha, it wasn’t that … Wait, how do you know why I did what I did?” Dorian and I peered over at Leroy who just shrugged his shoulders. “Leroy, you told them?”

“Luther, I had to.”

“Why!? It’s bad enough you f****d my wife behind my back!”

“Luther, I didn’t know Avery was your wife. She lied to me and said her mate was dead. You never brought her to pack events. And I wasn’t the only person in the pack she slept with.”

“She told people I had died?”

“Before you even actually died. Ever since that night, I never went near her again. But then, fate had a funny way of bringing us face to face again,” Leroy responded.

“What do you mean?” Luther asked.

“Luther.” He glanced in my direction. “Celinda is Leroy’s mate.” His eyes widened in shock as he stared intently at Leroy.

“My daughter is your mate!?” he exclaimed.

“Yes. I actually think that’s why I was attracted to Avery in the first place. I was picking up on Celinda’s scent, and our future bond.”

“I see.”

“For what it’s worth, Luther, I truly am sorry. I know all of the males who wronged you are sorry. After the fiasco with Dr. Quinn, Celinda, and Avery, I ended up rounding up all of the guys that ever slept with her and told them everything. I told them the truth about her and about you, obviously under the impression that you were dead,” Leroy explained.

“What do you mean by what happened with my mother?” Luther asked. I took control of the conversation and explained the events that transpired not too long before we traveled to this side of the country. Luther was horrified that the truth had fully come to light, aside from him not being deceased and that Dr. Quinn disowned Celinda because of it.

“Celinda is hurting, but she’s trying to get through it. She’s strong. But she has no one now,” Leroy told him.

“She has you,” he shot back.

“Luther, having a mate and having a father are two different things. The only person in this world that Celinda knows to be her father is you. The only family she knows is the Quinn’s. She is a Quinn. YOU are her father. Leroy is her mate. That’s not the same thing. And the only grandparent Celinda has ever known is your mother. Now, she has no family. But here you are, alive and well!” I scolded him.

“Luther, come back to Desert Moon. Fix the relationship with your daughter. Whether she is of your b***d or not, you raised her. You built that father-daughter relationship with her,” Dorian advised him.

“But she’s not my daughter,” Luther said, trying not to cry.

“Your DNA may not be the same, but she is still, in fact, your daughter,” Dorian replied very sternly. “Do you realize that your choices have not only affected yourself but your mother and your daughter? You are punishing both of them because you chose to run away from your problem instead of tackling them head-on!”

“We can’t force you to come back with us, but I would hope that you love your mother and daughter enough to make the right choice,” I admonished him.

“And if I don’t? Are you going to tell everyone that I’m alive?” he asked.

“No,” Dorian answered. “It’s not our place. But you will have to live with the fact that you’re selfish. The woman who gave birth to you and the young girl who loves you unconditionally are suffering and are in pain. Celinda has it twice as bad because her parents have essentially cast her aside. She may be an adult now, but she is still technically an orphan.” As soon as the O word came out, Luther’s eyes softened and were filled with guilt.

“Luther, we are on your side, and if you choose to come back, we will welcome you back with open arms. You’ll get to meet the fish we named after you,” I said to him with a smile. He smirked and shook his head a bit.

“I’ll have to think about it,” he replied.

“Well, you have a few days. We will be in the area as we have some issues to take care of. Let us know what you decide. You are more than welcome to return home with the rest of us,” Dorian said and shook Luther’s hand.

“How many of you are here?” he asked.

“A lot,” we answered together. We said our goodbyes and proceeded to leave his cottage to allow him some time to think.

“Leroy.” We turned around and it seemed like Luther wanted to speak to him privately, so Dorian and I left Leroy behind.

When we got back to the Golden Moon packhouse, we were bombarded with questions about where we went. We told everyone that it wasn’t the time for gossip and that we needed to get back on track with finding the base of operations for the traffickers, and get to where we needed to go and get those who were waiting for instructions there as well.

Wyatt and the others met us in the living area, and it seemed as though they had gotten everything they needed out of their systems.

“You good?” I asked Rylee. She nodded her head.

“We’ve agreed that the family drama will be figured out after we get rid of these traffickers,” Wyatt replied. We all nodded our heads.

“Dorian, we’re ready to execute the plans,” Chad said to him.

“Alright, then let’s do this,” Dorian said before calling Albert. He confirmed the official location of the base of operations.

“So, where is it?” Wyatt asked.

“Fitzwilliam Island. It’s an underground bunker.”

“So, Marvin is actually working in Canada. But he’s stalking supernaturals located all over the world it seems,” Richard said.

“How are we going to do this?” I asked.

“Those of you who are pregnant or targets need to stay here,” Dorian instructed.

“Wait, what? I can help!” Rylee shouted.

“Rylee, you’re a target, remember!?” Wyatt countered.

“Wyatt!?”

“Rylee, they’re right,” William told her. “Right now this is not about how powerful you are. The fact of the matter is, you are a target. But they don’t know about me or Olivia. We will be part of the calvary to break into the compound and rescue all of the captives. You need to be here to protect the vulnerable, and Sam.” Rylee grunted but nodded her head anyways.

“All of the guards will stay here, and so will Amber. I doubt anyone will come after you here, otherwise, Leah would have sensed it. But, we’re not taking any chances,” Dorian said. Everyone nodded, and the guys prepared to pack up and head out. Dorian made all of the calls necessary and ensured that everyone back home was on their way.

I didn’t know all of the details, but I trusted Dorian. And with four other Alphas and multiple Betas and Gammas, I was certain this would be a walk in the park. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Leah’s visions. I guess we would have to wait and see how this all played out.