His Trouble Maker

Chapter 138

GRAYSON

“What about a garden wedding in honor of your mom?”

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If the moon goddess ever asks me for my favorite moment in this lifetime, I think I’m going to tell her about this one. Right here. Jessica’s laying on top of me, all bone and warmth and habit, barefoot and too serious, making suggestions about our wedding like it isn’t the most holy thing I’ve ever heard come out of her mouth.

Well, not exactly suggestions. More like commands, whispered against my collarbone like they’re secrets she’s still afraid to speak loud.

“Not too many people,” she murmurs, her lips moving against my throat as she talks. “No stupid speeches. No throne chairs. And no omega–binding rituals. I want it soft. Just us.”

Just us.

Just us.

I hold her tighter like that’ll keep it real.

The bed of the truck is lined with one of my jackets after she took it off. Crickets are singing somewhere near the trees. Above us, the sky cracked wide with stars. Moonlight spills down her back like a second skin.

She shifts, rests her chin on my chest so we’re face to face, moonlight pooling in her lashes. She’s studying me like she’s memorizing the shape of my face. Or the sound of my heart. Or the color of what we’ll lose.

“Would you really do it?” she asks. “A garden wedding?”

“I’d marry you in a landfill if you asked,” I say, smiling like it doesn’t ache. “But yeah. Garden sounds nice. You’d look like spring.”

“Gross.”

“I mean it.”

“You’re gross.”

She hides her smile against my ribs, arms winding tight around me like she wants to burrow inside and stay. I let my hand wander through her hair.

“Promise me something,” she says, voice so soft I almost miss it.

“Anything”

“If something happens–if things go bad–I want you to remember this. I love you.”

I don’t say anything right away. I just look at her. Her eyes, her mouth, the starlight strung across her

9:35 Thu, Sep 4

Chapter 138

cheekbones like freckles. Every piece of her is already a memory and we’re not even gone yet.

“Jess,” I whisper, and my throat goes tight around it. “You don’t have to-”

“I want to.”

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like she’s writing her name into me. Like she’s marking the place she’ll haunt when she’s

this time. “And I need you to survive

Gods.

burning and my heart’s a fist. Like if the world burns, if the gods

Jess allowed me to kiss her lips is the moment I decided I’m going to keep her forever. We just did it, and I’m so sure she’s still

My girl.

My Jessica.

My omega and luna.

My everything.

vow to always love her,

“Grayson!”

“Grayson!”

scared of what it finds, and my chest seizes before I even inhale, lungs clenching around memory

I’m on my knees.

I don’t remember falling.

Something’s burning.

No, everything’s burning!

and I want to scream at him to shut the fuck up, because he’s pulling me out of her, pulling me out of our moment, and

But she’s not here.

And I am.

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Chapter 138

:

flame and silver and monster

I gag on it.

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my shoulders, and

yanking, bruising, real, “We need to move, the

eyes snapped through the woods and

ever kissed under, every den where cubs were born, every wooden promise

look at

But I can’t.

voice hitting that pitch that means survival, but I’m still

me by the collar of my shirt, yanking me up onto

scorched glass, shoulders hunched against emberfall like

Theo?” I rasp,

here. He

Me.

This fire.

This fucking ruin.

His gift.

burning thicket, thorns scorched black, deer bones blistering underfoot, and smoke claws up my throat again but

truck,” I growl, low, feral, eyes stinging but sharp now. “We

hit the field-”

bodies low, lungs hot, and the forest screams behind us like it knows

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Chapter 138

don’t care about saving the pack

I care about her.

Pierce pants, voice hoarse, “if she’s