Mated to the Moon (Portal City Protectors Book 6) by Georgette Clair (little red riding hood ebook free txt) 📗

that world too. I can’t very well cast stones over who you are any more than I could hate Dominic or Pasquale.”

He growled. “We won’t talk about other men when you’re naked and in my bed.”

She slapped his shoulder and squealed. “Ew! One of those men is my brother! You know what I’m talking about though. You are who you are, and your pack loves you. They don’t run in fear and they aren’t terrified of you. They respect you as Alpha and know you are stronger. They worry about offending your or stepping out of line, but that’s the way of wolves. We’re not just human.”

“Wolves don’t deal in drugs, pequeña.”

“But we’re not just wolves either. I don’t have to agree with everything you do, and I won’t. Then again, I don’t agree with the life many of our Alphas have led. It is simply who we are.”

“Pequeña–”

“There is darkness everywhere, Adonis, and sometimes we need the darkness to survive. If war had come to a city full of non-combatants, they’d have been slaughtered. Encantado survived because of who is here. We can all be thankful for that. I’m a woman, Adonis. I never would have been forced to live like you, but my brother was. Every day he fought or was beaten. He killed or risked being killed. He’s colder, like you, more apt to attack, but he had me to protect, and maybe I kept some softness within him. We never got to know my mother. She died giving birth to me and my father hated me for it.”

“I am sorry, Fabiana.”

She shrugged. “I should hurt, but I never knew her. Didn’t hear the softness of her voice or know the curve of her cheek. Pasquale did, and knowing seemed to break him. I’ve been told I look just like her, and Pasquale made sure to teach me Italian. My father wanted me to remain ignorant, but I learned in secret until I could understand when he ordered his men to hurt me. I wanted to be as prepared as I could be.”

Adonis wished he could kill that man all over again for what he’d done to his daughter and what she’d had to endure. His mother had been no different, cowering when his father yelled for her, shifting into her wolf just to heal a multitude of broken bones and bruises.

“The only time my mother was safe was when she was pregnant,” Adonis shared. “He wouldn’t risk killing one of his children, and he wanted as many boys as possible. There were four of us, but only one remains.”

He’d ended them simply because they were too weak to fight against his father’s threats and abuse. They’d given in to his tactics, reveled in the pain of others, and any of them would have continued his legacy without fail.

Adonis wouldn’t wish that on any world.

“The one that remains is all that matters,” Fabiana whispered. “And that one is going to make love to me now, the only way he can. You know why?”

He sighed, lifting his face to the heavens. “Why?”

“Because there is no other man who can do what he does. And there is definitely no man in any universe I’d rather give all my firsts to than him.”

Adonis would never, in a thousand lifetimes, deserve the woman in his arms.

But he would pray every day that he would at least die trying.

Chapter Sixteen

Fabiana’s heart thumped in her chest, trying with all its might to break through her ribcage. Maybe it was what Raphael said, or the way Adonis looked at her when she tried to join him in the shower. Regardless, she was grateful for whatever had caused her to climb from behind her wall and be strong for him.

His face toward the ceiling, Adonis was a man balancing between Heaven and Hell. Even though she didn’t know if she loved him, or what to name the emotions swirling through her every time he looked her way, Fabiana knew she couldn’t let him fall.

If she did, she may never see him again.

And she wanted to.

Of that fact, she was certain.

The more time she spent with him—learning who he was and bonding with his pack like a family—she wanted to be more with him. Adonis was a man of overwhelming force who dragged anyone in the vicinity into his sphere, be it for protection, loyalty, or need. They couldn’t help it, and neither could he.

What was it like to choose to be a shield?

How did someone become hated by choice just so those around them never had to feel that way?

Most people simply didn’t understand. They’d argue the way he’d grown up didn’t define who he had become, that he’d made a choice to do the wrong he’d done. But Fabiana knew differently. Coming from their past and seeing what they had seen had tipped the scales so much that the other outcome—the upright life—seemed too far out of reach. Growing up with violence and hell was nothing less of institutionalization, like being imprisoned.

Some made it out while others always went back.

She slicked her hands over his chest, his warmth underneath her palms reminding her he was still here, he hadn’t fallen yet. She memorized his form in the light, taking in the way his muscles twitched as she traced his shoulders and biceps with her fingertips.

Adonis lowered his head and molded his hands her sides. “I will try.”

She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but he pressed his mouth against hers.

Fabiana moaned, letting him take over as she held on to him for balance.

This time was different. He was softer, explorative. Each pass of his lips over hers was a declaration of thanks. Her breasts craved attention, ached for the feel of his tongue and teeth. She never thought