Rescuing His Captive Mate: Saving The Future Luna

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Artem

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It had been a long day, I needed to take Star to our room so that we could relax and then continue with this busy time with trying to save Nico and trying to gain control over the pack. This next day was going to be crazy busy and crazy intense.

Star and I showered and relaxed in bed. I had thought that we might talk or something but all I felt like doing was holding her and being thankful that things were starting to work out for us, at least a little bit.

The next morning I pulled Kent aside and told him what the plans for the day were. I watched as his eyes widened and his excitement reached a fever pitch.

"Come on, let\'s go." He was ready to head straight there, he wanted to save his brother right away.

"Hold on a minute. Let\'s let the others finish breakfast first." I chuckled a little at his enthusiasm. "Don\'t worry, once they\'ve eaten we will go there right away."

"Yeah, you\'re right. Breakfast first." I saw him smiling. "I should go get some things ready for him first. Clothes, some things that might help him to calm down when he wakes up. I have some prep work to do." With that he started to run off.

"Hey, aren\'t you going to eat first?" I yelled after him.

"Later, I need to do a few things first. I will eat with my brother when he\'s back to himself." I could hear the joy in his voice. I know he had been looking forward to this day since his brother had shifted and couldn\'t shift back.

I sat down to breakfast with the others and started to eat. I could see that Star and Trinity were talking with their heads close together. It was nice to see her acting like a normal person her age. Despite the reasons behind it, I was glad that the Alpha King and Luna Queen had come to visit us. They were helping with a lot more than they would ever know.

Halfway through the meal, Trinity and Star stopped their private discussion and turned to look at Reece and myself.

"We\'re going to let you guys deal with the issue of Nico. Star and I will be working with the younger boys throughout the morning." Trinity was smiling happily.

"Why?" Reece tilted his head in confusion at her words.

"Because I want to. I am a Luna and so is Star. A Luna\'s job is to take care of and protect the children of a pack. Well, I am the Luna Queen, that means that these children here are still my people to take care of. And because I just like kids." Trinity was looking at Reece with a pointed glare, something that looked like it should have physically hurt.

"Ahh, I get it. You want to act like a mom now since you\'re going to be one soon anyway." Reece laughed as he had apparently seen right through her. The blush and the indignant look told us all that he had nailed it."

"Oh just hush Wishbone, you seem to have let your imagination run wild again."

"Wishbone?" I asked curiously, not certain what was going on.

"She has this habit of calling me by a dog name when she\'s upset, and apparently when embarrassed"

"Oh." I chuckled along with him as he laughed off the whole situation.

"Fine, go be with the kids. I am certain that Artem, Griffin, Doc, and I can handle it."

"Kent too." I told him. "Kent is Nico\'s brother and he will be there with us. He is eager to see his brother again."

"Even better. That should be more than enough hands there to help control the boy until Juniper has taken care of the issue."

"I will be there too." Paul, who had been mostly silent the entire time they had been here these last two days finally piped up. "Juniper is my wife, so I will be coming as well."

"She\'s my sister, so I will be coming as well." Cedar added.

"The more the merrier." Reece was smiling happily. I just hoped we could pull this off with no issues. I think that I was the only one having doubts.

Following the meal the seven of us headed to the sixth floor to meet Kent. We found him literally bouncing with excitement as we approached him.

"I\'ve been waiting for you." There was a smile on Kent\'s face that I was certain wasn\'t going to go anywhere. I was happy we were doing this, but I would have probably felt better if we had a few more with us. Toby and Morgan, possibly even Vincent and Gabriel. But they all had other work to be doing right now. Hell, even Reed and Bailey, but they were working with the children this morning since they were all finally back.

Kent slowly cracked open the door to the room that he had been standing in front of. The scent that the door had been mostly blocking was released with full force. I know that Kent went in there when he could to clean the room. Not to mention he brought food and water to his brother as well. Though everything he usually did required using tranquilizers on him.

"Do you need me to tranquilize him first?" Kent turned to look at Juniper who was surrounded by the group of us large men.

"No, if he is tranquilized there is no telling what that will do to the process of waking him up. The others were in a coma but there was nothing else forcing them to sleep. I don\'t want to risk this. Can\'t you just hold him down?" I saw the look in Kent\'s eyes then, he could hold him, but he didn\'t want to chance the wolf slipping away.

"Yeah, we can do that." I answered on his behalf.

I heard the growling start immediately after I answered that question. I knew that Nico was going to charge the door and try to attack us. None of us wanted to hurt Nico, he was a boy that was lost and hurt. But we couldn\'t let him hurt anyone either.

I pushed the door open and entered the room first. I caught the wolf as he leapt at his prey, his own brother. I had hooked my arm under the wolf\'s upper body and spun him in a circle. The force of his jump was all that was needed to complete the spin.

Just as we slowed down Nico had recovered from the shock of me having caught him. He was trying to twist in my arms so that he could bite me. Kent leapt forward then and grabbed the back of his brother\'s head. With the two of us holding the wolf boy down the others came into the room.

"This is how he\'s been for all this time?" Juniper looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"Yes." Kent sounded sad and hollow when he answered.

"I can feel his pain, his sorrow. He wants out of that form but he doesn\'t know how."

Juniper was already connecting with the boy. That was good, right?

"Please hold him still so that I can connect with his wolf." Juniper asked as she moved to stand near Nico\'s head. I watched as she placed her hands on the side of his head near his large pointed ears.

The light started immediately, but it didn\'t brighten at the rate that I had expected. This time it was like the light was flickering, wavering somehow. It appeared that Juniper was having trouble reaching the human mind inside of the animal that she was standing in front of.

Several minutes ticked by and the light was nothing more than a shimmer glowing over Nico\'s body. I had also expected that when the light was over Nico he would have stopped fighting. That wasn\'t true at all.

It wasn\'t like Kent and I were struggling to hold the boy. He was fighting but not that hard. But still, something didn\'t feel right at all. While we were holding him down there was a surge of power that coursed through him, something that allowed Nico to twist his body and throw both Kent and I to the side.

That was definitely unexpected.

In the chaos that ensued Juniper had been directly in front of the wolf with no one to stand in her way. She was caught off guard since she had been concentrating on rebuilding his connection to his human self.

In the confusion, and with a snarl that none of us would ever forget, we saw Nico close his jaws over Juniper\'s left arm.

Blood welled up immediately. The scream that came from Juniper was equal parts pain and confusion as she hadn\'t seen his attack coming at all. In a heartbeat Paul and Cedar had leapt forward to pull the wolf off of Juniper. I understood that they were worried about her but I didn\'t want Nico hurt in all of this. He was not himself, he didn\'t know what he was doing.

"Let go of her you bastard." Paul\'s fist slammed into the side of Nico\'s head.

"Please don\'t hurt him, we will get him off of her." Kent pleaded.

"Let go of my sister you asshole." Cedar had a hold of Nico\'s fur at the back of his head.

"You have to understand, he is not himself."

Through all of this I heard a growling that I thought was coming from Nico but I learned a second later that it was coming from Reece.

"ENOUGH!" He yelled. "ALL OF YOU CALM DOWN NOW!" As soon as the words were out of his mouth the four of us stopped fighting and were working together. However, there was nothing for us to work together for. Nico had let go of Juniper\'s arm when Reece had yelled. He had followed the Alpha King\'s orders.

"Juniper." Griffin ran forward with Doc following close behind. I saw as the two of them both sent a wave of light from their hands to her arm and the puncture wounds closed almost instantly. Juniper was healed that quickly. She didn\'t even look like she was in pain anymore.

"Thank you." She smiled at the two healers as she stood back up. I noticed that Paul and Cedar were being a lot more protective than they had been before. "I will be fine now you two. It looks like Nico will follow Reece\'s commands so I have an idea."

Apparently her idea had been to guide his wolf with magic while Reece guided it with words. It was definitely worth a shot.

Juniper\'s light flickered over the wolf boy again while Reece guided him with words.

"Nico, look for that light. Find it. Follow it. See where it takes you. Don\'t fight it." As Reece spoke the light grew steadily brighter. "The light is good. It will get you out of there. It will take you to your brother. It will set you free from this prison. Find it." The light was almost at that high intensity that seemed to be the turning point. "OK Nico, once you\'re there, once you\'ve found the light, you need to become human again. Think of what you look like as a human, think about the way your body feels. You need to go back to that."

It seemed like the Alpha King had done this before, like he had guided a shift and was really good at it. I knew it was something that all Alphas could do but still, seeing it instead of doing it was definitely something else entirely.

It was working though. I could see Nico changing shape. He was losing his fur and becoming the boy version of himself again.

"Nico!" Kent called out for him, the blanket already in his hand. I hadn\'t even seen him grab it when all of this was happening.

Kent ran toward his brother. He skidded to a halt on his knees and threw the blanket over him all in one motion. Within a second of stopping in front of the boy Kent had his arms around his brother.

"Nico, I\'m so glad you\'re back." I heard the tears in Kent\'s voice. All the sorrow he had been holding onto for months.

"K-Kent?" Nico spoke hesitatingly. "K-Kent, what happened?" Nico sounded confused. "Oh Goddess. I attacked you. I attacked that woman. I hurt her. I hurt you. I\'m a b-bad-."

  "No!" Kent grabbed Nico\'s face and silenced him with the one word. "No, you did nothing wrong Nico. That wasn\'t you. You weren\'t yourself when that happened. Your wolf was out of control. You can learn to control it like we all do."

"But Kent, I-."

"I love you Nico. I love you and I am so sorry that I caused all of this." Kent was crying freely now as he sobbed while holding his small, younger brother.

I saw Nico looking over Kent\'s shoulder and at all of us that were gathered around, he still looked nervous. I know that I was not the only one smiling at him. It was nice to have him home.

"I missed you Nico." Kent\'s sobs were the only sounds filling the room at the time.