Desert Heat (Complete)
Desert Storm Chapter 76

{Cianna’s P.O.V.}

I felt like a ton of stress was relieved off my shoulders when Lacie texted and said that Maya had been caught and executed. That was one enemy b***h down, and one more to go. I know for a fact that Heather saw the post about Lacie’s memorial service tomorrow. People were sending me messages left and right, and I had to pretend that my best friend was dead, even though she was alive and well.

“Cici, are you ready?” Lucian asked me as we landed at Tampa’s airport.

“Yes, time to put on an act,” I tell him. “Are Dorian and them here?” I ask as we deplane.

“Yeah, Shorty just texted and said that they arrived yesterday and have been staying in the packhouse. Corinne is a mess, she apparently hasn’t slept much,”

“Well, in her mind one daughter is a criminal with a death warrant on her head, and the other is dead, so it’s not surprising,”

“I still think faking her death was a little extreme,”

“Luci, if they didn’t fake her death then someone would have actually tried to kill her. Remember, there was a bounty on her head,” I tell him.

“Oh yeah,” he responds. I shake my head. We get into the rental car that Lucian had reserved, and we head over the packhouse. It was so strange being back in Florida all these months later. The thirty-minute drive the packhouse was short and sweet. When I saw the condo complex, I teared up a little bit because, for three years, that was my home. Then the additional three minutes it took to get to the packhouse made me tear up even more. I couldn’t believe how much smaller it actually was compared to the packhouse at Yellow Moon.

When we drove through the gates, I sent a mind link to my parents to let them know I was here. They were the only people I still had a link to, other than my brother Carl. My mom was the first out the door running to us before the car even stopped. By the time I was out of the car, my mom had me in a bear hug.

“Hi, mommy,”

“Oh, Cianna, my baby,” she sobbed.

“Mom, I’m alive, and I’m well, why are you crying?”

“I just missed you, baby girl, and it’s the circumstance that brought you home that has me crying,” I got a little teary-eyed knowing that I was lying to my parents. But, I knew that once everything was said and done with, they would understand why I needed to deceive them.

“Lucian, it’s good to see you again,” my dad says to him.

“Henry, it’s a pleasure to see you again as well; although, I wish it were under better circumstances, as Melanie said,”

“Where’s Carl?” I ask.

“He’s still at his condo, he will be stopping by for dinner later,” my mother replied.

“Oh, okay,”

“Come on, Dorian, Allie, and Aries are already inside,” my dad said. We walk into the house and as soon as we do,

“Cianna!” Allie shouts and comes running over. She gives me a huge hug. “Why does it feel like I haven’t seen your a*s in forever!?”

“It’s only been like a month,” I tell her.

“Has it only been a month!?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “I guess with all the s**t going on, Evelyn and the triplets, Lacie dying, it seems like more time has passed,” just then, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and see a very sad and heartbroken Corinne. Seeing her so sickly made me burst into tears. I hated hurting her like this. I give her the biggest hug I can, and I can sense that Allie has tears in her eyes as well. As I pull away from her, she signs something to me.

“She’s asking how you’re holding up?” Allie translates.

“I should be asking you that, Corinne,” I reply. She signs something again.

“I’m doing the best that I can. It’s hard knowing that I’ve lost both of my children over something as stupid as jealousy,” Allie translates again. Allie and I just look at each other. Corinne goes into the kitchen to help the kitchen Omegas get dinner ready.

“Hi, Luci,” Allie says. I almost forgot Lucian was with me.

“Hey, Shorty,” he gives her a big hug.

“How is everyone at Yellow Moon doing?” she asks.

“They’re going good. The triplets are a handful and none of us are sleeping through the night, but overall, we’re alright,” Lucian replies. “Where’s the big man and Aries?”

“Behind your a*s,” we hear a deep voice and turn around to see Dorian, Aries, Amber, and Ronnie. Lucian goes up to him and does a manly handshake and a bro hug.

“Hi, Amber! Hi, Ronnie!” I squeal and hug them both.

“Hi, Cianna,” they both reply.

“All of us need to talk in private,” Dorian says. We all nod, and we walk over to the dock behind the packhouse. Seeing the harbor again brought back so many memories.

“What’s up, little brother?” Amber asks.

“Before I say anything, you two need to stay as calm as possible,”

“Why do I get the feeling that we’re not going to like this?” Ronnie asks.

“Because you’re not,” Allie replies.

“Sis, Ronnie, Lacie’s not actually dead,” Dorian says. Before they could even scream, Dorian shushes both of them.

“What do you mean she’s not actually dead!?” Amber screams in a whisper while punching Dorian at the same time.

“We faked her death,” Aries answers.

“What the f**k? Why!?” exclaims Ronnie.

“Because we needed to catch Maya,” Allie responds. “But we’re also using the opportunity to get Heather to come out of hiding,”

“What!?” they both exclaim.

“We found out that Heather fled to the UAE, which is a non-extradition country,” Dorian says. “We’re using Lacie’s memorial as a means to see if she will come out of hiding. We were originally going to use to it to get Maya as well, but we caught her a different way,”

“Maya first, how did you catch her?” Amber asks.

“She manipulated and coerced a classmate of mine who is an Alpha in Reno to put out a bounty on Lacie. She was careless and made mistakes, so we put out her bounty when we realized she was behind the whole thing. A few assassin acquaintances of Aries’ found her, and brought her back to us,” Allie replies.

“What happened to her?”

“I shot her in the head Sunday night,” Aries answered.

“Damn,” Amber and Ronnie replied.

“I also had her parents and best friend killed a few weeks ago,” Allie smiles. We all look at her.

“Why?” Ronnie asked.

“They kidnapped and tried to traffic the twins,” Dorian replied

“WHAT!?” we all shouted. I didn’t even know this had happened.

“Dorian, why didn’t tell us this happened!?” Amber asked punching him again.

“You didn’t see it on the news?” Dorian answered her question with a question.

“I did, but I didn’t know it was Maya’s parents and friend that was responsible,” Lucian replied.

“You never told me any of this!” I say punching him in the arm.

“It was on the news, Cici, I figured you would have seen it,” he replies.

“Luci, since when do you see me watch the news?!”

“You two can b***h later,” Amber says cutting in. “Tell me about the plan to get Heather? Because honestly, I want a piece of that b***h myself,”

“Cianna?” Allie looks at me.

“I posted the announcement of memorial on Instagram. She still follows me,”

“How do you know that?” Ronnie asked.

“During Evelyn’s gender reveal, I post an Instagram live video of the gender reveal, and Heather saw it. She sent quite a variety of derogatory private messages to me, and even threatened to kill Evelyn and her triplets,” I tell them.

“So, you’re thinking she would see the memorial announcement and would show up here to mourn?” he asked.

“No, we think she’s going to show up and gloat,” Aries responds.

“We found out from Maya that Allie and Lacie were originally their targets with the poison, but their plans changed when Deacon showed up and found Evelyn to be his mate. There’s a lot of other details, but in the end, they still got Allie and Lacie, but they didn’t know it at the time,” Dorian says.

“Wait, what?” I ask.

“Not now, Cianna,” Allie says brushing me off. I look at Lucian and he just shrugs.

“Wow,” Amber replies. “So, if she’s alive, where the hell is Lacie?”

“She’s here, in St. Petersburg, we have her hiding out at a hotel about ten minutes away,” Allie replies.

“I cannot believe you guys!” Ronnie exclaims in a shouting whisper. “Do you know how much hell Corinne is going through right now!? Why couldn’t you at least tell them Lacie is actually alive and all is this is a plan to catch Heather!?”

“Because I don’t trust Bernie,” Dorian answers immediately. “You saw how he reacted when I had Heather’s death warrant and bounty signed. He tried to stop it. If he knew we were faking Lacie’s death to try and catch Heather, there is no doubt in my mind he would replace a way to contact her and tell her to stay away,”

“I don’t like lying to Corinne, Amber, especially since being a mom myself, I can only imagine how much pain she is in. But as a mother, I know that I would do whatever it takes to protect my pups, no matter how old they are, and that is why I can’t trust her right now either. Corinne loves Heather regardless of the many laws she has broken, and I know she would also try and keep Heather from being executed,”

“Deacon ended up getting his own death warrant signed by Elder Jeffries down at Mojave Mountain,” Lucian says.

“What?” Amber asks.

“Heather attempted to kill my brothers and me, she threatened to kill Evelyn, our Luna, and their triplets. We have proof of these threats, which is why Elder Jeffries had no problem signing it and reaching out to Archie on our behalf, so Deacon didn’t have to come down here,”

“This is ridiculous,” Amber scoffs. All this f*****g drama because Heather couldn’t just accept the fact that she was rejected,” We all just made the face that said ‘yeah, no kidding.’ We all just stood around for a few more minutes trying to just take everything in. It seriously was a lot of information, and I knew that Amber and Ronnie were upset we didn’t tell them sooner, but they also understood why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Even if Heather and I were friends at one point, I’ll never forgive her for attempting to kill Lucian. It was like if she couldn’t be happy no one could. After we talked a little more about what the plan was, we were called into the house for dinner. I hadn’t realized that were outside talking for a few hours at that point. When we got into the house, I was surprised to see Selina and Nikki,

“So, it’s true,” Nikki said to me. “You found your mate,”

“I did, what about you two?” I asked. They just gave me a dirty look.

“Cici, care to introduce me to your friends?” Lucian asks.

“Sorry, babe, but they’re not my friends, they’re actually Heather’s friends,” I tell him. “Why are you guys even here? You didn’t even like Lacie,”

“We didn’t dislike her either,” Selina said.

“Right, you just didn’t like her enough to stick up for her, or me, when Heather decided to leave us stranded,” I sneered.

“We didn’t think you guys would actually leave,”

“Well, we did, but it all worked out didn’t it? Because I met the love of my life, and technically Lacie did too, but that was sadly short-lived,”

“What happened to Lacie anyway?” Nikki asked.

“Why don’t you ask Heather the next time you talk to her. I’m sure she knows what happened!” I shout and walked past them into the dining room.

All of us sat down to dinner, but it was quiet and awkward. Aries had to pretend to be distant, while Allie, Dorian, and I had to pretend to be angry, while Lucian had to remain somewhat neutral. While we were eating, my brother came in,

“CIANNA!”

“Hi, Carl!” I get up from my seat and hug my big little brother.

“You must be Lucian,”

“I am, and it’s great to meet you, Carl. Cici tells me a lot about you,”

“All lies, I swear,” Carl replies.

“So, you’re not good looking ladies man that treats women with respect, and was a straight-A student throughout high school?”

“Uhhh…Well…I…Uh…Dammit!” Carl stuttered.

“Pfft!!” I started laughing.

“Cianna, don’t mess with your brother that way!” my mom yells.

“I didn’t do anything! Carl assumes that I talk s**t about him, when in actuality, I don’t,” I say in snobbish tone. Carl just grumbles and rolls his eyes.

“Anyway, how are you doing sis?”

“I’m okay, I’m sad, but overall, I’m doing alright. I don’t know what I will be like tomorrow during the memorial,” I lie straight out of my teeth. Carl gives me a loving brotherly hug. “Carl, this is Dorian and Allison Shaw, Alpha and Luna of the Desert Moon pack,” I introduce them to Carl. “Guys, this is my kid brother Carl,”

“Nice to meet you,” Dorian shakes his hand.

“Hi, Carl,” Allie says with a big smile.

“Whoa, you’re pretty,” Carl says to Allie and stares

“Carl! Don’t stare at the Luna!” I smack him upside his head.

“What!? I can’t give a compliment?”

“Compliments are fine, but no staring!” I scold him. “This is Aries, Lacie’s mate,”

“Aries, I’m sorry for your loss,” Carl says to him sincerely.

“Thank you,” Aries says softly shaking his hand.

“I know that we’re all here because of the loss of my daughter, but let’s try and have a decent dinner,” Bernie says half-heartedly. We all nod and get back to eating. Dinner went relatively smoothly after that.

Lucian and I decided that we would go to see Lacie at her hotel, so we took Aries with us. Allie and Dorian were staying at the packhouse like they always did. The drive to the hotel was short, and Lucian and I were easily able to get a room. We were lucky enough to only be a few doors down from Aries and Lacie. I went with Aries to see her while Lucian took our bags to our room.

Because we had to keep Lacie a secret, she and I couldn’t squeal at the top of our lungs when we saw each other.

“How are you? What’s it like being dead?” I ask her.

“It’s just like being alive, only know no one knows,” she replies with a cheesy grin. “How are my parents doing?”

“Your mom looks like s**t, and your dad is very emotionless,”

“I feel bad lying to my mom like this,” she says.

“We all do, but Allie said something earlier that makes me believe we’re doing the right thing,”

“What did she say?”

“That as a mother, she would anything she could to protect her kids even if they break the law. So, she thinks that even though your mom loves you, if we told her the plan to try and trap your sister, she and your dad would warn her to stay away,”

“Of course, they would, especially my dad. Heather was always his favorite. Why do you think she turned out the way she did?” Lacie had a valid point. I was going to say something when I got a mind link from Lucian,

Cici, open the door.

“It’s Lucian,” Lacie went around the corner just in case someone else happened to walk by. We closed the door; she came out of hiding.

“Hey, Lace,”

“Hi, Lucian,”

“I’m sorry that you died,”

“I’m sorry you have to come my memorial,” the joked with each other. “So, question, how are you guys pulling this off without a body?”

“Easy, bounty hunters keep their target’s body and dispose of it on their own,” Aries explains.

“That’s is both convenient and disturbing,” Lucian replies, and I nod in agreement.

“Did you eat yet, babe?” I ask Lacie.

“Not yet, why didn’t you guys bring me back anything?” she asks, looking straight at Aries.

“We actually ran out of food,” I tell her. “There were a lot more pack members coming by than we anticipated, it would honestly look strange if we took any food out of the house,”

“Oh, yeah, that’s true,” Lacie says. Just then, her stomach growls.

“Precious, do you want pizza?” Aries asks

“Yes!” Lacie exclaims. This girl and her damn pizza.

“We should order from Flippers,”

“Oh my god! Yes! Flippers!” she squeals.

“Hawaiian?”

“You know it,” I smile and quickly call Flippers. Luckily, they’re open pretty late and are within delivery range. I add some breadsticks, and wings to the order just in case the guys want to eat some, and it takes about an hour to get to the hotel. Lacie hides in the bathroom, which turned out to be a good thing because the delivery guy happened to be an old classmate of ours from high school. He didn’t recognize me, but I sure as hell recognized him. He was the jock type that was a bully and picked on a lot of people.

It wasn’t surprising to see him working as a pizza delivery guy this many years later. He barely graduated and lost his track scholarship for getting a DUI while underage. Humans can be so stupid sometimes.

“You can come out,” I tell Lacie. I put the pizza, breadsticks, and wings on the table in the hotel room, and she goes to town.

“Oh my god! I forgot how good this place is,” she says with her mouthful.

“Precious, are you going to share?”

“No, you ate already,”

“Yeah, Aries, Lacie doesn’t share her pizza,” I tell him. He just pouts and snags a slice anyway.

“HEY!” she shouts with a growl.

“Remember what Allie said about taking food from a pregnant woman!” she shouts at him.

“What did you say?” I look at her.

“Oh, yeah, uh…I’m pregnant,”

“WHAT!?” Lucian and I exclaim.

“b***h WHEN THE HELL WERE GOING TO TELL ME!?”

“After we…caught…my…sister…” she says slowly while bringing a slice of pizza to her mouth.

“Precious, that only counts when you’re actually carrying the pup,” Aries replies.

“What the hell does that mean!?” I ask.

“Uh, well, I mean, we are expecting, but because of the whole bounty thing and my having to die, Allie’s friend Maxine, you know the good witch…She used magic to transfer my pup’s soul into Sam’s body for the time being,” Lucian and I look at them like they’re insane.

“So, you’re saying that Sam is currently carrying your baby?” Lucian says in the form of a question. Aries and Lacie nod.

“Think of it as a magical surrogate,” Lacie says sticking a breadstick in her mouth.

“So, you’re not pregnant?” I state in the form of a question.

“Well, not at the moment, but I will be once we catch my sister, and all this s**t is finally over and done with,” I lift my brow at her. What she was saying made no sense. “Cianna, Maxine can use her magic to put my baby back inside of me,”

“Ohhhh…That’s so weird, but cool at the same time,”

“Why didn’t you guys ask Shorty to carry your pup?” Lucian asks. Lacie and Aries just look at each other and don’t say anything.

“Uhh…You guys good?” I ask.

“Yeah, it’s just that…Allie had her reasons to say no when we asked, so we went with Sam,” Lacie replies. I wanted more of an answer, but Lacie shook her head at me. That typically meant, there was more, but she wasn’t at liberty to say. So, Lucian and I dropped it. After Lacie finished eating, we all sat around and talked for a couple of hours. Lucian and I eventually went back to our room to sleep and get ready for Lacie’s fake memorial in the morning.

{Heather’s P.O.V.}

“Ladies and gentlemen, as we begin our final approach into Tampa, please put your chairs and tray tables in their upright position, turn off any large electronic devices, and place personal items under the seat in front of you. Flight attendants will be coming by to pick up any last-minute trash you may have,”

Finally, after traveling for almost an entire f*****g day, I’m landing in Tampa. This trip was the worst, but it was worth it. I can’t wait to see my family’s face when I show up at the memorial. All the condolence messages I have been receiving are making me sick. Everyone assumes that Lacie and I got along and that I’m sad about her death. f**k that and f**k her. She deserved to die. She betrayed me first by replaceing her mate and then living with him. The bigger betrayal is when I found out she was now at Desert Moon.

Of all the f*****g packs in the f*****g world, her mate had to be from there. I don’t get why she didn’t just reject him. Why she actually willingly joined the pack that belonged to that selfish b***h Allie. I already knew that there would be a possibility of seeing her at the memorial, but it would just give me the chance to kick her a*s. Because of her, Deacon moved on and found someone else. The fact that he was able to love someone while bearing my mark still makes my b***d boil. Then he went and made her his Luna, a position that rightfully belonged to me, and then they had pups together.

Those mutt pups. Part fairy and part wolf. I don’t understand how he could choose someone like her over a goddess like me. Once I was finished here with Lacie’s memorial, I need to replace a way to get into Yellow Moon and reclaim what rightfully belongs to me.