11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Cade
I t was really hard to pretend this was just another full moon. It was hard to pretend that for the first time in almost ten years, I wasn’t just going through the motions to try to find my mate.
I stared at Bells from the corner of my eye as we listened to Elim tell us about the creature in the woods. It was hard to pretend I didn’t want to have her in my arms right now.
“I’m sorry, did you just say it was faster than you?” Elim’s words finally caught my attention.
“Yes, Alpha Cade. Significantly so.”
“But you’re a vampire,” I pointed out, feeling stupid suddenly. “What’s faster than a vampire?”
“Yesterday, I would have said hardly anything. Today, I would say this thing.” Elim passed the tablet he was holding to me.
“This is the creature?” I asked, feeling the warmth of Bells’ body scorching my side as she came close so she could look at the drawing. I moved my arm so she could see better, and she placed a hand on my arm, sending shivers down my arm. Her scent of apple blossoms was hard to ignore, and it was making my cock swell despite my best efforts to get it to behave.
“It looks like an emaciated dog,” Bells commented.
“Mangy, too,” I added.
“You said it attacked something already?” Bells asked.
“A rabbit.”
“Still something a hungry dog would eat,” Bells pointed out.
“And the speed?” Elim asked.
I could see he was annoyed at our disbelief, but this thing really did look more like a stray dog who’d seen better days than anything supernatural. “It didn’t tear into the rabbit like it was hungry either.”
“Who drew this?” Bells asked.
“Violet,” Elim answered with a smile.
“Violet? When did Violet see this thing?”
Worry for her sister was suddenly dripping from her voice. Violet gave me the CliffsNotes version of what happened to her a few days ago, and I couldn’t help but feel the same overprotectiveness Bells was feeling. Violet was a sweet girl. Too sweet to have gone through so much in her young life already.
“No, she found the rabbit, and then she drew that based on my description.”
“Violet is letting you near her?” Bells asked with even more disbelief and, surprisingly, a little bit of annoyance.
“Si. I joined her and Chris for training, and she was the one who suggested drawing it.”
“Wait, Violet is training?” It was my turn to be surprised.
“At night, when there’s no one in the gym,” Elim clarified.
“Well, fuck me sideways,” Bells breathed out, staring down at the image.
I’d love to, Princess. If only you’d let me, I thought.
“We need to keep the wolves out of the woods,” Elim finally got to the point of meeting with us. “Especially the little ones.”
“You want to keep wolves out of the woods during a full moon?” I asked, skeptically.
“I know it’s not ideal, but someone could get hurt.”
“I’ll figure something out.” Bells sighed, as if she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.
And she probably did. I already noticed her beta was hardly around. When I did see him, he was usually flirting with my unmated pack members. She had no gamma. No support system here. I’d been trying to help where I could. Even John was trying after seeing how hard the woman worked, but she was so stubborn. Even with Charles cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner with Lindsay, Bells was still waking up early and leaving the fields in the middle of the day to help prep.
All of my pack members who interacted with her were completely impressed with her, yet her own pack members appeared to be immune to all the effort she put forth. It didn’t make sense to me. She should be hailed as hero, and instead she was treated as an inconvenience by eighty percent of her pack.
“I have one more request,” Elim said after a silence.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Could I perhaps join your full moon celebration tonight?”
“Looking for your mate?” Bells asked, with a little too much interest.
Was she interested in him? He certainly was a good-looking man, if you liked the slim type. Nyko, my wolf, growled in the back of my head, and I couldn’t help feeling the same jealousy, as I waited for his response.
“I... I was thinking that if my aunt and cousin found their Beloveds, there might be a chance for me.”
“You’re welcome to join,” Bells confirmed.
Elim stood and gave a grateful nod before he left, leaving me alone with Bells.
“He’s going to be disappointed,” she added after she made sure he wasn’t within earshot.
“Huh? Why? You don’t think he could have a mate out there for him?”
“Oh, I think he’s right and there’s a chance, but he’s not wanting to join for the chance. He wants to see if Violet is his mate, and she’s not going to be at the celebration. He likes her.”
“How do you know?” I asked, slightly relieved that he was interested in the other Salonen sister.
“You didn’t see the little hearts floating over his head when he said her name?” she asked, shaking her head and smiling.
Fuck, is that how I look when I talk about her? I should ask John.
“That could be anything.”
“Mark my words. I saw it from the moment he met her. Elim likes Violet.”
“Hmm, and Chris likes Violet. I wonder how that will turn out,” I replied absentmindedly.
“Wait, what? Chris likes Violet? Since when?”
“I thought you could notice the little hearts over people’s heads?” I teased.
“Chris is like this wall of grunts and silence. He rarely gives anything away,” she defended, crossing her arms and making my eyes gravitate toward her tantalizing chest.
“He’s softer around her. More open. He’s even cracked a joke or two,” I explained, tearing my eyes away from where they were before she noticed.
“Chris? My Chris, cracks jokes?” Bells’ jaw dropped.
“What do you mean ‘your Chris?’” I asked, unable to stop the jealousy I felt at the thought.
I liked the man, a lot, but I would fight him for her if I had to.
“I don’t mean it that way. I used to spend hours planning and trying to make the boy crack a joke or a smile. He was harder to get a reaction from than the guards at Buckingham Palace. It became a challenge for me growing up. He’d never relaxed enough to appreciate my shenanigans. He was always worried about what kind of trouble it might get me in. I think he thought it would reflect poorly on him or something. You really think he likes Violet?”
“Yes. He’d do anything for her.” Just like I would do anything for you.
“I wonder what’ll happen then. I think she might like him, too.”
“He’s good for her and she’s good for him. No offense to Elim, but I’m rooting for Chris and Violet,” I replied.
“I think I might be too, but I feel like I should root for the underdog here.”
“You think Elim is the underdog? Isn’t he related to the Queen of the Vampires? He’s literally royalty. How’s that an underdog?” I asked.
“Hmm, maybe you have a point there.”
We finished talking and I left her office. John met me in the fields, and we talked while we worked.
‘So, you’re leaving in a few days?’
‘Yeah. I’ve got the real estate agents setting up properties left and right. It’s going to be an exhausting three days.’
‘I’d go with you, but I think your princess has enough on her plate without adding our two hundred wolves to it.’
‘Goddess, don’t let her hear you calling her that. She’s bound to kill me in my sleep,’ I joked, unable to stop myself from sneaking a peek over to where she was working.
‘Does that mean you’ve finally managed to share her bed?’ John asked.
‘If only. She’s either truly not interested or really stubborn.’
‘I mean, she does have a point. It’s different for her as a woman and how the packs view her. And this pack already seems to struggle in the respect category for some reason,’ John reminded me.
‘Except I don’t want a conquest,’ I sighed, sneaking a glance at where she was now walking toward the grape depository with a basket overloaded with grapes.
‘You really like her,’ John mentioned.
‘She’s the only woman I’ve met that I prayed to the Moon Goddess to be mine,’ I admitted. ‘Is it a shit thing to feel happy her mate died?’
‘A little?’ He laughed. ‘If your mate hasn’t appeared, do you think maybe you’ll be second-chance mates?’
‘All I know is I’ve never prayed for my mate to be dead instead of hiding somewhere so the Goddess could give Bells to me before.’
‘Shit, you’ve got it bad.’
‘Yeah, but she barely looks at me. Maybe it’s more than just not wanting to hook up with a visiting alpha. Maybe she really doesn’t see me that way. Maybe I’m not enough.’ I felt a clod of dirt hit me in the back of the head, knocking off my Stetson.
“What the hell, John,” I growled.
“That was a warning shot. I told you what would happen next time you said those words.”
“This isn’t about me being alpha!” I countered. The earth was dry and cold right now and it fucking hurt. I picked up my hat and placed it back on my head.
“The same general rule applies,” he growled, grabbing his basket to go turn it in. “You’re enough.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed my own basket. We dumped it and returned to our area of work.
‘Have you told her you’re leaving?’
‘Not yet. I will after the full moon.’
‘I’m rooting for the Moon Goddess to get this one right for you.’
‘Me, too.’
‘You think she’d consider taking you as a chosen mate if it isn’t? Second-chance mates are rare. Maybe she’d go for it.’
‘I don’t know. I hope. If I can’t find the woman destined for me... fuck, man, you know me. The only woman I ever thought about was her. I was a fucking little monster growing up. Pulling on those fucking curls to get her to notice me.’
Not that she had curls anymore. Bells kept straightening her hair for some reason.
I was a stupid little kid until well into my teenage years. I didn’t grow up with them, but it was fucking close enough. Mom was never fond of a lot of lunas. Luna Celeste won her over though and became one of her closest friends. Even though visiting required taking a flight to Arizona from Cali, they both made a huge effort to visit at least once a month. John wasn’t part of the pack back then. But once he gained the title of my best friend in our teens, all I could talk about whenever I was back from a visit to Crescent Moon, was how pretty I thought Bells was with her wild curls and grey eyes, and how I wished she was my mate.
Bells in her teens was a stubborn child who was easy to push into a wild fury that always left me in awe of her. Now she was a fucking woman who drove me crazy with her inability to take help without arguing she didn’t need it. It still left me in awe of her.
After I turned nineteen, I waited so patiently until she came of age. I saved myself and trained hard, hoping it would be enough for the Moon Goddess to grant her to me. Then on the very first full moon after she and Cory turned nineteen, my dreams were crushed when I watched her bond with another alpha.
I didn’t bother to do a full moon for months after. Nyko and I fell into a depression. Thoughts of not being good enough for the daughter of a blood alpha, when I was adopted, hit hard then. It took a while before I went back to looking for my mate, and that was at the request of Dad and John, who wanted me to go with him and look for his own.
Over the years, the yearning and feelings for Bells got a little easier to deal with. Mom sometimes gave me updates but I didn’t see her again until I arrived here, and the feelings hit me full in the face and heart when I hugged her. It felt like coming home.
I knew it was terrible, but knowing her mate was dead, I felt hope again. I’ve tried to squash that budding hope after she rejected me the morning after we’d made out against the door of my room, but I was thoroughly fucked. No part of my body, heart or mind listened to the warnings I gave.
Tonight, we would see. See if the Moon Goddess thought I was finally worthy enough of a woman like Bells, or if I would have to fight for my place by her side. Because if the Moon Goddess didn’t give her a second chance mate tonight, I was going to fight like hell to convince Bells to give me a chance. After getting a taste of her the other night, I was only waiting until tonight to see what I had to do to get her back into my arms. The only one who could stop me was Bells, and I hoped by the few looks I caught over the last two weeks, that she wouldn’t want to.
“Alpha,” Ada’s sugary voice pushed all thought from my head and made Nyko gag.
“Yes?” I asked curtly.
I couldn’t even pretend with her anymore. She kept pushing and I was getting sick of it.
“I was wondering how the pack grounds hunt is going. We haven’t heard anything for a while and some of us are getting homesick.”
How can you get homesick of a place we haven’t bought yet? Nyko asked.
“I’m working on it, Ada. If I have something to share, I’ll let you know.”
“But others—”
“If people have questions on how I run the pack and this process, they can come to me. You’re not a spokesperson for any of them,” I interrupted through gritted teeth. “Please go back to work.
‘She’d like to be the spokesperson alright. She wants to be the one telling everyone what to do,’ John teased as we watched her stomping away.
‘Over my dead body.’
‘I’m sure if she could figure out how to make that work, she would.’
The words made me laugh, and then we continued to work until it was time to be done for the day, only stopping to watch Bells walk away to pick up Adam, and start helping Charles and Lindsay with the preparations for tonight. I had her schedule memorized by now, and I wondered how she managed to keep herself sane. The woman worked too damn hard. I was sure she was still standing only thanks to her sheer will and stubbornness.
I’d spoken a little with some of the other women in the packs in the weeks since I arrived. I knew how much Bells took on after her mate died and all the problems she had. I learned from her patrol why she was so annoyed when I jumped in front of her.
Rogues have been continuously breaching the borders over the past year. They never attacked, they never did anything but stare at her and then run away. It was enough to keep her people in fear, and the council breathing down her neck.
I was happy to see Cory had sent her someone to investigate, because something definitely felt fishy about it all. There hadn’t been more breaches in the last week, but I’d added a few of my warriors to the patrol rotation, just in case. Bells insisted it wasn’t necessary initially, but she finally caved when she admitted some of the women currently on the rotation weren’t the best fighters.
I was surprised any of them were. From what I heard through my pack members talking around the dinner table, most of these women were the ones that took shelter when the rogue attack began, which meant they weren’t fighters. They were forced to learn over the last year in order to survive.
I showered and changed, feeling my nerves rising the closer we got to the full moon celebration. I picked at my food and even visited Violet, who wasn’t joining us, to distract myself. She did make me bring Chris back down with me, though. The man grumbled the entire time, and I wondered if he hated the pomp and circumstance surrounding the full moon, too. He was what? Twenty-four? He was probably tired of trying to find his mate. I knew he was catching feelings for Violet. Maybe he wanted to see if she was his mate.
Bells had a whole speech for both packs where she thanked everyone for their work over the last few weeks. I could feel the emotion behind her words. How much stress was she under before we got here, wondering how she was going to get it all done.
I knew Cory was ready to help his twin, but Bells hated asking for help. Even now, it must sting that she needed any help at all. And knowing how little this pack actually appreciated her... they didn’t deserve her. If I could— if she’d let me— I’d take her away from this whole mess and treat her like the queen she was to me.
I forced myself to look at the two packs as we waited for the moon to peak. The first one I saw sniffing the air wasn’t a surprise. Over the last few weeks, Charles only stopped talking about how awesome and down-to-earth Bells was, to gush over Bells’ current cook, Lindsay. They were close to the same age and watching them work and interact with each other, it was easy to see how well they got along. It was nice to see Charles kissing Lindsay after roaring “Mine.”
Surprisingly and disappointedly, only two other couples appeared to be mated, and as I dared to peek at Bells, we weren’t one of them.
‘Sorry, man,’ John sounded as disappointed as I felt, and I swallowed hard as I looked up at the full moon.
Was it really that hard an ask for her to be my second chance mate?
I didn’t dare look at Bells again. I knew I would just want to beg her to take me anyway, and I had enough pride to do that in private.
Are you ready for this? I asked my wolf. When we’re back from the estate tours, we’re going to court her.
Yes. Convince her to be ours.
Knowing I had the support of my wolf helped me swallow the hurt and resentment I was trying hard not to feel toward the Moon Goddess at this moment. She might know best for most people, but I knew what my heart wanted. What my heart had always wanted, and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me.