Chapter 12
“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” — John Green
Rose’s POV
I was discharged the next morning with a clean bill of health.
Tanya was discharged at the same time and Dad arrived in his car to drive us all home together.
Josie invited us to stay for lunch, which was how I ended up cornered by Lexia in the upstairs hallway.
I had just come out of Tanya’s room after helping the little girl settle back in.
“Rose, you need to reject Aiden,” Lexia pleaded at the landing at the top of the stairway. “Please, you know he doesn’t… you know you’re never going to be his luna.”
Her voice wasn’t mean or vindictive. It was simply a truth she believed I had to accept.
“Um…” I faltered, unsure of what to say. “Lexia… it… it doesn’t work like that in our pack. Josie told me—”
“Forget what she told you. She’d like nothing better than to see me cast away for the old traditions of this pack,” Lexia said snidely.
So, Josie wasn’t a big fan of Lexia.
“But I can’t reject the alpha,” I said softly. If I rejected the alpha, I wouldn’t be able to use my luna powers. My eyes narrowed on her. “Where is this coming from all of a sudden?”
“Can’t or won’t?” Lexia challenged. She stared at me, willing me to answer.
“He hasn’t made love to me, Rose, ever since we got back from our study abroad program.
He thinks it might hurt you because of the mate bond.
He’s been distancing himself from me. I…
I miss him,” she ended in a pitiful whimper.
I took a step back in surprise and suddenly collided with a firm chest, inhaling a familiar musky, woody scent. Aiden was behind me. A thrill shot up my spine when his hands reached my waist to steady me. Lexia let out a low, territorial growl at our touch.
“I’m sorry, Lexia,” I said loudly, stepping away from Aiden.
I turned to look at Aiden, wondering why he had never set Lexia straight.
Then my gaze returned to hers. “Our pack works differently, according to Josie at least. The only way for Aiden to get out of our mate bond is if he steps down. No matter what happens, I must become Luna if the pack wants me to be able to tap into the power gifted to me by the Moon Goddess. That was the condition she placed on our pack. So, while I will always be the luna of this pack, no matter who the alpha is…” I shot Aiden a stern look.
“Alpha Aiden is always free to step down from his position so another alpha can take his place.”
Pushing past Lexia, I walked down the stairs but stopped midway, turning back to face her. Aiden stood there with a stunned expression as if he had just learned something devastating.
“Oh, and if you’re avoiding having sex on my account, don’t. I’d hate to think I’m ruining your sex lives just because you’re afraid of the pain it might cause me. I’ll take a painkiller when I feel the cramping coming on.” Frustration leaked into my voice as I spit out the words.
Even the thought of Aiden sleeping with Lexia sent my stomach twisting into knots. It wasn’t lost on me that Lexia was wearing an oversized t-shirt and yesterday’s jeans. She had stayed the night… had she tried to initiate something?
Determinedly, I walked across the foyer, eyes locked on the front door. Escape was within my grasp.
“Rose, wait!”
I heard Aiden call after me, rushing down the steps, a worried expression on his face. I slammed the door behind me, ignoring him.
A wild itch to run engulfed me. I wanted to run, to feel the wind through my fur, to feel the dirt against my paws.
Blinking rapidly, I tried to push back these foreign urges. I broke into a light jog. I didn’t care that I had just been discharged from the hospital. It felt good—so good—to run. Closing my eyes, I let the wind whip through my hair, releasing all my pent-up frustration.
Aiden’s POV
What was Rose talking about? That we couldn’t break our mate bond?
“What did Rose just say, Mom?!” I exclaimed, trying to keep my temper in check as I turned to stare at her. She’d been hanging back in the doorframe of the dining room, arms clasped together and face pale. "You never told me that I couldn’t choose not to mate with Rose!"
"Aiden…we thought…we thought once you felt the pull, it wouldn’t be necessary to tell you," Mom sighed, moving into the living room and looking up at me. She cast a sideways glance at Ezra before continuing. "It’s pretty self-explanatory once you think about it. Only Rose has the power to converse with our elders, and she can’t do that until she’s officially luna.
Of course, you have to mate with her if you want our pack to benefit from the gift of the Moon Goddess. "
"There’s gotta be a way around it!" I insisted. "Some loophole, somewhere." I looked at Ezra, silently urging him to agree with me.
"I’ve combed through all the scrolls already. There is no way around it. When the Moon Goddess granted our luna the power to converse with the spirits of our elders, she gave this gift under two conditions," Ezra recited from memory.
"One condition was that the luna would always be born on pack land. It’s another reason Estelle was so adamant about having our baby here, and I…
" Ezra swallowed. "I didn’t contest her wishes. Not because I wanted my child to be luna, but because everyone always had their children here on pack territory. I didn’t put it together until after her death.
For me, it was just tradition to let Estelle give birth to Rose in our pack clinic.
Had I known it would cost my wife her life, I never would have agreed to it.
But I did, and when Rose was born, she had the phoenix mark. "
Ezra looked at me, willing me to understand what he was about to say next.
"Obviously, the next condition was that whoever had the mark would always remain Luna. We are obligated under the Moon Goddess’s gift to always make her chosen one our luna.
Aiden, if you truly don’t want to be with Rose, you can always step down.
Rose’s power can only be tapped into when she has mated with the pack alpha—whoever that alpha is.
You owe it to your pack to not make us lose this gift.
If you stayed alpha but didn’t mate with Rose, we would never be able to avail ourselves of the Moon Goddess’s blessing. "
Ezra sure was banking on me stepping down. I could tell he didn’t want his only daughter to live a life with someone who didn’t love her. Did he hope a new alpha would step up that was more suited to Rose? That pissed me off.
“Even if neither of you see it, we do—there is something between you two. And once you both get past your egos, I believe you would be happy together,” Mom pressed.
"What about the mate pull?" I asked quietly. "If I wasn’t Alpha anymore… would I still feel it?"
Ezra gave a hesitant half-nod, unsure. My eyes flicked to Mom for confirmation.
She shrugged. "Our ancient texts mention others challenging the alpha.
The few times an alpha was defeated, it was always a fight to the death.
The new alpha then took the current luna as his mate.
The bond between Luna and the former alpha was obviously broken because the alpha had died.
Naturally, the luna formed a new bond with the new alpha.
Once that bond was established, she was able to converse with the elders in our ancient temple. "
"Barbaric," I whispered. "Sleeping with your mate’s murderer—and we wolves pride ourselves on it."
"It’s the way of the wolves. The female always goes for the stronger male," Mom said nervously.
"Why didn’t you tell me any of this before, Mom?" I demanded, returning to my original question.
"I didn’t think you’d be able to resist your mate!
" she admitted. "I kept hoping that once you returned home and…
and saw her…" She sighed heavily. "People rarely marry their high school sweethearts, Aiden.
I thought you and Lexia would naturally drift apart.
The mate pull is so strong—how are you even able to resist it, Aiden? " she finally blurted out.
“Goddess knows your father… well, when he felt it with me… we couldn’t resist each other.
We knew we were destined mates, but neither of us had turned yet.
He left for five years to train at the Werewolf Alpha Academy in England.
But when he got back, all it took was one whiff of me, and he couldn’t control himself.
I couldn’t control myself either… and… well, six months later, you were born," Mom finished, and I pinched the bridge of my nose.
I really didn’t need to hear my mother telling me that the moment they consummated their bond, I was conceived. Werewolves only stayed pregnant for six months due to their pup’s rapid developmental abilities which manifested in utero.
“All I’m trying to say"—she plowed on like a bad dream that wouldn’t end—"is that I’ve experienced the pull of an alpha to his luna, and I didn’t expect you to be able to fight it off."
“I’m not Dad," I bit out, finally losing my temper. "Dad was always more prone to giving in to his wolf’s instincts. You should have told me all of this before."
With a heavy sigh, I turned to leave the room but stopped short when I saw Lexia standing there. The tears falling from her eyes told me she had heard everything. But instead of feeling remorse over her pain, my gaze hardened.
She had no business going to Rose and asking her to reject me. That was completely uncalled for.
Ignoring her, I walked out of my house. Stripping off my clothes and stuffing them into a duffel bag, I shifted. Gripping the bag in my teeth, I took off, following Rose’s scent.
I tracked her all the way to the edge of pack territory.
We needed to talk.
It had been a long time coming.