Chapter 44
“Melanie...Mel stop looking at me!” I huffed in exasperation at my best friend who caught me hooking up with our Alpha last night. My ex-mate at that.
I refused to talk inside the house so Melanie dragged me into the clearing for us to have this very awkward conversation.
Jasper was gone for the next four days doing another training thank Goddess or else he probably would have found out too.
Mel pushed me to sit on a rock and she sat on the ground beside it and waved her hands as if motioning for me to get on with it.
“He broke into my room last night to argue about what the council wants but then he just ended up grabbing me and kissing me. I pushed him off at first thinking it was a scheme to get me to consider trying to ask the Moon Goddess for a second chance at our bond.
"But he said fuck all that business and he just wanted to finish what we started the other night....so we did” I covered my face to hide my blush.
“You said it wasn’t sex. I know you have zero experience so tell me what you let him do?” She asked me.
Melanie is a little bit older than me but a lot more experienced than I am. She also isn’t shy one bit. She talks openly about sex but I was malfunctioning at the topic.
“Fine, I won’t look at you when you tell me. I’m looking over there” she scooted her bum to face her back towards me. I chewed on my lip in thought but ultimately gave in.
“A lot of making out...then hand stuff...then mouth stuff” I cringed when I heard myself say it out loud.
“OH! You covered most of your bases. Damn, my baby is growing up” she whirled around and grinned like a cheshire cat at me. I tucked my head into my lap and hid some more.
“Is he good? I know he is” she told me. My head shot up. “Wait? You hooked up with him before?” My eyes went wide at the thought.
“Huh? No. I meant, I assumed he was good in bed because girls are crazy over him. I haven’t touched your man. Don’t worry” she mocked me.
“Not my man!” I shouted for no reason at all. A bird flew out of the tree above me just to get out of this conversation.
“Did he leave last night? He wasn’t there when we woke up?” Now she was just fishing for information.
“Yeah...I don’t know when he left but it sorta made last night feel cheap. Like sneaking out on a one night stand or something” I shook my head at myself.
“That’s why you don’t attach too much emotion to this. You enjoy the physical like it’s a catch and release. Ya feel me?” She arched her perfectly sculpted brow at me.
Of course her red heart shaped sunglasses were on her face. She loved those things.
“Gosh, that’s awful” I cringed at the idea of just getting physical with people and just moving onto the next one. That wouldn’t be me. I don’t know why I let Devran be the one to share that experience with me but I wouldn’t be jumping into any new beds anytime soon.
The next one will be the guy I actually date. Whoever that is.
“Poor Trevor and I have had a horrible track record” I slapped my forehead when I thought about our two interrupted dates, one ending by literal fire. And then last night me hooking up with his friend instead of him.
“Oh I forgot about him,” she laughed. “Not funny” I kicked at her.
I decided to focus on the tree trunk I was leaning on instead of her and I pat the hard bark and just appreciate the beauty of it. This tree is probably hundreds and hundreds of years old. It’s seen so much and us sitting at the base of this tree, we are so temporary in comparison.
It was upon studying this tree that something weird happened to me. I sort of shoved my head back on my neck then blinked a couple times.
Melanie noticed that I'd gone quiet and studied what I was doing. Slowly I let my had almost caress the tree or at least that’s what it looked like to her.
“Should I leave you two alone?” She asked sarcastically.
“I just tapped into something. I think I just saw the aura of this tree. Like the actual energy around it” I gaped at the now normal looking space in front of me. My eyes began to dart around to try and do it again on something else.
“That sounds trippy,” she noted. “I mean, everything has energy, our human eyes just aren’t evolved enough to see it. They say cats can” I randomly started talking. She let me.
“Did you do it again?” She asked after a few minutes of me staring at the trunk of the tree. “No, ugh, I don’t know how I did that. I’ll have to figure it out another time” I waved it off.
“This is going to start happening a lot, huh? Random powers are gonna just keep surfacing and we’re gonna be all confused and trying to get you to tap into it again.”
She chuckled at the thought of her, myself, and of course Jasper as I keep discovering new things about myself while they ride along with me.
“I’m almost afraid something freaky is gonna happen. Like what if I start seeing dead people or something. I’m too nervous for all that” I shook my head repeatedly. It made her chuckle.
“I think you’re more Avatar than The Sixth Sense. No dead people...probably” she did an awful job of assuring me. “Air bender” she motioned her hand around like she was doing karate or something.
When Melanie’s facial expression turned flat I tipped my head to see why.
“Luna Leslie just linked me. She’s asking if I’m with you...she wants to see you” she gave me an apologetic expression. She knows what this is about just as much as I do.
Leslie isn’t someone I can say no to though. Her and Conan took me into their home when I was brand new here and the town was still very upset that a human was amongst them. I feel like I owe them something for that.
-
We had to head back into the village and once we got near the Pack house Melanie waved me off. I had to go there by myself.
As soon as I knocked a staff member opened the door and announced my presence. That got Luna Leslie to leave the sitting room and ask me to come join her.
“How are you feeling since the fainting spill?” She asked me like being unconscious for three days after performing a weather type miracle was ‘fainting’.
“I’m better. I know how to limit my use of power but for the fire it was different. I had to take everything I had in me. It’s not something I plan to do again” she smiled softly at her.
She nodded and fixed the hem of her dress. We were sitting on adjacent sofas so there was a glass low seated table between us.
Parts of the Pack house can look like a frat when the guys get their grubby hands on it but this portion of the house was very pristine and suitable for guests of all kinds. This was Leslie’s domain and she took pride in her home.
“Look, don’t think this is me bombarding you from the sidelines but I do know what my husband and the council asked of you. Let me start by getting that out of the way” she told me and waited for me to nod in acknowledgement.
For some reason, the whole time she was talking I was feeling my cheeks heat up because I kept thinking about the fact that her son had his face between my thighs less than 24 hours ago.
I felt guilty like deep down she’d know my dirty little secret.
“I’m not going to weigh in on it either way but I did wanna see where your head’s at with all this going on? I know you have no family here. We’ve taken you on as one of us so as a mother I felt it was my duty to check in.”
For some reason that fact made my eyes water. I’ve never had that before. When she saw my less than positive reaction she rushed over to my side and asked what was wrong.
“I’m just not used to anyone...caring. Or just checking in on me the way you’ve just offered. I really appreciate it” I wiped a quick stray tear. In that same moment a second person appeared.
“Leslie, I just overheard in passing. Mira, I was going to come find you at your cottage for the same reason. You know my Jasper adores you, and we do too” Elizabeth, Jasper’s mom added to the conversation.
She came and sat on the other side of me so I was now between both women. Certain small features of Elizabeth reminded me of her son and for that her expressions would bring a smile to my face.
“I know both your husbands want Devran and I to try and beg forgiveness of the Moon Goddess to see if she will restore this mate bond. And I’m sure you want that too...but as a woman would you want to set aside how the men viewed me and disregarded me and just do as they ask now?”
I asked them both to see what they’d say.
By their expressions I knew it was uncomfortable to answer.
“None of us adults really knew what was going on with you and Dev before the mate bond was revealed so...how did that come about? Were you seeing one another? I know Dev’s wolf was highly agitated but that’s all we knew” Leslie told me.
“If you think we had some relationship, we didn’t” I got straight to the point.
“I remember seeing you two dance at the changing of Alpha’s ceremony. You two looked good together. At the time I didn’t realize what it was but it’s clear to me now that your mate bond was shining through. You shared no feelings between you two?”
Devran’s mom tried being a good wife and mother and coaxed me.
“No, Luna Leslie. If I’m being honest...Devran was never nice to me. This isn’t some fairy tale. Even with the bond intact we were toxic to each other” I pressed a hard smile.
Elizabeth chimed in. “I honestly had hoped you’d be Jasper’s mate once I realized you could be mated to a wolf and Devran rejected you...Sorry Les,” she apologized to her friend.
“Anyways, that isn’t why I wanted to see you. We’re getting carried away. I just wanted to know if you healed okay and if you are coping with knowing now what you are?” Elizabeth turned the conversation around.
“Yes, I am coping. Thanks.”
A staff member came in and cleared her throat. “So sorry to interrupt. Alpha asked that I escort Miss Mira to his office if you are finished here?” She asked the women.
They really had no choice but to let me go which I was actually relieved of because although they were trying to be nice I could still feel they wanted something from me.
But what the heck did Devran want? He snuck out on me now he’s summoning me to his office?
When I followed the woman she knocked rapidly three times before his deep voice from the other side told her to open the door. She left me to stand there alone after that.
Seeing Devran behind his desk in his more serious posture and just being in his element was attractive. “You asked to see me?” I spoke first because his eyes on me burned.
The office has grid maps on the walls, a thick wooden desk, and conference style seating. The dark wood throughout the room made the vibe feel more serious and formal inside here.
“Well, I heard your arrival being announced before and then I could smell you throughout the house, so I wondered why you were here” he told me. I rolled my eyes. The control freak.
“Your mom was actually the one to ask me to come here.” With that his brow lifted and he placed something down that'd been in his hand so he could lean back into his desk chair and study me at the door.
He waved me in closer. I released the door and stepped inside and it heavily shut behind me. With a crisp white tee clung to his tan flesh and his muscles obvious with the way his posture was in that chair, I had to swallow and settle those hormones that were surfacing again.
The lip his fingers were now playing with only reminded me of his kisses which were sensual, and his tongue which was torturous between my thighs. I clenched mine by accident and his nostrils flared as if he knew.
“Why did my mom call you here? What did she want?”
I fidgeted with my fingers and looked anywhere else but him. “She was just checking in on my well being.” I’m not sure what his expression read but I thought for a second that he might not have believed me.
For this reason I added, “And I think maybe she wanted to back up your father and the council’s idea on...us.” He hummed at this as if that was his speculation all along. “And what’d you say?”
“Same thing I told you and everyone else” I finally looked him right in the eye when I spoke and he was the one to shift his gaze away now.
“And last night?” He surprised me by asking. “What about it?” I took a few steps closer to his desk so our voices wouldn’t carry.
“Regret it yet?” I wanted to snort at this but instead I turned the tables. “Do you? You’re the one who was gone this morning.”
His shoulders rounded off and he sat up straighter in his chair so he could lean his arms over his desk and really look at me. Was this an intimidation factor?
He doesn’t have to work very hard to be intimidating.