Chapter 134

#Chapter 134 – Family is Everything The ride home that afternoon, with everyone packed into the van is…awkward.

I grimace, leaning back against Victor as I survey the variety of emotions that I see on everyone’s faces.

Rafe looks just plain ill, leaning his head back against his headrest, gritting his teeth against the pain that runs through his body every time the packed van hits a bump or a pothole. His chest is wrapped tightly with bandages, the Beta medic recommending he be checked immediately for broken ribs. Next to him, Bridgette is anxious, worried, miserable. She stares at Rafe, eager to help his every need, but no knowing, precisely, how.

My heart goes out to her, then. I wonder if Rafe chose her as his luna not only for her beauty and simplicity, but because he knew he could control her. As a beta-born girl posing as alpha-born, he would certainly have the upper hand in the relationship.

But in moments like this, when Bridgette’s knowledge of the life and rights of a Luna could have helped him, his choice may have backfired. Unfortunately, I know that Bridgette will likely be the one to bear the consequences of this. Rafe will make her pay for it, rather than admit his own mistake.

Frankly, I consider, I had just been lucky yesterday. I hadn’t run into that forest knowing I would be considered a legal participant as Victor’s “other half” – I had just known, instinctually, that something was wrong with him, that I had to go to him.

But also, perhaps there was something in my upbringing that had made me confident in that choice, which hadn’t checked my impulse to be at his side in that moment. Perhaps there was something in the privileges of being Alpha-born that made me know that it was the right choice.

I shrug, knowing that it can’t truly matter anymore and that I’ll never really now.

But despite my dismissal of the thought, I recall moments from the night with unease.

When I had run into the woods, I hadn’t thought about where to go. I had just run, run until my lungs burned with the effort. I hadn’t felt the cold, hadn’t stopped to think about where Victor might be. I had just…known.

Suddenly, I had found myself in that grove, had seen Victor in front of me dangling in the air, had seen Rafe in front of him – Rafe, with that knife in his hand – and had grabbed the closest object I could find.

In retrospect, I know, in my heart, that I shouldn’t have been able to lift that tree limb, let alone swing it.

I’m not a big person and I certainly don’t lift weights to make my arms strong. But in that moment, I just…did it.

I frown as I consider the mystery of it all. How did I lift that limb? How did I know where Victor was?

How did I know, even, that he was hurt and needed my help? Uneasy at the thought of it all, I bite my lip and clean closer to Victor, who sits at my back.

“Are you all right?” he murmurs, his lips brushing against my hair as he works to keep our conversation private.

“I’m fine,” I say, keeping my thoughts to myself, for now at least. The whole family doesn’t need to hear my musings. “Make a note, though,” I say, “that next time we take a family trip, you need to get a second van.”

He laughs lightly and then kisses my head, turning his attention back to the phone in his hand.

I smile and close my eyes, leaning my head back against him. I’ll think about it all later, I tell myself.

When we have less on our minds.

Because, I know, there is still more at stake. The pack is in Victor’s hands now – incontrovertibly, I know, he has proven himself. And I also know that the person he is texting now is his lawyer, working to make changes to the legislation of the Kensington pack so that his family can no longer call his leadership into question.

But there are still problems we have to address, things we have to consider.

My father, for one, is still out there, lurking, his eyes on our pack and all of its resources. I know he wants to tear us to pieces and take the scraps for himself. And I am still, technically, legally, his property.

I scowl at the thought, knowing that this, too, is going to be a fight. If Victor wants to make me his Luna, he has a legal obligation to go to the negotiations table with my father. And my father is going to demand the world.

The media, too, is going to flip out about this. Buzz about Victor’s dramatic rejection of Amelia has died down, but this is going to ignite some serious paparazzi flames. Victor’s “play thing,” which he kept in his little “doll house” out back during his whole relationship, taking Amelia’s place just weeks after her brutal dismissal?

God, the press was going to crucify me.

And Amelia herself, I suddenly remember, is still a player in this game. I had forgotten, I admit, her arrival in the back garden, her promise to destroy us. I shouldn’t underestimate her and I have no idea what she has up her sleeve.

I bite my lip, anxious, suddenly, at everything that we have before us. At everything that’s coming with this new decision to be, officially, Victor’s Luna.

“Mama,” Alvin whispers, and I open my eyes to see him staring at me, his eyes only inches from mine.

“What’s wrong with your face?”

I frown at him. “What?”

He raises his little fingers to my cheek, pushing at the frown growing deeper there. “You’re all wrinky,”

he says, worry in his voice. “What’s happening?”

I laugh, snatching his hand away and pulling him close against me. “You worry about your own face, baby,” I say, “leave me to my own.”

“What’s wrong with my face?” he says, looking up to me and raising his hands to his own cheeks, prodding there. “Is it different?”

“Oh yes,” I say seriously, looking down at him. “It’s changing.”

His eyes widen with worry and I laugh at him again, joking. “It’s growing even more handsome every day,” I say, giving him a big kiss on the head and tickling him until he laughs and squirms in my arms.

“Mama, it’s not,” he says, laughing but also a little worried. I stop tickling him and gather him close. “It’s not changing,” he says, determined, “tell me you were kidding.”

“But it is changing, baby,” I say, wrapping him up close again. “You’re growing up, and all of our lives are changing a little bit. You’ll be seven soon,” I shake my head as I consider it, resting my chin atop his dark hair. “And then you’ll be eight, and nine, and fifteen, and twenty. And every day you’ll get handsomer and handsomer.”

“No,” he says, unnerved at the idea, suddenly, of change, of growing up. “I’m going to get uglier, or not grow up at all.”

I laugh at him, my eyes squinting with joy and pride at this young man I’m lucky enough to call my own.

“Nope, sorry, kiddo,” I say softly. “Handsomer and handsomer, you have no choice.”

“I’m glad I’m going to be handsome,” Ian says, surprising me. He’s sitting on Victor’s other side, playing a game on my phone. I hadn’t known he had been listening.

“Oh?” says Victor, curious.

“Yes,” Ian says, nodding confidently, still paying attention to his game. “Because then I can get the best Luna. And we learned this weekend that it’s very important to have a good Luna. For military operations.”

I laugh. “Military considerations alone, of course,” I say, tickled by the idea. “Yes, that’s all we’re good for.”

Alvin snuggles against me and I study his sweet smile. “I know it’s more than that, mama,” he whispers, like it’s our little secret.

“Good, baby,” I say. And then I blink, realizing, perhaps for the first time, that my sons are growing into two very different people.

For so long, they have been identical, indistinguishable, inseparable. Two peas from the same pod. But now, I’m realizing that they’re growing into two separate, equally wonderful people. And I love them so much, suddenly, that it almost burns within me.

They’ll always have each other, always be connected, I know. But my Alvin and my Ian, they’re growing up.

My eyes fill up and I struggle to hold my tears in, not wanting my boys to see.

“I know,” Victor murmurs behind me, and I know, in my heart, that he does understand. That in this moment, we’re thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same feelings, as one.

And as one, we’re both roughly determined to face the struggles of our pack and make it work. Alvin snuggles against me, napping a little, and Ian focuses on his game, both of them completely unaware of the determination solidifying in Victor’s heart, in my own.

We’re going to make this pack, this world, as right as we can. For us, of course, but especially for them.