Confrontation

RORY

“Morning, Alpha, morning…Luna,” Ace greets us with a wide grin as Everett and I enter the kitchen, me in his arms because he thinks I’ve lost the use of my legs.

Cue eye roll, although it may be true—not just due to my clumsiness, but to the soreness between my legs.

Everett sets me down on the counter as usual, but with a smile adorning his face. He bends down to nuzzle my mark, and it surprisingly makes me moan. It’s become a sweet spot.

“Please keep the PDA to a minimum. I had to hear it all last night,” Lucius grumbles, strolling into the kitchen and glancing our way. “Morning, Alpha, Luna.”

Even he is calling me Luna. Luna Rory. Well, Aurora. Everett calls me Aurora. I thought it was quite a Disney princess name. But it’s Latin originally, before a children’s princess took it.

I thought Rory suited me more, too—it’s small, like me, casual, unisex. I just took to it.

But Aurora, Luna Aurora, it sounds…regal.

“Are you sure you want to go to school today?” Everett asks huskily, kissing my mark and tugging me closer to him. “I can think of other things I want to do.”

I push him back playfully and make a face at him.

“Fine. We’ll leave after you eat something.” He taps my chin up before getting some cereal.

“Why are you still going to school? I mean, you’re the Luna now, you don’t need something to fall back on,” Lucius says, leaning back in his seat at the table with a questioning expression.

“She wasn’t going because she needed something to fall back on. She likes school, and if she likes it, she’s going,” Everett declares, flashing me a gorgeous smile.

I smile back. He’s still letting me go to school, even though he’s made me Luna, because he knows that I want to learn. He’s perfect. And I know he can feel my joy at his words.

Once we arrive at school, I know the others will stick their noses into my private life again, although we did air some of our dirty laundry to them yesterday.

But since coming back to school, I’ve gotten nonstop questions about my relationship with Everett—from a lot of people. And more guys are hitting on me than before, but I just ignore them.

At lunch, because Bethany is more interested in me, she sits with me, Freya, and Skye, thus, so do Oliver and his friends. And now Jax too.

I guess it’s because I’m not a boring Goody Two-shoes anymore, being with a grown man like Everett.

But I was never boring. I couldn’t say anything about my life, and it’s not like anyone really cared to pry. They accepted my excuse of having a strict mom. That was all I had to say.

I kiss Everett goodbye before clambering out of the car carefully, minding my step, and I watch him drive off. My friends, and well, Oliver and his friends, just watch, and expect some sort of explanation.

So, I decide to ignore them all and head inside by myself.

I don’t want to be bombarded this early in the morning, particularly as I had such a good night and a good morning. I don’t want them breaking my high and tearing me down.

I’m in love with Everett, and we connected our hearts, minds, and souls last night. They have no idea how that feels, and they can’t understand. And I’m not explaining it.

They’ll just tell me I’m brainwashed again.

In all honesty, if Freya was dating this guy and describing a feeling like I have now, I would believe she was brainwashed and tell her to stay away from him.

Everett and I are the equivalent of married, and we haven’t known each other for too long—just a few months.

Like Everett, I lose all reasonable thought when I’m with my mate, when generally I’m quite reasonable.

Common sense doesn’t bewilder me, and I know why Freya and Skye, and Eddie, are concerned, but he’s my mate, and I know him. And they will never understand that.

Bethany just acts amazed at how I got him, and always pries about what’s going on between us.

Instead, I steer our conversations toward her relationship with Oliver, which always just seems to be the same. I think she’s getting bored with him.

I make it through the whole morning—luckily with no classes with any of them—without a single confrontation.

I know our fight yesterday may have seemed pretty dramatic, especially since they had no idea what we were even fighting about.

But it was dramatic. He went back to my old home. And Mama is missing. And Nick and Victoria are acting like they didn’t kill me.

They believed they killed me—not let me be mauled by rogues like I told Everett—but fully killed me, slit my throat. If, no, ~when~ they see me again, with not even a scar, they’ll know something isn’t right.

But it was unavoidable, right?

Perhaps I should have rejected Everett at the beginning. But at the beginning, I just thought the threat was Nick and Victoria.

Everett can protect me from them, so I thought staying with him would be the safest place to be. Then I started falling for him, and it was a steep fall.

I had no idea about Achlys or “she.” And now he could be in danger, the pack could be in danger, because I’m there.

I don’t want to get Everett hurt, and now I can’t turn back. It was too late to reject him, or to make him reject me. How do I even tell him? Will he hate me for keeping it from him?

He knows I have secrets, he told me that. But he says he trusts me. I’m not sure he should. I’m not safe. I’m dangerous.

I always have been, with this clumsiness curse. Maybe it really is a curse. The ironic curse: the girl who can’t die is the most likely to die.

As I sit down for lunch, it’s unavoidable when the whole table fills up with questioning faces. Even Oliver looks deadly curious. And even Eddie now sits back at the table, his curiosity outweighing his pain and pride.

“What the hell happened yesterday?”

“You’re staying with him?”

“Did you make up with him?”

“Are you okay?”

I’m bombarded with a million questions, and then Bethany exclaims, “Is that a hickey?”

I had completely forgotten about the mark and how it would look to everyone here.

Back in the pack, it shows that Everett and I have accepted each other and that I’m their new Luna, even though they can all feel it. I’m a part of their pack, an actual member.

When Everett mated with me, he gave me ties to the pack, real ties, and a feeling of belonging. I’m the Luna.

“Did you have sex with him?” Bethany questions, her face shocked and excited at the same time.

The same can’t be said for Freya, Skye, and Eddie, who look horrified. And Jax just looks pissed.

“Shit, you’re glowing. Was he good?”

I just remain silent. She knows I’m not going to answer a question like that.

“I can’t believe you actually slept with him,” Skye hisses next to me.

I understand her reaction, but I had hoped she could support my choices.

“Did he force you?” Jax asks, leaning back in his chair and scowling.

“No, he didn’t force me,” I reply definitively.

“Why are you living with him?” Eddie asks. “What about your mom? What does she have to say about all of this?”

I decide it’s time to come clean, as close to the truth as is affordable, just to make this all easier.

None of them have ever really known anything about me, and when Everett came along, it piqued their interest.

They decided that my life may actually be interesting after all. I have to give them something to get them off my back.

“My mom is missing,” I admit, sighing. “That’s what the fight was about yesterday. I was bullied back in the neighborhood I was living in and they were awful to me. They tried to hurt me so I ran away.

“I was hurt and tired, and Everett and his friends found me, took me to a hospital. I had nowhere to go and Everett was there for me. And we started dating and I live with him.

“Yesterday, Everett went back to my old neighborhood to talk to my mom, tell her that I’m safe. He also met the people who hurt me. But my mom wasn’t there. She’s gone missing in the woods; no one has seen her.”

They all just remain silent, some feeling awkward because they barely know or talk to me, and others feeling awkward because they think they’re supposed to know me.

“I call bullshit,” Jax declares with an accusing tone, a sour look on his face still.

I guess he doesn’t like the fact that I slept with Everett, especially after the fight he tried to provoke. And he did provoke it. Although Everett was lying.

“About what?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at him.

“All of it. Why would you run away? What about your mom? Why would you just leave her? Wouldn’t you just move, both of you?” he questions.

“She’s lived there her whole life. She has friends, even though some people have treated her badly. I’m adopted, so I don’t feel the same ties, and I couldn’t ask her to leave with me,” I explain.

“You’re adopted?” Freya asks, and Eddie and Skye look like they want to know the answer to that too.

I really did tell them nothing. I didn’t even know they didn’t know I was adopted.

Technically, I wasn’t adopted, just found in the woods. But Mama took me in as her own and raised me. I’d call that adopting.

“Yeah, when I was three. I guess that’s why they bullied me,” I answer.

“What does ‘hurt’ mean? You said they hurt you. Did they just say some mean things and you decided to run away?” Oliver questions skeptically.

“They…had a knife, chasing me through the woods. They’re psycho.”

“They tried to kill you?” Eddie exclaims.