Surprise

Book Two

~Aurora has just three weeks left of high school. But her Luna duties are kicking into high gear. Does she have what it takes to balance these two completely separate worlds? Or will the division threaten to tear apart her relationship with Everett?~

RORY

~BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.~

My hand shoots out of my silk sheets and quickly presses down hard on the snooze button.

Since I’ve started falling asleep in Everett’s arms, I am no longer woken up by the unpleasant feeling of falling out of bed and crashing to the floor.

Now I use an alarm clock—like normal people who aren’t cursed by the gods with clumsiness.

I feel my mate stirring awake beside me.

“Go back to sleep,” I whisper to him. “It’s six in the morning.”

He presses his face into my neck, kissing it gently.

“You’re lucky I’m hopelessly in love with you,” he says, “because otherwise I’d have to kill you for waking me up this early.”

I chuckle, turning around and placing my head on the pillow next to him so that our faces are practically touching.

“I can’t be late for school,” I say, kissing the tip of his nose. “Not again.”

“You’re a luna,” he says. “You can lay in bed and have breakfast served to you on a silver platter if you want.

“But instead you choose to wake up at an ungoddess-ly hour and take tests about boring stuff that happened to humans a long time ago…”

“When you put it like that, it ~does~ sound ridiculous,” I say with another laugh.

Everett has never ~really~ understood why I’m so committed to high school. And I don’t blame him.

It’s hardly a walk in the park. The teachers can be harsh and the students can be nasty.

But high school was always my escape from my old pack—where I was ruthlessly tormented.

It offered me all kinds of knowledge that expanded my mind and transported me away from the troubles of my everyday life.

And I made a few best friends along the way, too.

“I just have one more month of school,” I say. “And then I’m all yours.”

“All mine, huh?” He presses his body against my own and I feel a hardness growing under his briefs.

We made love last night, but he’s clearly rested and ready for action again.

I love that about my mate…his passion for me is never in short supply.

I can’t resist tracing a hand down his torso and brushing gently over his stiff member. He moans softly from the simplest touch.

But just as I’m starting to get hot and bothered, the alarm goes off again.

“Noooo,” Everett whines. “Stay with me. I’ll give you a private lesson in biology.”

“I’m sorry. I really gotta go,” I say. “If I’m late one more time, they’ll give me detention.”

“Fine,” Everett says as I slip out of bed and into the robe that’s hanging beside me. “But meet me in the parking lot at 3 p.m. sharp. I have a little surprise planned for you.”

“You know I don’t like surprises,” I say.

“I think you’ll like this one,” he says.

I lean over and give him a final kiss on the lips before running off to get ready for the day.

It’s not easy saying goodbye to my sexy, sleepy alpha.

But I don’t want the last four years to go to waste. I’m determined to make my last month of high school count and get my diploma before my life changes for good.

***

After suffering through a nearly impossible calculus test, lunchtime finally rolls around and I’m eager to relax and catch up with my friends.

I packed my lunch this morning, so I’m one of the first to the tables while the other students file into the cafeteria line.

I tighten the scarf around my neck—the one that I wear every day to cover up my mating mark—and wait for someone to eat with.

After a few minutes, I notice my ex-boyfriend Eddie walking past my table carrying his tray filled with mac ’n’ cheese and meatloaf.

He gives me a half-smile and I wave him over.

“Wanna sit with me?” I ask him.

Just because we’re not dating anymore doesn’t mean that I don’t still value our friendship and hope to repair it.

“Sorry,” he says, “I told Gracie I’d sit with her.”

He nods his head to the table next to us where Gracie Browner is waiting for him.

She’s in my Spanish class, and while I don’t know her that well, she’s always seemed like a nice girl.

I can’t help but wonder if Eddie has a crush on her.

Part of me hopes that he does… I want him to move on and find happiness so that I can stop feeling so much guilt about ending our relationship with a text message.

“Have fun,” I say, and he shrugs and walks off.

I guess our interactions will continue to be awkward for a while longer…

But there’s one silver lining. At least Eddie is no longer under the control of Nemesis.

All three of them—Eddie, Oliver, and Jax—have regained control of their minds, and don’t even seem to realize that ~anything~ strange happened to them.

It’s like the whole experience has been completely wiped from their memories.

~Thank the Goddess for that!~

~How would I ever explain to them that an evil spirit took control of their minds in an attempt to punish me for something that my mother did?~

I unwrap my sandwich and am about to take my first bite when the sound of Freya screaming my name causes me to drop it at my feet.

“Don’t worry,” Freya says, appearing beside me and picking it up off of the floor and handing it back to me. “Five-second rule.”

She swings her legs over the bench and takes the seat next to me.

“Guess what?” she says, beaming.

“What?”

She opens up her backpack and pulls out a single piece of paper.

Then she clears her throat dramatically and starts to read from it.

“Dear Freya Cordon,” she reads. “You have been accepted to the Fashion Institute of Technology!’

“Freya!” I say, squeezing her into a tight hug. “Congratulations! That’s incredible!”

“Isn’t it?!” she says.

It’s always been Freya’s dream to be a fashion designer. Actually, the first thing I noticed about her when we met was her killer sense of style.

She shoves the paper back into her backpack and lets out a squeal.

“Aren’t you just so excited to go to college?” she says. “We can finally be free. No one can tell us what to do anymore. No one will treat us like we’re little kids.”

At her words, my heart sinks a little in my chest.

I know that after I graduate high school, I will have to assume my luna duties full-time. I will have a council of werewolves monitoring my every move.

And I ~definitely~ won’t be able to go to college.

But I can’t tell Freya that. She’ll never understand.

We’ve been dreaming about college for as long as we’ve known each other, and it will break her heart to know that I’ve changed my mind.

Have you heard back from anywhere yet?” she asks.

“Nope,” I say, through gritted teeth. “Keep your fingers crossed for me.”

I hate lying to my best friend, but she wouldn’t believe the truth, even if I ~did~ tell her.

I can feel my lies creating a wedge between us that will only grow wider when she’s a college freshman and I’m the luna of a werewolf pack.

~How long can I keep lying to her without destroying our friendship for good?~

***

When school is over, I grab my books out of my locker and run toward the front door.

I thrust it open and, in classic Rory style, I promptly fall down the short set of stairs on the other side.

But luckily, a pair of strong arms is there to catch me.

“You’re late,” Everett says as he steadies me back onto my own two feet.

“It’s 3:01,” I say, rolling my eyes.

He plants a kiss on my cheek and takes my backpack off of my shoulder.

Then, he grabs my hand and leads me toward his car.

I can feel the eyes of the other students burning into me, as they always do when they see me with Everett.

I know what they’re thinking…

~How did the klutz land that hunky older guy?~

I ask myself the same question all the time…

Everett opens the passenger-side door for me, and I gasp as I see a beautiful bouquet of flowers waiting for me in my seat.

“Ooh!” I say. “What’s the occasion?”

“I told you, I have a surprise for you,” he says. “Get in.”

I carefully climb into the car as he walks around to the driver’s side.

With his hand on my thigh, we speed off toward the pack.

But when we arrive at the familiar packhouse gate, he doesn’t pull into the driveway. Instead, he makes a left and keeps driving.

“What’s going on?” I ask him.

“You’ll see,” he says, flashing me a wink.

We keep driving down a winding, tree-lined street until finally, Everett pulls the car over in what seems like the middle of nowhere.

“Let’s go,” he says.

We get out of the car, and he takes my hand as he leads me to the woods.

We’re still on pack grounds, so there’s no threat of running into any rogues or unwelcome humans. But for some reason, my heart is still racing in anticipation.

It doesn’t help that the ground beneath us is covered in debris and fallen branches, basically begging me to trip and fall over them with every step I take.

Everett notices that I’m struggling, and he sweeps me off my feet. He carries me until the dense woods open up into a beautiful, expansive clearing.

My eyes widen in awe as I take in my surroundings.

Everett has led me to a beautiful secret garden. The manicured grass field that rolls out in front of us is lined with exotic trees and flowers of every kind.

I instantly recognize many of the flowers from the bouquet that my mate surprised me with. He must have picked them himself.

“This place is beautiful!” I say, as he sets me down on a boulder next to a small stream that cuts through the garden.

“Isn’t it?” he says. “This is the place where my mother and father had their mating ceremony. And where I hope we’ll have ~ours~ too.”

He’s right. I ~do~ like this surprise. I can’t imagine a more picturesque place to make it official with my love.

And it’s even more meaningful knowing that his parents were mated here, too. Everett rarely talks about them, so I appreciate every little piece of information that I can get.

“I know you wanted to wait to have our ceremony until after you graduated high school,” he says. “But it’s traditional for the alpha and luna to be mated on the Blood Moon.”

He sits down next to me on the boulder and grabs my hand.

“That tradition might not mean much to you…or even me, for that matter,” he says. “But I know it would mean a lot to my folks if they were still around.”

For an instant, it looks like my strong alpha’s eyes are starting to well with tears. I place a reassuring hand on his cheek.

“Of course, my love,” I say. “I want to honor your traditions in any way I can. When is the next Blood Moon?”

“Well, that’s the other part of the surprise…,” he says. “It’s this Saturday. What do you say, Aurora?”

~He wants to have our mating ceremony THIS Saturday?!~