Confidence

EVERETT

Finding no sign of Aurora in my room, I mind-link Ace.

I attempt to keep the annoyance down, telling him to locate her, knowing Lucius’s apprehension toward her.

“~With your aunt~,” Ace says. I furrow my brows at this news. Why would she leave my room, and the pack house, to go back to the hospital?

“~I’m heading over there.~”

Without even a second thought, my legs spring faster, longing to see my little mate, and curious to know why she disobeyed my orders.

Upon arrival, I push my way past the guards at my aunt’s door to be greeted with Ophelia herself hushing me, awake, and looking invigorated from her usually pale skin.

And then I notice my little mate, looking dead to the world, everything about her soft and delicate and perfect.

Her dark brown-red hair is scattered over her face, splayed on all of the sheets too.

I stalk around to her bedside, brushing the locks from her beautiful face and tucking them behind her ear.

Her neck is bared, tempting me to mark her right here and now, on impulse with no added thought. But I must fight the feeling.

No decision in this whole set-up can be rash, especially not when the pack is at stake. The right luna is paramount for the pack and for me as the leader.

“Why is she here? I told her to wait in our room,” I query Ophelia in a hushed tone.

“You expect her to just sit around and do nothing? When she’s barely even had a conversation with you, and you just go about your business as if she weren’t here?” she responds in an equally quiet yet harsh voice.

“You’re supposed to be on my side here. You’re mad at me?”

“There aren’t any sides, but if there were, who would be on Rory’s side? Even for a wolf, uprooting your life, attempted murder at the hands of people you once trusted—she stayed out in rogue territory for an entire night.

“She doesn’t have any scratches though. She’s a mystery and she’s alone. And you don’t make it any easier on her. This is your family, your pack.

“You know these people, but is she supposed to just wait for you?” Ophelia lectures.

I know she has a point but Aurora hasn’t been here that long. I have a pack to lead, I can’t babysit all the time. Most of that time, she spent in the hospital.

And I had to learn how to control myself around her, so I kept my distance. But I can understand that she might feel alone.

~Is that what she told my aunt~?

Speaking of…she looks incredibly well for a dying woman.

“Are you feeling okay? You look great,” I tell her with a small smile.

Ophelia has been like my second mother. The only family I have left. Sure, I made peace with her dying, but it doesn’t mean I hurt any less to know it.

Even with her lectures now, it gives me this warm feeling inside, the feeling of family, of caring.

Rogues killed my parents, and ever since then, Ophelia has been all the family I’ve needed to get through it. And now she’s going too.

“Yes, I’m fine. Don’t change the subject,” she snaps.

“Aurora can wait. She’s human, she practically sleeps all day—”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t sleep, Everett,” she replies in a sassy voice. There are only a few people I allow to call me Everett and who are allowed to speak to me this way.

One, of course, being my aunt, and Lucius and Ace.

“She’s literally passed out right now. What’s she doing here anyway?”

“She probably got bored of your boring room. She decided to give me some much needed company. She’s adorable and very sweet and caring. She’ll make an excellent luna.”

“In your opinion. You barely know her.”

“The Moon Goddess matches soulmates. You are an alpha, the perfect match for you would make a good luna and also better you, as you would her. Rory is your mate.”

“I can’t make decisions based on some mate bond. She’s human, she’s clumsy. When I found her, her face was covered in her own blood, as if she slipped in it.

“She’s more likely to die from her own stupidity than die by the hand of anyone else, and I can’t keep watch over her all the time to make sure she doesn’t get hurt.

“As a mate, I could do it, but as an alpha, I don’t have the time.” I finish hotly.

Ophelia sighs, glancing over at Aurora.

Like waking up from a horrific nightmare, Rory suddenly shoots upright, her breath uneven and shallow, panting as if she had run a marathon in her sleep.

Her eyes stare wildly at me and Ophelia as her hand raises to her chest to calm herself down.

Just at that moment, the doctor wanders in, to make sure Ophelia is comfortable and to take her blood to assess the progression of the illness.

I notice her hand no longer shakes, strangely, maybe because she has gotten a lot of rest. I know nothing about medicine.

When the doctor leaves, I grab Rory’s hand, ignoring the tingles and sparks I feel that warm me up inside and set alight all the feelings of lust and longing and protectiveness and possessiveness.

She reluctantly gets to her feet and follows me out, stumbling only a couple of times. I take her into a private room and sit her down with me opposite her.

“I told you to get settled into your bedroom, our bedroom,” I say.

“You didn’t tell me I couldn’t leave,” she argues, although then adding, “Alpha,” like the polite girl she is.

Anything that comes out of her mouth is like listening to an angel, the tones sweet but attempting to hold authority.

“Did you only go to the hospital?” I say.

“No, I went to the library first,” she answers.

I sigh and run my hand down my face. Great. I don’t want anyone to know about her yet. Just in case she’s not staying.

“~She’s fucking staying, you asshole~,” Chaos yells at me, and I just internally roll my eyes at him.

“But I told Melissa, the librarian, that you found me in rogue territory injured and you helped me,” she adds, which causes me to promptly frown.

If she knew the ideas swarming around in my head, she would know not to share the mate situation. I must have given her those signals.

Signals that I wasn’t sure about us, that I might not want her.

I do want her, badly. But I have to think about the pack.

“Should I not have done that?”

“No, you should have. I just… Tell me something about you.”

“Tell you something? There’s not much to tell.”

“Tell me anything. I know nothing about you.”

“I was three when my parents supposedly left me in rogue territory and my wolf mom found me. I…love school and books. Books especially. My favorite color is blue, but not the normal blue, an electric kind of blue.”

~Weirdly enough, the color of my eyes~.

“What about you?” she asks.

~Is it strange that I’m already in love with her, or I feel like it at least~? This mate bond is incredibly powerful, especially when we’re so close.

“I like green,” I get out. Funnily enough, the color of her eyes. “Running through the woods, with the trees rustling and the fresh smell of nature.

“Being the alpha, I don’t get to do it as much as I would like. My parents were killed by rogues.”

Her face pales and I see sympathy, which I absolutely hate. I don’t need anyone’s pity.

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” I order.

“You can’t tell me what to feel,” she declares in a firm tone that surprises both me and her, “Alpha,” she adds again. “I’m not feeling sorry for you. I’m relating to you. I’m an orphan too, and knowing what my real parents are like and what they would say haunts my mind every so often.

“And as much as my adopted mother tried, she couldn’t tell me who I was, and I always hoped that maybe she could.”

~She almost sounds wise, this small human who trips over air~.

Her words are…intelligent, like she could understand my pain. And I almost admire this sudden courage to speak to me this way, although if it were anyone else, they’d be put in their place.

She might be my luna after all and then she would be able to speak to me this way.

I had assumed she was this shy sweet little girl, especially after the few words I exchanged with her when she had fallen on the floor earlier.

Before I can say anything, the doctor bursts into the room, his eyes widened towards me and his expression shocked.

“Alpha, it’s a miracle. Your aunt has a clean bill of health. She’s not dying.”