31 Meant

Carrie

The rogue was buried the next day, still in his wolf form as he had died. Witches could, for a short time after death, shift a body to their preferred form depending on the wolf’s beliefs, but since we didn’t have a pack witch and had no way of knowing what the rogue would have wanted even if we did, we could only assume. Burying him as a wolf seemed fitting.

Jason and I, along with the wolf who dug the grave, not by hand, but with one of the machines belonging to Bronson Construction, stood for a silent minute before he filled the grave in. The whole thing only took a matter of moments, a brief conclusion to what had likely been a painful and short life.

Finished with matters in the human world, I turned my attention to my rightful position. As there was no gamma yet, Porter and Randy had been doing the bare minimum of the traditional luna’s usual duties, just enough to get by. I didn’t blame them, since defense was way more important than ceremony, but both seemed content to dump everything on me and run now that I was really stepping into the role and run for the hills. I could handle it, so I didn’t complain. Porter was distracted by mate woes, and I agreed that Randy should be focused on defense and training.

While it was a good thing for the pack, it didn’t help that the construction team had been scheduled to start work on a contract they had won, and so my mate and half the pack were off working most days either at the site or for other human employers, leaving me, the young mother Krystal with her baby Rosella, and a skeleton crew of patrols, alone with our newest rogue recruits.

Max still hung around me as my personal guard, but he was still planning on leaving after the moon. I wasn’t sure how Jason would be able to bring himself to leave me once his friend was no longer here to guard me. I could tell it pained him already as he kissed me before he got into his truck.

Rather than spend my day moping like I was tempted to do, I ensured that everything was set for my own induction ceremony. Along with Max, I took along Theodora and Krystal with baby in tow to grab supplies from town, and to look for a dress. After a couple of hours of searching, We found something suitable, a white sundress.

It wasn’t as fancy as what most lunas would wear, but it fit the situation. It would be selfish to spend more of the pack’s hard earned resources than necessary. Jason would love me in whatever I wore, and I would wear it with more pride than I ever could have worn an expensive gown with Asshole Dane.

Already I felt more pride for this pack than I ever did for Greenwoods. My mate had built this, and I would help nurture it as it grew.

Back at the territory, I sat in Jason’s office, and I decided it was time to make a couple of phone calls I’d been neglecting. I had a better cell phone now, an extra cost, but necessary for communication beyond what our links could reach. Jason had wanted me to have something more reliable, and I hadn’t argued with him.

At first, I had been hesitant to tell my parents or my friends about my situation. I didn’t want them to know about him if it was just going to go terribly wrong, but ever since Jason and I had finally shared our pasts, it felt permanent.

I dialed my parents first. After a few rings I heard it connect. “Hello?” my dad asked. He sounded tired. I hoped he wasn’t stressed out about me.

“Hey, Dad,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Carrie! Hello, it’s great to hear from you!” He sounded relieved, which meant he had been worrying. “It’s fine here. Just woke up. I ran the early night patrol last night, and you know how that messes with your rhythm. But how are you?”

“I’m good. Is Mom around, too? I have some news.”

I heard him yell for my mother. “She’s coming. Is it good news?”

“It’s good, yes.”

“Here, I’ll put you on speaker.” My dad spoke to my mom, “It’s Carrie.”

“Carrie! Hello, I’ve been worrying about you,” she said, the relief in her voice obvious. “You really should call more. Your phone was disconnected when I tried calling last week, you didn’t answer your email—”

More guilt rushed through me. I shouldn’t have avoided my mother just because I didn’t know what to say to her. But how could I tell them about Jason when I had still been so unsure of him? But now, it was different. “Sorry about that, Mom. It’s been pretty chaotic here. I actually called to tell you about it.”

“Don’t make me wait, then,” she prompted.

“I found my mate.”

I winced as my mother nearly shrieked her excitement. My father repeated, “You found your mate? Your true mate?”

“Yes.” Like I would have told them if I’d found another chosen mate, I thought with a small headshake.

“What’s he like? Where’s his pack? What’s his position?” my mother asked, excitement building with every question.

“Well, his name’s Jason, and he’s perfect, obviously. And the pack, well, we’re building it.”

“Building a pack?” my father sounded more interested now.

“Yeah. He and a couple of his friends were survivors from Glenhaven, you remember that massacre?”

My parents both responded solemnly. It had taken time for information to come out about it, but it had been a shocking tragedy. Travesties like that just didn’t happen on a scale that size ever since the accords had been reached after the wars.

I continued. “They did the rogue thing for a few years, then they decided to start a pack. They claimed territory near where I was living, and I stumbled onto it and got dragged in front of the new alpha—who turned out to be my mate.”

“I always knew you were destined to be a luna,” my mother said.

She’d never said anything like that before that I could remember. “I’m pretty sure you were dead set against me being luna before.”

My mother scoffed. “I was never against you doing the job, Carrie. You did a great job. You were the best luna this pack ever had. I was against your relationship. And now that you’ve found your mate, I’m guessing you can see that I was right.”

Did I ever hate it when my mother was right.

I was saved from having to come up with a non-snarky response by my father.

“Starting a new pack sounds pretty risky.” Apparently his curiosity about the beginnings of a new pack had finally led him to the fact his baby girl was helping with the risky venture.

“No worse than living as a lone wolf amongst humans.” Like my mother now felt free to say ‘I told you so’ since I was in a happier place, I no longer needed to sugar coat the dangers of lone wolf life anymore. “I was lucky and did fine, but it’s a dangerous life. And this is something I feel really good about. Jason is amazing. He’s already a great alpha—way better than Asshole Dane—”

My mother choked. “Asshole...”

“—Sorry, Mom, the nickname’s habit now. Alpha Dane. Jason is a better alpha. I know I’m biased, but now that I’m not in the pack anymore, I’m free to say that Alpha Dane is wound too tight. It’s funny how much clearer I see it now. I cared about him, but was I in love with him, or was it the idea, or even the pack I loved? Now I think it was mostly the pack. I did love being luna there, but here I’m meant to be luna. I’m joining the pack officially on the full moon. I’ll be official luna then, too, although I’m already doing the job. And there’s a lot to do.”

I paused, and considered. “You’re welcome to come to the ceremony if you want, although I know it’s late notice so I understand if you can’t. Everything just happened so fast.”

“We’ll see if it’s possible.” My mother sounded excited.

“Is he treating you right?” my father asked.

“Mmhmm. We had a slightly rocky start, but things are great now.”

“I’m so happy for you, Carrie. Have you talked to your sister? But I guess it’s good that you didn’t because you ended up exactly where you were meant to be.”

“No, sorry.” I probably should. My pack could use all the connections to other packs it could get. And we might not be close, but she would always be my sister.

“Can I tell her?” My mother was clearly excited.

“Sure, but don’t tell anyone else yet, please. I’ll let my friends know myself, and I don’t want Asshole Dane hearing about it. Maybe I’m being petty, but I don’t want him to know that I’m doing well.”

“Sure thing, dear,” my mother said. “It might be hard to keep it from him since I can’t contain my happiness.”

“I doubt he’ll notice. He’s so...” my father trailed off.

“He’s so what, Dad? I’m over it.”

“Wrapped up in Luna Heidi.”

“As well he should be,” my mother added. I could picture the stern look she was giving my father.

“I understand it, I really do,” my father was quick to assure my mother. “But that’s the battle of wolves, right? All you want to do is...”

“Be around,” my mother supplied helpfully.

He continued, “Yes, be around your mate, but you still have to give attention to your other responsibilities. There’s more to life than your mate, even if that is the best part.”

I actually could sympathize a tiny bit now. I was still angry with the way he treated me, but I understood why he had felt the need to be with Heidi. If I had been forced to pick Dane over Jason, I would have been miserable. It would have been different if he and I had been marked before he met her, but once he did, there was no going back.

In retrospect, I was so glad Asshole Dane never marked me. The idea of missing out on Jason was terrible. I touched Jason’s mark on my neck and smiled.

My mother decided it was time to change the subject. She had always been less comfortable with criticizing the alpha than my father. “So, are you marked?” she asked, as if she read my mind.

I smiled at the memory. “Yeah. About a week after we met. We had some...miscommunications before that.”

“Well, I’m just glad it all worked out, sweetheart.”

“Me too.”

It was just nice to talk to my parents and have the worry in their voices lessen for a change.

Author's Note:

I've been posting daily updates for a few weeks now, but I'm out of buffer, and I've got several projects I'm working on at once.

I usually do one final edit on future chapters before posting which usually doesn't take that long, but I've gotten a couple of comments on grammar errors in this book recently, so I need to try harder, which will obviously take more time than normal.

So for the next little while, the posting schedule will drop to a chapter roughly every two days until I'm finished, unless I manage to work really fast. (When I get the book completely ready, I'll switch back to daily. Hopefully it'll only be a week or so. The plan is to have this entire book complete here sometime in August.)

Thanks for reading/commenting/reviewing! I've been so busy I haven't been quickly responding to comments, but I have/will read them, and I really find them encouraging. ❤️