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I watched Evie coming toward the gathering with her nose in her tablet as she approached her dad.
For a moment, I flashed back to those times when she would walk through the halls of the pack house or school, so distracted with her work that she would almost walk into lockers, trashcans, people and walls. It was so fucking adorable, and I couldn’t help but gently guide her away from anything that was in her way.
That would be Paolo’s job now. I felt my heart break at the thought, and I decided to go check on the patrols instead of joining the gathering. What was the point, anyway? This full moon would be just like every other. Full of disappointment and heartache. After checking in with the patrols, I decided to walk the whole perimeter just to waste some time. The last thing I wanted to see was Evie greet Paolo like they did this morning.
I was somewhere near the eastern border when I heard a noise behind me. I turned around, ready to fight, when I saw Evie struggling through some broken branches on the forest floor.
“Did something happen?” I asked, alarmed. I checked my mental barriers, but they weren’t up. Someone could have just mind-linked me if there was an emergency.
“Yes. Something happened. My alpha is being a stubborn asshole who won’t look me in the eye or talk to me,” she answered angrily. I raised an eyebrow, finding myself turned on at the fire in her eyes. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder, Since when did she talk to me like that?
“I beg your pardon, Miss Roswell?”
“Don’t you ‘Miss Roswell’ me. You have been avoiding me. Do you think I didn’t see you hanging around the packs until you saw me walking toward everyone?” she accused.
“Ho—”
“I already told you, Cory, you can’t hide from me,” she said, pointing to her tablet.
“You’re watching me instead of looking after the safety of the pack?” I asked, unable to stop the happiness I felt that she had been following my movements.
“Don’t you fucking accuse me of not doing my job! I can do both,” she said, misunderstanding my question as an insult to her work ethic. Why was I so turned on to be spoken to like this by her? If she kept going, she was going to see what her words were doing to me. I felt a mosquito bite me in the neck, and I slapped it off.
“Listen, Evie, I am not avoiding you. I am...” The world suddenly tilted on its axis, and I found myself swaying before I felt myself hit the ground.
“Cory? Cory, what’s wrong?” Evie walked toward me quickly, but I saw her stumble and land only a few feet next to me.
“Evie?” my words slurred out of me. The world was going in and out of focus. I tried to mind-link the pack, but I couldn’t feel anything connecting. Evie was unconscious, and I started crawling toward her. I was a few feet away before consciousness left me too.
Ziomara
“Come on, Molly. This is a nice dress! Can you please put it on so Mommy can go see if her life is going to change forever?” I pleaded with my three-year-old. Molly was in the middle of a day-long temper tantrum because I hadn’t taken her to see James in almost three days. This morning, she refused to eat her pancakes. Her daycare teacher gave me a long list of things Molly refused to do today and told me Molly gave away her lunch. She then spent her recess with her face pressed against the fence, screaming for James until Melissa mind-linked me and let me know what was happening. I arrived to pick her up and she’d instantly demanded to see James. I ended up carrying her home because her legs suddenly stopped working when I told her he was busy.
I felt bad. I was the one who panicked and kept my distance from James over the past two days, trying to brace myself for the full moon. I wanted to go into it with a clear head. I wanted to be his mate too damn much, but the thought of it also petrified me.
I was living on borrowed time. I should have died the night my parents did, but I didn’t. I’d done everything in my power since to make sure that everyone in my old pack didn’t find me. I didn’t have a social media presence. I cast so many panicked forget-me and protections spells after I found I was pregnant with Molly that I wasn’t even sure if any of them were still working. My degree was under Zia Rossi, having cast a spell to switch all documents under my name into this new identity so I could finish without fearing someone would find me there. I didn’t really exist anymore. Even my bank account was in Zia’s name.
Being mated to James was something my heart wanted but my brain screamed in panic every time I thought about it. The best thing for everyone would be for us to just be in lust with each other. We could have some fun, and I could continue to not exist. It would keep Molly and me safe that way.
Too late for that, Sable, my wolf, reminded me. You’re completely in love with him.
No. I’m not in love yet. I haven’t even slept with him. What if we’re bad in bed together?
Please. You know sex with him is going to be amazing.
I stopped paying attention to my wolf. She was Team James all the way, just like Molly, which told me the likelihood of us being mates was high. Wolves usually only cared about their mates. Sable had only allowed me to have short flings after Anthony because she knew I needed to get over the fear and trauma of being raped. She never let me get attached, reminding me that we had a mate out there and we should be looking for him.
“I wan cahtoon with James,” Molly wailed as I tried to comb her hair, making my heart clench to see her eyes welling up with tears. My poor child loved James. It hadn’t been fair of me to keep her away while I tried to rationalize with my heart and build walls around it in case I was or wasn’t James’ mate. I knew I needed to take her to see him or have him come over to see her, but that wasn’t going to be possible today. James was the gamma of the pack. With all the new security measures going on today for the full moon celebration, he was going to be slammed with duties all day. I only knew how much work he had because I was going to be working part of the evening too, helping Evie, Adrien and Evergreen keep an eye on the security feeds so we could alert anyone if we saw strange vehicles approaching. I knew the patrol schedules, the safety measures, and the people working them by heart. James was directing all of it along with Gamma Theo and Gamma Sebastian.
The packs had been on lock down since noon. No one but the buses from Blue Moon could come in and out until tomorrow morning. People had been warned for a full week now. If they didn’t get themselves inside the gate by that time, they would have to spend the night at the hotel Jo had booked for stragglers in town.
James wouldn’t have a free moment until the celebration was done. I would be lucky if I managed to see him before the moon peaked.
“If you behave and let us get to the celebration, you might get a peak at James tonight. But if you don’t let Mommy get her work done, you won’t get to see James until tomorrow because I’ll have so much work to do,” I lied to my poor child. It worked, but that only increased my guilt. I was dangling the possibility of seeing James to make my child comply.
Goddess, what was I going to do if this thing went south? I shook my head. I couldn’t think like that. Evie had promised me that no matter what happened tonight, I would have a place in the pack. I had no reason to doubt her or any of them. Still, there was that paranoid voice in my head that told me I was making a big mistake getting involved with James, mate bond or not.
I have never said that! Sable tried to joke. I shook my head at her antics with a smile and continued to get Molly ready. I was tying her second french braid when I heard the front door slamming. Molly ripped away from me and ran out of her room. I followed after her but saw her only a few feet away from her door, frozen at the angry look on Evie’s face as she was looking at something in her tablet, standing still at the beginning of the hallway.
