Chapter 49

For a heartbeat, the world narrows to just this tiny space between us. The warmth of his breath touches on my lips, the faint scent of wine filling my senses. I’m frozen, spellbound, just as he intended. Still, every nerve in my body stands on edge, every cell screaming for me to pull him closer. 
“Mom?” 
Just when I think we would kiss, that I would feel his lips touching mine, I hear my son.
Ethan clears his throat, quickly stepping back. 
“I, uh.” I try to pull myself together. “Hey, buddy. Shouldn’t you be sleeping right now?” 
Az’s gaze shifts back and forth between me and Ethan with a forlorn expression. “I had a scary dream... You weren’t there when I woke up.” 
“Let’s go. It’s late.” I go over to my son and hurry him to go to our bedroom, placing my arm around his shoulders, which are indeed bigger. 
What was I thinking? 
I quickly glance back and flash Ethan a tight smile. “Nighty night.” I face forward to keep going. Yet, I feel like my heart stays with him. 

🐺 🐺 🐺
***Alpha Ethan***

“Time to rest, get some water, and grab a bite,” I say to the panting children.
“When are we going to train in our wolf form?” Az asks with an angry tone. He’s being extra bratty this week.
“Yeah, Uncle Ethan. When are we doing that?” Lily asks as she sits on the ground rosy cheeks from running. “That sounds much more fun than this!”
I sit on the same bench that Vi sat on last week. Azrael comes over to his backpack resting on the bench. “Maybe in a month. You guys still have a lot to learn.” 
“Or maybe we should get someone else to train us,” Azrael mutters under his breath.
“Watch your tone, boy. I won’t have any disrespect here.”
He presses his lips together and takes out a round glass container from his backpack before heading to Lily.
“Here, Lily. Mom made these cookies for me, and I know you love them too,” Azrael tells her. 
“Aww. What would I do without you, Az?” Grinning from ear to ear, she reaches for a cookie with both of her hands. “Thank you so much.” 
Azrael gives her a pleased look, then glares up at him. 
“You want some, Uncle Ethan?” Lily asks me. 
“I don’t like these cookies,” I say just to tease him. But I could really go for a cookie right now. Especially hers.
“Hey!” Azrael snaps his head at me. “Take that back!”
I laugh. That’s what he gets for showing up when I was about to kiss his mom last week. “I’m kidding.”
Still staring at me, he comes in my direction with a frown and opens the container again. When he gets closer enough for me to grab, he turns his petulant face to the side. “I’m only going to share them with you because Mom made me do it.”
I can’t help but laugh. I can tell by his aura that the brat is lying. His mom didn’t tell him to do anything. But it’s adorable how he’s still polite even when he’s mad at me. Clearly, he’s not a fan of me around his mom, as he’s expressed several times.
“Well, let’s obey your mom then,” I say, grabbing a cookie with a mischievous smile.
“Where’s Aunt Allie, Az?” With her mouth full, Lily asks him while chewing, and I pretend I’m not interested in the answer. “She hasn’t been picking you up these past few days, and I haven’t seen her around the packhouse lately.”
You and me both, kid.
“*I* haven’t even seen Mom much this past week! Mr. Jenkins, a teacher from school, went on vacation last week, so Mom’s been covering for him ever since,” Azrael replies. “When she comes home, it’s already past my bedtime. In Summerville, she always worked like this, but at least she always took me with her.”
I bite the cookie, doing my best to hide my reaction so the brat won’t see how much I was kidding about not enjoying the cookies and spend the whole evening gloating. Her cookies are really delicious.
I feel her presence approaching before I even see her. Even Kral gets vivid in my mind.
“Mom!” Azrael practically shouts as he runs over to Little Dove with a big smile. Wrapping her arm around him, she leans down and kisses the top of her son’s head. 
“Hey, buddy! I miss you," she says. “I got things done early so I could leave and spend time with you.” 
“Yay!”
“Are you being a good boy?” She asks, looking down at him. A blush runs over Azrael’s cheeks as he glances my way, making Little Dove chuckle. “I’ll take that as a no.” 
Letting out a scoffing sound, Lily says, “Az’s always a good boy, Aunt Allie. I’m the troublemaker.” 
Little Dove laughs, shaking her head as so do I. “I miss you too, Lily. Do you want to come along?”
“Yes!” she says excitedly.
Little Dove finally spares me a glance, and I spot Azrael hugging his mom tighter before he glares at me. “Hey,” she says softly, smiling.
I nod, getting up and trying not to give her a smile that says ‘I want to fuck you hard’.
“How have you been?” she asks me shyly. 
“I’ll go grab my bag,” Azrael says, hurrying to his things near me.
“When does Jenkins go back to work?” I ask instead.
“Next week,” she says, looking up at me in surprise. “You really know everything that happens around here.” 
“I told him, Mom.”
“Oh,” she says, her cheeks blushing. She bites her plump bottom lip, looking at me the same way she looked last week.
I ignore my sudden desire to give her a real kiss this time, being the one to bite her bottom lip like she’s doing right now. 
The kiss in the living room would be an act of a drunken fool. I’m sure about it. Even though we didn’t kiss, thanks to the brat next to me, the lingering effects of it are something I can’t seem to ignore, as much as I’ve tried. 
Looking at her right now, I can almost taste the temptation on her lips. Like the sound of her laugh, it calls to some primitive side of me that longs to place her in my bedroom and lock it so no one else can touch her but me. 
“Bye.” Little Dove waves at me. And from the adorable look on her face, I can tell she’s trying hard not to blabber like she always does.
“Bye, Uncle Ethan!” I hear Lily say, waving at me, too.
I watch them leave as I mindlink Josh. ‘Did you get it checked?’
‘Yes, Alpha,’ he replies. Alpha. He means business. ‘All set for tonight.’

🐺 🐺 🐺
***Violet***

I lift my head to look at the light of the Moon Goddess in the sky through the car window and wonder why she bound my soul to this awful mate.
Jordan shifts his grip on the wheel, heading to the Blackmoon. “What do you want now, Vi?” he asks, sighing. “Are you going to be like this all the way?” Jordan glances over, his jaw ticking, as he arches an eyebrow. 
I say nothing. 
“I was there, wasn’t I?” he says.
“Were you?” I ask. This isn’t the fated mate I met. Or maybe it is. 
Maybe I’ve just gotten used to his behavior.  
“Never mind.” I shake my head, dismissing the subject before it causes another fight. We already fought before getting in the car. 
“Is this because I talked to Patricia?” he asks, but I don’t answer. He knows it is. “This again, Vi? I told you, I did not stare at Alicent!”
I sit a little taller, once more talking to my wolf in my mind to battle my nerves. “I saw the way you looked at her. I can feel you, Jordan!” I yell. “You don’t know how hard it is to feel your emotions for other females! Damn it! I felt all your emotions when you looked at her. I felt the mark you made on my neck pierce it even further… burn! As if I were being suffocated. That’s how I feel every time you look at Alicent or Patricia like you did tonight.”
“Oh, my Goddess! You’re so dramatic. I looked at her for less than a second!” he yells. “If you’re so upset, then why don’t you tell her to get out of the packhouse?”
“I’m not upset with her. She’s my best friend, Jordan! Who I am mad at is my fucking fated mate because he can’t stop eye fucking my fucking best friend, for fuck’s sake!” We’re only halfway through, but I bet everyone in the Blackmoon can hear my screams by now.
He stays silent. He doesn’t say a word to defend himself because he knows that he did it.
Jordan’s supposed to be my fated mate. He shouldn’t feel that way about any other female.
“How can you do this to me?” I ask desperately, holding back the tears. At first, when he looked at other females, I cried for days. Now I don’t cry anymore. But I feel his mark on my neck burn and have so much anger for him doing this to me.
He takes a deep breath as if he’s impatient with me, as if he has the right to feel this way. “I’m sorry, Vi. Okay? Let’s not fight. We’re almost in Blackmoon. You don’t want Lily to ask again why we’re fighting, do you?”
“Don’t you dare involve my daughter in this.”
“Goddess, you’re hard to deal with!”
I turn my face back to the window. 
We maintain silence for the rest of the drive until we arrive in our pack, until we enter our room, until we lay down on our bed, each facing a different way.
🐺 🐺 🐺

I walk alongside Kelly while reaching for Jordan’s hand on my other side. He takes it but he doesn’t hold it. Not the way Dad would hold Mom’s hand. Not even the way I spot other fated mates.
Jordan’s grip is too loose as we walk. His fingers barely clasp mine. All it would take is a quick flick, and then he’d be free. Fine. If he wouldn’t hold tight, then I wouldn’t do it either. I unlace my fingers through his. If he wants to escape from me, he doesn’t have to work for it anymore. I don’t know why I still bother. He always holds my hand like this, I don’t know why, but I still have hope that, out of nowhere, he will change.
As we enter the more private living room, I spot Allie and our children playing together in the far living room through the open concept.
Kelly sits on the sofa and takes her phone out of her purse. “Ugh. How much longer will you keep doing charity for this human, Vi? Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”
I sit with Jordan on the sofa next to her. He takes his phone out of his pocket as I watch the children.
“It’s not Vi who’s kept doing charity. From what I’ve seen, Ethan seems interested in her,” Jordan says, staring at his sister. He seems angry with her.
She jerks her head at him. “How dare you!” Kelly says. He must have said something to her through mindlink. They always communicate with each other like this, just like Ethan and I, which is why I never complained. However, unlike them, my brother and I don’t ignore the people around us.
“Look at me,” Kelly speaks in a condescending tone and then points to Alicent in the distance. “Now look at her. I don’t need to try hard. Please. She shouldn’t even be considered a threat.”
“Threat?” I ask, confused.
They both finally look at me. “You know how much I like your brother,” Kelly answers. “I’m just waiting for him to give up trying to break the curse and acknowledge me as his chosen mate.”
“Don’t be silly. Ethan would never give up,” I say, and they both glare at me. “What’s gotten into you guys? Also, don’t talk about Allie like that. She can stay as long as she wants.”
“Sure,” Kelly says. Her words say one thing, but her face says another.
I turn my face towards the kids again. It’s crazy the way they always gravitate around each other. Like even though they are playing with other kids or talking with anyone, they are still wrapped up in each other. I smile at them. A longing settles in my gut. My wolf whines in my mind.
I want that feeling. To know my soul is safe in someone else’s hands. I couldn’t even imagine what that would feel like. Not when my fated mate doesn’t find it difficult to desire other females. Like he’s doing to Allie right now. Again.
I glance at Kelly from the corner of my eye. I try to dismiss a lot of what she says because she’s my fated mate’s sister and because they both lost their pack before joining mine. But honestly, if it weren’t for that, I don’t think I’d even talk to her.
“Can you please stop?” I say through my clenched teeth to Jordan without looking in his direction.
He looks away from Allie. “Where’s Ethan?” Kelly asks. “I thought he was in the pack.”
“No. He went to follow a lead Josh found for him. I’ll have to meet up with him later,” I answer her.
“Again? Can’t he do it alone? Why do you always have to go with him?” Jordan inquires. He’s probably upset because he’ll have to take care of Lily. “Don’t go.”
“Of course I will go. I’ll be always there for my brother.” 
“But I’m asking you to not go, Vi. Can’t you just listen to your fated mate for once?”
“Are you kidding me right now?”
“You know what? Then go!” Jordan says, his gaze darkening. “It was your fault he got the curse, anyway.” 
I open my mouth in shock, but Kelly is the one who scolds him. “Jordan!” she says. 
“I can’t believe you said that!” I whisper in disbelief. 
I feel him regretting what he said right away through our mate bond, but it’s unclear whether his regret was for hurting me or for speaking his mind. 
From the look on his face, well… It's the latter.
I get up, but before I leave, I look down at him, seeming to catch both siblings off guard when I say, “Sometimes it does not feel like you’re truly my fated mate, Jordan.”