Ch. 142: Finding Normal

CHAPTER 142:
Rachel~ One Month Later
It’s moving day. The thought hits me right when I open my eyes. It makes me smile right away in the early morning light. I guess I was too excited to wait for my alarm to go off. I look over and see Meg asleep in her bed, her head to the side, mouth open, and a soft snore coming out when she exhales.
It’s all going to be different now.
My phone lights up to my side and I don’t even need to read it before I know it’s from Jake. He likely feels that I’m awake. We’ve been getting more in tune lately. I think the bond is on hyperdrive for us. I’m not even a werewolf but I seem to know things too. I know when something’s upsetting him even if I am outside with the pack pups and he’s in his office, and I know when he’s anxiously pacing in his room even if I’m in the kitchen entertaining a visiting pack.
We’re still learning about our bond. And he hasn’t even marked me yet, so who knows how much could change.
When I came back to life after The Last Stand, as people are starting to call it, the hardest thing we had to do after reassuring Jake and Aamon that I was here was explaining things to my mom. At first we got her used to the idea of us dating very seriously. But Aamon was going nuts without me around all the time and we’d had to explain things much more quickly than we had planned to her.
We drove her out to the packhouse and she met everyone, not quite understanding why Jake was in charge of this property and why people were looking to me for things. Even though we hadn’t had an official Luna ceremony - the pack immediately accepted me as Luna. Even the more prejudiced members, who Jake offered to find alternative homes for, all but six of them stayed. The others were welcomed over at Black Mountain with Elise as their Beta.
After taking her off somewhere less busy I started by showing her some of my abilities. That was shocking enough for her. She had stumbled and Jake caught her from far too far away and she was startled by how fast he moved. So in between all her cursing and praying in Spanish, I asked Jake to shift, but just keep his flames in. Aamon like this just didn’t look right, but we’d needed to do things one step at a time.

Later we’d had Ally and Kyle show my mom some things, and Ally’s mom came to talk to my mom. They’d walked off chatting and I anxiously awaited what she’d say.
It took time but she slowly came around. And after a few more days we got her to agree to let me move into the packhouse once she understood how permanent our bond was, and what my role was in all this. But she insisted that she and Meg were coming with me.
Showing Meg was hilarious. She had always loved Ally so we’d had her go first. The rest we brought on at once with me just standing there, until she absorbed it all, then I showed her some of what I could do. I didn’t think she’d ever be able to close her mouth. I’ll never get the image out of my head.
Things had moved so quickly in that first week. I came back, Ally and her mom and Kyle moved into the packhouse, Evan and Amber announced they were mates and he had already marked her, and when Elise came back from getting her new pack members situated, she didn’t let Kyle keep their secret anymore. They’re mates. It was bonkers. I had thought they had developed crushes on each other, but I was not expecting that.
It seemed our group of friends was the start of a new era. With mates found more commonly across species. Nick confirmed this, hearing this from other packs in our area. It did mean there was movement between packs with werewolves not wanting to be part of this, or with mates needing a more accepting place to be, and so Nick started putting together a telephone tree to help arrange these moves. We and Dark Mountains have been taking couples in. So far just two couples for us, and one for Dark Mountains, but who knows how many more cross-species mates will be connecting across species in the future?
I throw my covers off, grab my phone and reply to Jake, and move around the boxes to the bathroom. Trying to slow this guy down can only work so well.
He’s supposed to come at 9am but he wants to come now. I finish brushing my teeth when I look at my phone and start to see him calling. It makes me smile. Was this a one time lucky guess, or am I going to know every time he goes to call me?
“Love, please,” he huffs out.
Aamon’s got to be all strung out.
“They’re not even up yet, Alpha,” I say in a sing-song way. “How about you wait one hour then start making your way over? We can sit together on the balcony and wait for 9am before we start moving loud things.”
“Ten minutes,” he says back.
“Thirty minutes,” I counter.
“Fifteen,” he replies with a huff.
“Okay, fifteen. Enough to at least let me shower and try to get my things together,” I agree.
“Okay, I’ll try. See you soon, Killer,” he says before hanging up.
He’s not going to wait fifteen minutes, I know him.
It’s twenty five minutes later when I hear a truck rumbling. Jake insisted on taking care of the moving truck situation and the moving. Basically he’s gone full Alpha wolf since I died. And it’s going to get better once I’m on packlands, but it’s not going to be perfect. My mom is being given a cottage, and she insisted that I live with her until my eighteenth birthday. So while I’ll be half a mile from Jake, no sleepovers for us. Rough for Aamon since he’s unsettled when I’m not literally right next to him, but it’s still a big improvement from living cities apart.
With a whole ton of talking, Jake and Nick have decided to transfer to Pacific for their senior year to continue bothering us at all times. Evan will come too, and Amber is going to enroll to be with us. She also has been excited to try out some normal teenage girl things. One of which is going to high school. So Ally and I have promised to go to school dances and such with her. She’ll be putting Evan through all the things. I’m already laughing about it.
Sadly we won’t have Kyle here but he’s living at Dark Mountains now and they’re just too far to get out here every day. He’s got plans to finish his GED, and then is planning to spend his time with Elise. I’m sad for us, but so dang happy for them. They’re an unconventional and endearing couple. She is curt and all about training and action, and Kyle - well he makes her laugh like she’s a carefree girl. I’ve heard her snort from laughing so hard. And the fierce protective way she watches him comforts me. He’s had to go through so much violence and loss, and now he’s got a fierce protector at his side.
For now Ally and I will be finishing this school year at Pacific. It’s odd without Max or Kyle. With people asking me about Sean. And Simon has oddly been gone from school for a few weeks. Marsha is still withdrawn but she at least will sit with us at lunch since Max’s memorial.
I’ll never know what went through Max’s mind when she sacrificed herself on the battlefield that day. We won’t know what changed her mind, why she switched sides - or how she knew to give her life’s energy to destroy Callum like that. And while we all had our hang ups, we decided it was only right to have a memorial for her. Her so-called family was gone and unable to do it, so Jake handled it anonymously. Marsha came. And while it sucked to have such a bland answer for her death - saving a kid from getting hit by a car - it’s the only thing we could think of at the time. The sacrifice we made up didn't get close to ‘she helped save the world’ but at least she would be remembered for giving up her life for something greater.
I came around the corner and waited, looking out the kitchen window a few seconds before he came into view, smiling at me. I could have snorted. My guy won’t calm down. So I walked over to the door and opened it for him. He had a shy smile on and was holding up a box and tray of covered coffee cups.
“I brought coffee? And donuts,” he said smally.
It made me laugh.
“Get in here you obsessive Alpha,” I chortled and stepped back.
The screen door creaked open.
“Mija, who is that?” my mom called from her door.
“It’s Jake, mom!” I replied loudly.
“This early?!” she asked in disbelief.
“Sorry!” he added. “I brought coffee?”
I laughed. “Mom, you have so much to learn about obsessive Alphas!”
Her door opened then and she just stuck her hand out. Jake looked confused and I just grabbed a coffee from his tray and put it in her hand. She closed her door without a word. And I took Jake’s free hand to lead him to the only seating area we had left - the little bench on the balcony. We sat out there for almost an hour.



Moving day went smoothly after that and we spent a few days trying to get a feel for our new routine. Jake gets to our cottage super early in the morning and I sit with him half awake for a while before getting ready for the day. Nick and Jake drive us to school and pick us up after, we come back and all do homework together while Amber and Evan do their independent study work. Amber wants to take it slow as she gets used to the world without The Collective before going to school after summer.
Jake is balancing his Alpha responsibilities and finishing school. It’s not the easiest. I try to help with what I can. I even hosted visiting members from other packs as our Luna. That trips my family out the most. That I really am who we’ve said I am to this community.
“You coming?” Ally asks me from the doorframe.
“Oh yeah, sure,” I reply, refocusing.
I follow her out and down the stairs where Jeannette is waiting for me downstairs. She’s a new pack member and former event coordinator for a hotel in Napa Valley. She’s planning my Luna ceremony. While we’re waiting on many things, the pack members want to celebrate something, and while I repeatedly tell them I don’t need a party, everyone’s pushing for one anyway.
“Let’s get started, Luna,” Jeanette greets us.