Chapter 32 - Arrangements

*“Every man I meet wants to protect me. I can't figure out what from.” ― Mae West*

***Kiya***

My fingers wrapped around a bouquet of raven tresses. The sounds of dry heaving split the tense air in two. Neron, on his hands and knees, convulsed as he emptied his stomach of his breakfast and lunch onto the roots of a lone oak tree. Every retch he made was like he was damning the universe for this sickening reality. All I could do was stand beside him, holding his hair back until he calmed down.

The alpha, known as the most powerful and impervious leader of the pack, had crumbled to pieces before my feet. What was supposed to be his father’s resting place laid desecrated behind us, its presence lingering like a foul odor. Phoebe’s words buzzed in my head like an angry hornet, pulling the puzzle pieces together to force my heart to beat out of sync in my ribcage.

If Apophis were to revive anyone to torture Neron and me, it’d be the man who fucked our lives up. Jonathan Prince, a vindictive man obsessed with power, would serve as the ideal link between him and the mortal realm.

The danger had reached its critical point. He’ll be coming for everyone who took part in his downfall. Everything and everyone Neron and I love are on a conveyer belt, lying in wait to be tossed in an incinerator of their destruction.

When Neron finished puking, he sniffled deeply before roaring out his anguish into the grass, pounding the unblemished ground with his fist. I could see the shock waves of his anger with every hit he made.

“Fuck, fuck, FUCK! Why did this have to happen?! I can’t….!”

I dropped his hair and rushed back to the car, pulling out a bunch of tissues and bottled water from the glove compartment. When I returned, Neron sat upright several feet from his vomitus. His knees were bent toward him with his elbows braced on top of them, hiding his reddening face in his large hands. Quietly, I slid onto the grass beside him and gingerly placed the items in the space in his elevated lap.

I hate a lot of things in this world, but seeing Neron like this was what I hated the *most*.

“He’ll destroy everything,” Neron cried into his palms with a full-body shiver. “All that I worked hard to build. He’ll never leave me alone!”

“Neron…” I whispered, rubbing his trembling shoulder, the only thing I felt I could do right now. “I need you to calm down. We can’t think of a plan like this.”

“I can’t calm down, Kiya!” He shouted, unveiling his face. He violently wiped away the tears from his damp cheeks, but his flaming scleras failed to safeguard his true emotions. “My father is alive! He’s out there somewhere, plotting to fuck everything up again, and I can’t do a damn thing about it!”

“Yes, we can.” I retorted, my voice leveled and even. “We will find a way through this. Falling apart from fear is exactly what Jonathan wants—it was how he controlled us for so long. We can’t give him that power again.”

Neron straightened his legs flat on the grass, huffing in deep, fast-paced breaths. “I’m so scared, Kiya. I told the girls that I was most afraid of losing you, but what I’m truly afraid of is him. I’ve tried so hard to rid him from my head, to show and prove that I’m not my father’s son. Now, my worst nightmare is here and I’m…”

“You aren’t your father’s son, Neron.” I held out my hand in front of him, palm up, waiting for him to take it. As if he read my mind, he did. “There are so many words I can use to describe your dad, but I’ve exhausted them all. It’s alright to fear him because he hurt you, but I won’t let him have the satisfaction of seeing you break.”

“You’re too late. He broke me plenty of times, Kiya.” Neron breathed. “That’s how he made me into his perfect son—the one who did what he wanted and became what he wanted.” Pain flashed across his face as he remembered our horrific past, grinding his teeth together. “He’s going to do it again; it’s only a matter of time.”

Resting my head on his bicep, I squeezed his hand as tight as I could without hurting him. Strips of sunlight stretched across the grass, tickling my toes through my sandals. The cloudless sky was in stark contrast to the foreboding darkness swirling around us. “He won’t break you, Neron. You’ve worked way too hard to let him do this to you again.”

“You believe in me that much?”

“Yes,” I said, angling my head upward. “Would I be dating you if I didn’t believe in you?”

“I guess not.” He expelled a heavy sigh, rubbing his thumb over my fingernails. “Whenever I cry, I can hear his voice calling me a pathetic boy and a wuss; his favorite insults when I was young.”

“Do you hear him now?”

“I always hear him, Kiya.” He grunted. “He’s the ghost in my head and that hates everything I do, whether it be teaching art or not exacting harsh punishments. I think I’m a decent alpha, but he always tells me I’m a failed alpha. A failure through and through.”

White-hot anger lanced through my stomach like a spear with every scrunch Neron made with his face, the pain gravitating to places they shouldn’t be in his body. I made those same faces at my lowest, wondering why I was so unlovable and worthless. Jonathan emotionally abused Neron to the point he lost his own sense of identity, forcing him to bounce back and forth from success to failure despite seeing the successes in front of him. He still has open wounds that have yet to heal, and Jonathan’s return seemed to have opened them up more.

It made me want to find Jonathan to rip his face in half.

“What does being a failure actually mean?” I asked him, hugging his arm to my chest. “If his definition of being a failure is not following his fucked-up ideals or conforming to his rules, then own that failure.” Neron shot me a confused look, but I continued. “You’re the best failure I’ve ever seen.”

“That sounds so fucked up.”

“You worked your ass off to get to where you are now, and Jonathan doesn’t have a chance in hell of ever getting on your level. However,” I narrowed my eyes at his own. “You aren’t fighting in this battle alone, Neron. You have me, remember?”

“I killed him last time. It’s my responsibility to kill him again.”

I winced, remembering how he ended his father’s life for the first time. Neron noticed and squeezed my hand again. “Things are going to be different this time since Apophis has a hand in his resurrection.”

His muscles stiffened. “He’ll have *actual* power this time.”

“A god’s power, which makes him more dangerous than ever before.”

Neron pressed his lips into a thin line above me before kissing his teeth. “He won’t be coming after only us. He’ll come after Nuria and Mom and I won’t let that happen.”

Worry struck me like lightning. Neron was right—Aunt Essie and Nuria are in just as much danger as we are. He’ll try to punish Neron and me for what we did to him, but what would he do to them when given the chance? I forced a breath out of my chest, nodding. “Goddess, how are we going to keep them safe? I can—!”

“You won’t do anything.” Neron shot me a look that killed all the words in my throat. “I won’t have you put yourself at risk to protect us.”

“Neron, I’m your best shot at theirs and your protection.” I challenged, lifting my head off his bicep. “I’m the avatar and I can go toe-to-toe with him when he attacks.”

“I’m not putting you at risk. Knowing Dad as well as I do, he’ll use every trick in the book to kill you before he touches any of us. You’re his biggest threat and I won’t give him the chance to even think about taking you away from me.”

“Neron—”

“I’m going to send them both away,” Neron explained. “Mom can stay in Iron Stone with Ezekiel, and Nuria will stay in Garnet Moon with Phoebe. Both packs are more equipped to protect them than Onyx Moon, and Dad will hit my pack first to find them.”

“And you? Who’ll protect you?” Neron didn’t utter a word, answering me with averted eyes. I gulped, noting the swirling pool of fear in my belly. “…what about me?”

“If you and Miss Phoebe are next to each other, you’ll protect one another. You’ll returning to Garnet Moon in a few days, thus the timing is perfect.”

“Neron, if you think that I’m leaving you without divine protection from your psychopathic zombie dad, you’re out of your mind. You’re not offering yourself as bait. Sacrificing yourself is not protecting me.”

“If Dad touches you, he’ll kill you, Kiya. I can’t lose you.”

“And the better solution is to have me lose you?” I accused, furious. “Jonathan will try to kill me. What else is new? But, when I said we’ll figure this out together, I mean *together*. You **and** me. Not you while I’m sitting on my ass at home like a southern belle waiting for her husband to return from the war!”

“It’s better if—”

“I’m your fucking girlfriend, dumbass!” I hollered, giving his shoulders a vigorous shake. His wide eyes shot through me, astonished that I did that. “And I’m your mate! Mates protect each other, fight for each other, and *live* for each other! You better believe that if you try to send me away for my protection, I will give you a proverbial ass whooping!”

I won’t let Neron make the same mistakes I did. Neron wanting to take on his father himself, without help, paralleled my attitude when Asir was a problem three years ago. Motivated by my fear and hyper-independence, it left me *more* vulnerable to the enemy and the cost was nearly losing my humanity. If I have to drag this skyscraper off that path by his damn hair, then I’ll do it. The risk was too high, with absolutely no benefits.

“Let me help you,” I wrapped my arms around his body, clinging like a frightened koala. “I want to protect you, too, Neron. You can’t do this by yourself.”

Blue blocks of ice melted like snow to heat with each second they were in my gaze. Neron’s neutral, almost stoic expression shattered to expose the vulnerability he tried so hard to mask. There was so much hidden in the twinning oceans and I was desperate to take a dive to see what laid inside the depths. To see what else he was obviously hiding from me, masking it in his love.

“I’ll…consider it.” He murmured, my waist becoming the magnet for his hands to attach themselves to. “I’m trying to figure out the right thing to do.”

“Sometimes, you have to go with the *best* thing to do.” I hinted. “It’s not always the thing we want, but it’s what we have, you know?”

“I know.” He acknowledged before his gaze lit up with warmth. “You know I love you, right?”

“Yes, I do.” I smiled.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He leaned forward to kiss my lips, but was forced back by my palm to his forehead. He let out a confused whine until I picked up the water bottle from his lap and waved it in his face.

“You still have vomit breath.”

I burst into laughter when the red paint of shame dyed Neron’s face, pitifully taking the water bottle to rinse out his mouth and lips. We needed to get out of here and head back home to devise a plan. My face didn’t show it, but I was terrified of the future. The enemy can strike us at any time.

We’d have to look over our shoulders once again.

After this is over, Jonathan will be back where he belongs: burning in one of the seven hells of the underworld.

A faint beeping echoed from the open door of the car. I had synced my tablet with my phone, which I left in my seat before catching up to Neron. Patting him on the shoulder, I rose on my sandals and walked toward the passenger side. Notifications from the group chat flashed on the screen, one after another, killing the battery.

“I need to mute the damn thing…” I grumbled, swiping the notifications away. However, when I saw why the chat was so active, my heart turned into a rocket and launched straight out of my chest.

“Shit…oh, shit!”

“It’s never a good thing when you say, ‘oh shit’.” Neron walked up beside me with the half-empty bottle at hand. “I hope it’s different this time.”

“Oh, it is.” I said breathlessly, unable to hide my smile. “We need to go to Garnet Moon, now!”

“Why?”

“Sapphire just went into labor!”

---------------------------------------------------

We made it to my home in less than three hours and bolted through the hospital doors. There was a whirlwind of activity by the front desk as the labor and delivery nurses rotated with their shifts and rushed into the maternity ward, no doubt handling pregnant patients, including my golden-haired friend. Neron and I walked into the emergency room to see Jackie, Abigail, Galen, and Mikhail making themselves home in their seats.

Sapphire’s parents waited impatiently in their chairs after a nurse in ceil blue scrubs left them. But they sported their impatience with grins with excitement for their incoming grandchild. Both possessed golden-blond hair peppered with white strands, but they couldn’t look more youthful for their age.

“Little Bit!” Jackie shouted from her chair with Abigail beside her. “I didn’t think you’d come! And you brought the boyfriend!”

“Hello to you too, Jacqueline.” Neron greeted before finding a spare seat to sit in.

“Dude, you don’t have to be so formal with me. Just call me Jackie.”

I sat in the spare chair beside Neron. “Any news on Sapphire yet?”

“*Get the hell away from me, Isaiah*! *Your dick is what got me into this mess*!” We heard Sapphire’s voice bellow from the distant hallway.

“She sounds great!” Galen added, beaming in his seat. “Doesn’t screaming help with the pain?”

“I think that’s for when you stub your toe against furniture, love.” Mikhail giggled, holding Galen’s hand tight. “Childbirth differs greatly from that.”

“*Why don’t you try squeezing a six-pound baby from that damn shlong*?! *If you had wrapped that thing up in the first place, none of this would’ve happened*!”

“*It was in the spur of the moment, Sapphi*! *We had three bottles of wine*!” We heard Isaiah defend himself, obviously stressed out himself. “*And you were more than enthusiastic that night*!”

“*Oh, when I get out of this bed, I’m wringing your neck like a wet towel*!”

Yep, she sounds peachy keen.

“Oh, no need to worry about her, my sweets.” Jade, Sapphire’s mother, added. “Sapphi has Gardner blood running through her. She’s a tough cookie and it will translate well into Micah.”

“*Get this damn baby out of my fucking vagina*!”

“*The nurses have to get near you first, Sapphi*!”

“*I hate you*!”

“*I love you too, my sunflower*.”

Alex, Sapphire’s father, chuckled softly. “It brings me back to the days of Sapphire’s birth. I still sport the bruise of when Jade punched me in the stomach during her labor.”

“I’m so glad I’m gay.” Jackie mumbled, only to snort with Abigail nudged her arm by the elbow. “What did I say?”

Darien and Mara suddenly emerged from the opposite hallway leading to the other side of the hospital. I leaped out of my seat with a gasp and pulled the medicinal witch into a hug, my worry about their condition fluttering away.

“Mara! Are you okay?” I asked. Her near-orange eyes took on a new life when she laughed, releasing Darien’s hand, and placing them on my shoulders.

“I feel great, thank you for asking.” They replied, visibly relaxed. “Healing from having an arrow in my side is not my idea of fun, but I got a cool battle scar from it.”

“Only you would gloat about having scars after almost dying.” Darien joked. His face was like a slab of granite; sharp and hard, but his voice held the humor he couldn’t express. I never want to be in his position, worrying over their mate’s condition after they got hurt. I thought about Neron and how he was crumbling from fear hours before.

“Scars are cool, depending on how you got them.” Mara shrugged their shoulders. “It means you survived.”

“Yes, and that’ll be the last scar you’ll ever get. Not if I got something to say about it.” Darien grumbled before kissing her forehead.

“Wow, it’s a party.” Nuria said as she and Phoebe walked into the waiting room, attached by the hand. Phoebe inwardly curled from shyness, hiding her pinkening face behind Nuria’s neck. “What’s up, Dance Pole?”

Neron screwed up his face. “Never call me that again.”

“Okay, Slim Jim.”

“You’re pushing your luck, Stumpy.”

“Wanna fight me, Ostrich?”

“Are they always like this?” Mikhail whispered in my ear.

“Yes.” I answered. “It’s how they show their love for each other.”

The duration of labor is much shorter with werewolves, but it is more…*painful*. I’ve been to a handful of births, like when Ximena and Alessandro were born. It didn’t surprise me when Micah officially took his first breaths two hours later, putting a swift end to Sapphire’s six-hour labor. Mom, Dad, Anthony, and Alesia arrived on time to greet their newest and youngest pack member, thus far. The image of Sapphire holding her baby boy in her arms with tears in her eyes was an image secured in its forever home in my trove of treasured memories.

Little Micah bore a warm, tawny-beige complexion with Isaiah’s full lips and black hair, along with Sapphire’s buttoned nose. He had yet to open his eyes, tired out from his entrance, when I made my rotation to see him after the nurses gave the green light. Neron congratulated Isaiah on his entrance into fatherhood with a handshake and hug, and Sapphire with an appreciative pat on the shoulder.

“Do you want to hold him?” Sapphire asked me, her eyes glinting with happy tears. “I’m having everyone hold my baby boy at least once so I can rest my arms.”

“Sure. I’d love to!” I supported baby Micah’s head with my hand and his body with my arms, a feeling of euphoria bubbling in me. Peace was written all over his tiny face, lips parted as he slept soundly. *So innocent*. I knew this little boy was going to be loved, cherished, and protected fiercely by the hundreds of wolves of Garnet Moon. He already has two parents that love him dearly, doting grandparents, and a family of nut jobs behind him.

I hoped I’d get to experience this joy again, only with my own baby. I don’t know when it will happen, or if it will happen, but until then, this was the next best thing.

Cooing softly at the slumbering baby, I felt a powerful set of eyes burning onto my back. Raising my head, Isaiah was rubbing Sapphire’s blond curls with his dark hand lovingly, whispering sweetness in her ear. My eyes landed on Neron beside him. His eyes with pupils blown wide, filled with longing, and his face softened with awe. His lips didn’t move, not even a twitch. Heat, once again, crawled up my neck as I rocked the baby in my arms, unable to tear my eyes away from my boyfriend.

Then I felt his eyes pierce into my belly, causing it to twist and churn not with anxiety, but with…something.

*Something*….

---------------------------------------------------

Nightfall crawled over the horizon by the time Neron and I left the hospital, hand-in-hand. Sapphire was set to be discharged in the morning once she fully recovers, so her parents are spending as much time as they could with their grandson. Children whizzed past us in their final minutes of play, warriors ended their training, and a group of teenagers were setting up a bonfire beside the pool.

The stresses of today melted with the breeze gently whipping at my skin and my hair. Jonathan’s return left a nasty taste in my mouth, but Micah’s birth rejuvenated. To be part of something important like the birth of a child made the trouble worth it.

Now, it was a matter of protecting those blessings from the dangers threatening to fall upon us all.

“I need to tell Nuria.” Neron said above me, squeezing my hand. “She has to know about Dad.”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I know she’s very expressive, but hopefully she doesn’t freak out too much?”

---------------------------------------------------

Well, I’m two things: wrong and an idiot.

“Are you FUCKING kidding me?!” She screamed in our faces, her own reddening with her anger. “The big bastard is alive?!”

“Can’t say I didn’t see this coming.” Phoebe whispered, rubbing the wrinkles out of her long violet skirt while sitting on her couch. Nuria began pacing circles around the table, mumbling to herself and biting her nails like it’d stop her anger from boiling over. Neron and I broke the news in Phoebe’s home, so she’d hear it, too.

“I’m going to be sick. I’m going to be fucking sick.” Nuria murmured. She suddenly stopped, spinning on her heels to look at us. “Is there a plan in place or something? We can’t just roll over and wait for something to happen.”

“We’re figuring one out, don’t worry.” Neron spoke. “We only found out about this today. Someone stole his ashes from his grave, Nuri.”

“I don’t get it.” She said. “Did you tell anyone where he was buried?”

“No. Not even Val or Kwame. I buried him myself.”

“Well, that narrows down the suspect pool.” She grumbled sarcastically, plopping onto the couch beside Phoebe before groaning into her hands. Phoebe rubbed her hand on her knee, her face scrunched and darkened with emotions only known to her. “Does Mom know?”

“Not yet.”

“It’s not fair. She’s finally happy with Ezekiel. If she knows that her ex-husband is back from the dead, it’ll destroy her.”

“Which is why the best thing for Mom will be to stay with him and for you to stay here.” Neron reiterated his suggestion to his sister, to ensure both their safety and to lessen the chances of Jonathan coming for them in one place. For once, Nuria didn’t argue. All she did was nod, yet her downcast eyes signaled trouble.

“I didn’t expect things to turn out like this. Once everyone got their pieces of happiness, suddenly, the ghost of the past comes back.”

“We don’t like it too.” I said, standing beside the arm of the couch. “But there is a way out of this, and we’ll find it.”

“What about you, Kiya?” Nuria asked. “Are you staying here or with Neron?”

“Well…” I hesitated, my eyes jumping from him to her. “We haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye with that.”

“Let her stay with you.” Nuria threw her eyes at her brother. “it’s your best shot and she can protect you. She’s the one with the magic powers, so it makes sense.”

Conflict danced across Neron’s features. He opened his mouth to argue, but only closed it for his lips to twist into a scowl. In the end, he reluctantly agreed, although I felt as though there was something else underlying his tone.

I was staying with him.

And that meant I needed to pack more of my clothes.

After leaving Phoebe’s home, we entered the pack house and were greeted by two of my favorite things in the world. One being the smell of Cleo’s cooking, and the other of my two sweet cats trotting up to me with their tails pointed straight up.

“My babies!” I cried, bending down to one knee to pet their soft faces. Ebony and Ivory purred with delight, stretching their front legs toward me as a sign to carry them. Laughing, I gathered them up in my arms like two toddlers and turned to Neron, who had a smile on his face.

“Your babies?” He asked.

“Yes. They’re my fur babies.” I corrected, smiling at the deep purrs rumbling through my shoulders up to my ear. “The girls want to meet them. Is Lupin well-behaved around cats?”

“When I adopted him from the local shelter, he was pretty friendly with the cats there, so I assume he still is.” He explained, reaching forward to pet Ivory’s head. “If he isn’t, we can just introduce them to him slow—whoa!”

Ivory exclaimed a sharp meow, leaped from my arm, and into Neron’s, running her sandpaper tongue over his stubble. Neron quickly cradled her fluffy butt with his forearms. It was as if she was the water that put out the fire because Neron’s stress lines disappeared like vapor from Ivory’s licks to his face. He laughed in pure delight, cradling the two-year-old cat like a burping baby. My cat stretched out her paws to his face, maneuvering her tongue to his jaw.

“Wow. She *really* likes you!” I said, as I adjusted Ebony in my arms. “Ivory usually takes a while to warm up to new people. I never seen her like this before.”

“It must be my innate charm with cats.” He joked, sighing in content from Ivory’s deep purring. The scene in front of me jolted the nerves of my hips and swirled just above my navel.

“**Well, there’s another kitty that needs his attention**.” Artemis laughed.

“*Oh, shut up*.”

The kitchen door suddenly swung open, and two children emerged with tupperware filled with food in their hands along with Asim and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my *life*!

“Asim!” I shouted, snatching his attention. When his plum-colored eyes landed on me, he smiled warmly. The two smaller children, a young girl around the same age as my girls and a boy in his early teens, scrutinized me, watching my every move when I approached my fellow avatar and the sepia goddess on two feet.

“Kiya, Neron. It’s been such a long time.” I gave Asim a side-hug, mindful of Ebony stationed on my right. “This is my wife and mate, Nailah.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both.” Nailah shook both our hands, and I was in awe at how soft her palm felt. It was like touching the softest pillow in the world. With sepia-brown skin, dark yet warm eyes, and long black hair rivaling ebony’s fur in softness and shade, I blushed. Hard.

*Kiya, if you say anything stupid—*!

“You’re so beautiful!” I said breathlessly. “Do you have a sister?”

*Oh Goddess, why am I like this*?

Neron chuckled beside me, and Nailah let out a burst of melodious laughter that made my chest tighten with glee. Am I here really crushing on Asim’s wife while being in a relationship with Neron?

“**Yes**.” Artemis replied flatly.

“*Thanks for the input I didn’t need, Art*.”

“**Pick your jaw up**. **You’re drooling**.”

“I don’t have a sister, sweet youngling.” She answered. “Thank you for your compliment. I get that a lot.”

“Oh, I see why!”

*Yep, I need a muzzle*.

“Anyway…” Asim seemed amused by the entire interaction, showing no signs of conflict or concern. “And these are my two kids. This is Nefertiti and this is Horus.”

Nefertiti waved at me with a pleasant yet shy smile and Horus simply gave me a curt nod.

“Nice to meet you both.” I said. “Asim, do you have time to talk? There’s something you need to know regarding…god stuff.”

Asim’s dark face lightened in realization, nodding firmly. He whispered something to his wife in a language I assume was Arabic, causing Nailah to nod and kiss him quickly. She guided her children away from us and out the door, probably to their home Phoebe told me about during the phone call. Once it was just the three of us, plus my cats, we stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

Neron and I told him everything from start to finish. When we finished, a grim look marred Asim’s face, like he’d just received the worst news of his life.

“This is very disturbing.” He muttered. “The mad god is moving faster than we originally thought. Rest will not come easily now.”

“We assumed.” I sighed.

“I’ll do my utmost best to assist you both. We are a powerful team.” Asim said with pride. “If we could defeat one threat, we can do it again with this one.”

I know we are. I have faith in us.

But Jonathan is out there lurking in the shadows and we don’t know where he is.

And when he attacks…

*He’ll attack without mercy*.