Alpha Markus and Celeste novel Chapter 47

Chapter 47 – Celeste
Celeste P.O.V.
After lunch with Rhett, we made our way to my parents’ pack grounds. The sun was already starting to make its way down the horizon. Danny and Gillian were already downing some tree in the distance to create a funeral pyre. I joined Maya and Ruby as Rhett and
Markus joined the effort.
It was well past dusk when the pyre was ready. We were gathered around it as Rhett and Markus laid Lucian on top of the pyre.
“Tell us about him. Luna,” Ruby asked. Everyone was gathered around us.
“His name was Lucian Pierce. He was my father’s Gamma. He was fierce in front of outsiders but would always bring me toys when he
left the Pack grounds. He was always ready with a dad joke at the dinner table. He was loyal and brave. He was always ready with a hug, whether you wanted one or not.” People laughed before I continued, “He always told me he wanted to find his mate and have a boy so that he could be my mate. He told me I would be a cougar and I would try to convince him I was a wolf,” There were a few more chuckles as Markus and Rhett joined the group. Markus held me to his chest as I kept talking, “He tried to get help for all of us. He jumped into the river to try to get away. He held me when my parents passed away and told me to be brave, to live and to thrive. Those words saved my
life more times than I can count. Any time I felt I should give up, I heard his voice. I remembered his laughter. Lucian Pierce was a hero,
my hero,” I walked towards the pyre. I looked up at his body enveloped in a white shroud. I felt the fire building inside of me. Markus
shifted to shield my fiery eyes from the rest. He held a torch in his hand. I felt my Alpha aura flow from me as I spoke the rest, Kara’s voice
mixed in with mine. “You were the fiercest of warriors, Lucian Pierce. You were everything a werewolf wished they could be. Rest with the
goddess and may she give you the reward you deserve at her side. May your next life be filled with love, fortune, warmth and peace.” I
placed my hand on the pyre and let the fire flow. I threw my head back and howled at the moon as his body was enveloped by the fire and
his spirit returned home. Markus and everyone behind us threw their heads back and howled along with me.
Suddenly, I felt myself jerk forward. I saw a small boy running after a couple of other older ones. Two with black curls and another
one with long dark brown hair. He turned back and laughed as he was chased by someone, his eyes were blue and his head full of dark
curls. My soul recognized his. I came back into myself and smiled. There was no migraine this time. I thanked the goddess Selene for my –
gift. I watched as the pyre consumed his body, as I wondered at the significance of the vision. I hung onto Markus until the fire went
out.
We thanked Alpha Rhett and everyone that came with us to honor him. We found the box in the hidden compartment in the same
place that Uncle Lucian had said it would be. I didn’t want to open it. I needed to process today before I dealt with it. We decided to wait to open it tomorrow in the privacy of our room. Markus and I laid in bed, his head on my chest and I combed my hand through his hair and kissed his forehead before allowing sleep to claim me.
The next day, we had breakfast upstairs together. We were sitting cross-legged on the bed with the box in front of us. I took a deep
steadying breath. I didn’t know what would be in it. I knew whatever it was would be important.
Markus put his arm over my shoulder reassuringly. “Whatever it is, we face it together,” he said. I could feel his, Atlas and Kara’s strength flow into me.
I nodded and opened the latch. The contents looked like they had been stuffed into the box in a hurry. He must have put it there the
same night everything happened.
I flipped the box open and let the contents fall out so I could begin to unravel them. I chose to start with the official looking documents first.
“That looks like a deed?” Markus peered over my shoulder. I nodded, reading the contents.
“It looks like the deed to the Packgrounds, at least I think it is,” I said, passing him the document, knowing he would understand it
more than I would.
I picked up the next one. It looked like the Pack’s bank statement. I scrunched my nose in confusion. Why was it in my name?
I put it on Markus’ lap and kept looking. There were a couple of other property deeds in my name. A receipt for a deposit box. Also in
“Why is everything in my name? I was 8 at the time,” I asked.
Markus picked up some of the other documents. “I don’t know. It’s like…”
“Like they knew something would happen to them,” I finished for him, looking up to meet his eyes, “How could they know?”
“I don’t know. What’s that?” he said, pointing to an envelope.
I picked it up and it was too heavy to be a letter. I opened the flap and a key fell out. It had a tag on the bow of the key. It had a
number and the name of a bank.
“That’s a bank deposit box. Maybe we’ll find more answers there,” he said.
“Is it far?”
He shook his head, “About 15min drive into town. It’s the same bank we use, actually”
I picked up the last of the documents and a sob escaped my lips. There were about 10 pictures. Most were of my parents and myself. A couple of them featured people I could barely remember, and Lucian. One of the pictures was of my dad with Markus’ dad laughing in what looked like the training grounds here. The pictures were yellowed and creased and more precious to me than anything else in the
box. Markus gathered me and put me on his lap, my back against his chest and he put his chin on my shoulder as I told him who the
people in the pictures were.
“You should show that picture to my dad. I’m sure he’d be happy to share some story about it.”
I nodded. “Maybe later. I’d like to go to the safe deposit box and see what we find. Do you think those accounts and deeds are still
valid? Even though the council declared the challenge legal?” I asked.
“I think so. Everything is in your name, so it would not have been able to be transferred over to Alpha Geoff. It makes sense why that
property hasn’t been touched since that day. Same with the accounts, I believe you should be able to access them as long as you show your identity. It’s a good thing we got your passport and ID when you came down here.” He picked up one of the account statements, “It’s the same bank as the safe deposit box. We can ask when we are there.”
“Do we have time today?”
“Yes, but it’s Sunday. The bank will be closed.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll get some work done today and we can head there in the morning?” he suggested.
“Don’t you have a meeting with Danny about the presentation to the council after the Luna ceremony? We’re running out of time…
it’s next week.”
“Danny can wait until after lunch. It’s the perk of being Alpha,” he smirked down at me.
I picked up the 4 bank statements and put them side by side. They had 4 different account numbers on them. Different
balances.
“That’s a lot of money,” he mused.
I nodded. “I’ll treat you to lunch if it’s still there,” I said and he laughed.
“Anything but Italian,”
I looked up at him and then realized what he said and laughed, “I think I’m OK with that.”
“Well, I guess it’s time to get to work if we’re taking the morning off. What are you up to today?” he asked.
“I am going to have a conversation with Ashley. I think she will be happy to go home.” He c****d his head at me.
“What about your training?”
“I don’t need it anymore. Selene fixed my premonitions. I will never be able to control my healing, since it only works if she wills it and…”I put my palm up and called upon the fire. A small fireball appeared in my hand.
“Hey! Your eyes aren’t even burning this time,” he said, and I smiled. He put his hand slowly over the ball of fire, lowered it slowly as
he tentatively looked to see if it burnt him. When it didn’t, he grabbed my wrist with the other hand and tilted my hand, the small ball of fire danced on his skin as if it liked him before it slid fully onto his hand. He was now holding fire in his hand.
“How did you know that would work?” I asked.
“The day I found you, you were covered with fire. I couldn’t get you to wake up, so Atlas and I decided to touch you to see if the bond would call you back. The fire didn’t burn us. In fact, the closer we got, the happier it seemed to get. Like it wanted to play with us. Like it liked us. Kara said you would be able to share your abilities with us, so I figured it might be interesting to see if we could manipulate it too.” He explained as he played with the fire in his hands until he closed a hand over the other and the fire went away, absorbed into his skin. He grinned at me. “Now that’s a cool trick.” He laughed as he kissed me.
“Are you able to make it too?” I asked after we came back up for air. He held his hand up for a minute.
“Atlas is saying we can only share it. You make it, and I can use it. It doesn’t come from me.” He blew air out of his mouth and his hair
ruffled above him and I laughed.
Then an idea came to me and I jumped up and turned around to face him. “We should train together. I make the fire and we use it
together!” I said. His eyes went wide and I saw them twinkle.
“You are genius!” he said, kissing me hard. “We’ll have to make sure you don’t use all of your energy, but it would be good to use in a
tight spot!”