Alpha's Blind Luna novel Chapter 22

***Ezekiel’s POV***

I sat in my office looking down at the paperwork in front of me. The same paper had been in front of me for the last half hour but I couldn’t bring myself to comprehend what I was reading. My mind wandered more and more lately. In my dreams, I found myself back at the High Council, roaming the corridors of castle. It was a never ending maze and at every turn I could smell him; fresh baked bread and basil.

Rose had tried to explain to me what it meant to have a mate, what it was like when she met Cory. I didn’t understand until now. It was harder though, so much harder. The first day I saw him, stepping forward as the Alpha King Vale, I was shocked. I remember Leo having to get my attention after he spoke. His words flowed over me and I felt myself being carried away. I wanted him. I want to walk into his arms and never leave.

It was only when he backed away, disappeared from my line of sight that it all came crashing down on me. I remember shaking like a leaf and Leo leading me away. We were shown our rooms but all I could smell was him. Vale. Not only was my mate male, but he was the Alpha King. Already, I felt like I was living a lie within my pack.

Rose begged me multiple times to come clean about her and Cory, my Gamma and her fated mate. How could I? The pack expected me to be with my Luna. I was thirty, no pups, no fated mate, and if I told them that their Luna was actually mated to my Gamma they would insist on me choosing another Luna and immediately mating her.

I never wanted to be Alpha. My older brother was the one who was supposed to be Alpha and he was, for five years. He had a mate and a son. He was the leader that everyone wanted. The world is cruel though and when I was thirteen, our pack was attacked. That day we lost two Alpha’s. My father and my brother fell protecting the pack. Suddenly, the pack was left with me as Alpha at thirteen or my brother’s son who was not even a year old.

Owen was eighteen now and I know the elders have been hounding him to take his place as Alpha. He has been refusing to be Alpha since he was fifteen. I didn’t speak to him about it because I knew how mad it made him. Currently, he was head warrior and trained all our warriors. Lately, with the attacks, he was patrolling more of the northern border trying to protect what little peace we had left.

“It’s been fucking months!” Leo strode into my office, completely bypassing the fact that my door had been closed and that usually meant I was busy.

“Leo…”

He threw himself in one of the chairs in my office. “No! Don’t you Leo me! I swear they are just fucking around! They weren’t planning to help us from the start and this is their way of saying it!”

“We can’t just expect them to turn up immediately to help, Leo. We have no idea what or who they are sending to help. You can’t just ask people to drop everything immediately and fight a battle that isn’t theirs to fight. We were lucky enough to have them agree.”

“Yeah, thanks to that little twat.”

I threw my pen at him, hitting him directly in the forehead. He cried out and rubbed his forehead. “The hell, Zeke?”

“I told you to stop calling him that! He is the Alpha King, whether you like it or not. You don’t just become a King over night.”

“Yeah yeah. Why you are so sensitive about him, I won’t understand.”

Sighing, I opened up one of the drawers and took out another pen. “Is there a reason you are here, Leo?”

“Yeah, my sister is on a rampage again that something is wrong and that means the world is ending. Can’t you reign her in? I swear Cory spends more time with her than you do. She’s pregnant, shouldn’t you be trying to reign her in?”

“If she caught you saying that, you would be six feet under right now. So you better watch yourself.”

He laughed and shook his head. His eyes roamed over me and narrowed. “You doing okay?”

I looked back down at my paper, finally able to read that it was a request for a trading caravan to come through for a week. They were coming over from Europe and making their way across the States. Signing off on it, I moved to the next page.

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I dunno. You’ve just been acting weird lately.”

Tapping my pen against the desk, I read over the next request. It was an expansion and upgrade of the Gathering Hall in the center of town. They provided some pretty high numbers for the remodel.

“Weird, how?”

I started to go through and mark the things I thought needed to be quoted again. It might be better to request some help from the human city below us. Sometimes, their prices were cheaper even with lugging the materials up the mountain. We might be able to midigate some of that by providing the materials ourselves and getting the work done by them. I pulled out a sticky note and wrote my thoughts down.

“Listless, quiet, reserved. You don’t do much outside of working. I know you aren’t sleeping as much lately. It’s been going on since we got back from the High Council.”

Putting the page with my notes in a separate pile, I moved onto the next order of business. “It’s called stress, Leo. I’m so glad you aren’t plagued by it.”

He huffed and shook his head. “You’re such an ass.” Getting up, he walked up to the desk. “Tomorrow is training. You have to show. If you don’t, Owen and I will come hunt you down.”

“Sure. Who is Alpha again?” I looked up at him and there was a smile playing on his lips.