Mated to the Alpha and His Beta (Lanie Stanton) novel Chapter 453

Chapter 453
Lanie

I almost didn’t recognize the woman rushing across the room to hurtle herself against me. My scream rose, joining hers, turning to a squeal at the last second as my best friend Mindy hugged me so hard she squeezed the breath out of my lungs. Laughing, crying a little, I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her back as hard as I could.

“Lanie! Goddess, you look so good! I mean, you always looked good, but you look…” Mindy held me at arms’ length, then hugged me again. “You look like a Luna.”

Her words tickled my earlobes. “I am the Luna.”

Mindy’s laughter had an edge of tears as she pulled away again. “I was going to say you looked older, but I thought that might come out wrong.”

“I am also older,” I said. “You look good, too.”

We both hugged each other again, dancing in place. I’d put the thoughts of my bestie entirely out of my head for so long, incapable of giving myself permission to miss her. Now that came flooding back into me with the force of slamming into a brick wall. I wanted to cry, laugh, scream, jump up and down, run around the room…I settled for hugging her hard one more time and then stepping back to take another good, long look at her.

“I’m home,” I said.

Mindy’s eyes welled with tears. “It’s been a long time, bestie. Don’t you dare ever go off like that again.”

“I hope I never have to.” I knew better than to make a promise that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep.

The High Council had been soundly and permanently defeated, but I’d seen way too much out there in the big world beyond Constantine to ever think there was no possibility that something else might happen. I pushed those thoughts away for now, though. Whatever might happen in the future, for right now, we were all safe and sound.

“I’m starving,” Mindy stated. “I’m going to get myself one of those buns and some coffee and probably a whole plate of other goodies… The buffets here are amazing, please tell me you’re not making any changes to the way they do breakfast here!”

“That’s the second time this morning already that someone’s asked me if I’m going to make any changes to the way things have been running.” I followed her to the buffet so we could both load up our plates. “Why is everyone assuming that?”

Mindy looked over her shoulder at me as she piled her plate with cheesy scrambled eggs. “Well, Gabriela had her ways of managing the mansion, and when you all were gone, the mansion chatelaine took over. Now that you’re back, as Luna, you get to decide how things work. Oh, Goddess, they’ve got blueberry muffins today.”