Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 167

Chapter 167

Jaxon

As Nicolai’s questions continue to percolate through my mind, I find I’d rather be almost anywhere else than sitting here having this conversation with him. His signature, no-holds-barred, direct approach is unwelcome when all I want is solutions that end with her. Back in my life, in my arms, in my bed.

“What does it say about an Alpha who shares his mate with another Alpha? To his pack, to his allies, to his enemies?” These are questions that lead nowhere near where I want to be.

“There are no good answers to those questions yet,” I answer honestly.

“No,” Nicolai agrees. “There aren’t.”

“But we’re sitting here asking them anyway.” The irony I find in this situation is clear in my tone.

“Yes.” He deadpans. “We’re sitting here anyway.”

Well that was profound. I’m not sure what I was expecting from the great Nicolai Woolf, but that wasn’t it.

“I would rather share her than lose her.” He says it like the words cost something significant. Because they do.

I stare at him, dumbfounded. Because that absolutely wasn;t what I expected him to say.

Nicolai Woolf, who controls rooms and manages empires and is, by any reasonable measure, the most territorially possessive Alpha I’ve encountered in my life, is sitting across from me in his own home saying those words.

“You’d share your mate,” My incredulity comes through loud and clear.

“I’m not saying it would be uncomplicated.” A muscle in his jaw ticks, a sign of exactly just how complicated he finds the idea. “I’m not saying it would be easy or that I’d feel nothing about it. I’m saying-” He stops. Looks at the glass in his hand as he gathers his words. “I built my life around her having room to choose. I told her I chose her before the bond. That’s still true. And what I’m choosing right now is that she gets to make a real choice. Whatever that choice is.” He meets my eyes. “Which means I have to ask myself honestly what I’m actually choosing. Her happiness. Or my claim on her.”

Silence. I’m not a man who’s often lost for words. But this moment definitely qualifies.

“What would you choose?” he asks.

I don’t answer immediately. Can’t.

“I’ve been asking myself that question for a year,” I finally reply. “In different ways. And every time I’ve answered it, the version of me that answers it has gotten a little closer to putting her first.” I look at him. “So. The same thing. I’d rather she be happy-really happy, genuinely happy-than have her make a choice that gives me what I want at her expense.”

“Even if what you want is to be with her.” His own doubt creeping in, which is fair.

“Even then.” I confirm.

Nicolai turns his glass one more time. Sets it down.

“We’re not going to figure this out tonight,” he says. “There are questions here that don’t have answers yet. Practical ones, political ones-” He exhales. “I don’t know what it would look like. How it would work. What it would cost both of us in terms of how our packs see us, how our allies see us, how our enemies decide to test us.”

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“No,” I agree. “We don’t know any of that.”

And we don’t know what she wants.” At last, he comes to the integral point.

“No.”

“She’s the only one who knows that.” He stands. “So. We give her the space to figure it out. We don’t pressure her. We don’t make her feel like she has to manage our feelings at the expense of her own truth.” He looks at me. “And we don’t make her choose between us unless she’s ready to choose.”

“Agreed,” I say.

He moves toward the door. Pauses.

“For what it’s worth,” he says, not turning, “I understand now why she hasn’t been able to entirely let you go. He does turn then. Meets my eyes. “I don’t like it. But I understand it.”

He leaves. And I sit in the west wing with two whiskey glasses-one empty, one half-full-and think about what just happened.

I would rather share her than lose her. Nicolai Woolf said that. And meant it.

I turn it over. What would sharing actually mean? Not in the abstract where it sounds like a principle-in the practical, daily reality of two Alpha wolves and one woman and a child and two packs and a world that doesn’t have current vocabulary for what we’re describing.

I think about Benji. Who already has two fathers, in different senses. Who already moves between us with the ease of someone who has learned that love doesn’t have a fixed number. Who is the proof, walking around in a onesie, that unconventional arrangements can function if everyone involved is committed to something larger than their own preferences.

Maybe that’s the model. Maybe the thing we figured out for Benji-the precedent we accidentally built-is the thing we apply to this.

Or maybe there’s no answer yet. Maybe the only answer tonight is that the question is finally out loud. Between two people who both needed to hear the other say it and neither of us managed to die from saying it. That’s something.

My phone buzzes on the desk. Skye.

Can we talk? Not about I just need to know you’re okay.

I stare at the message. She’s checking on me? In the aftermath of something that happened that she didn’t plan and he certainly didn’t plan, and she’s checking on me.

I type: I’m okay. Are you?

The three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.

Then: I don’t know yet. But I need to see you. Tomorrow?

I think about Nicolai leaving twenty minutes ago. About the agreement we reached-loose, provisional,

uncomfortable, but real. I think about both of us agreeing she gets to make a real choice.

Tomorrow. Yes. I send it.

And sit back in the chair with the strange, specific relief of something that was completely stuck finally, carefully, beginning to move.

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Cara Anderson

Author

Thank you for reading!

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