Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 168

Chapter 168

Skye

I have two mate bonds.

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I haven’t been able to stop turning this over since the moment it happened-privately, of course. Carefully, in the. margins of everything else I’m supposed to be doing. Being a new mate. Being a mother. Being the person everyone in this house is watching, not unkindly, to see how she handles officially being Nicolai’s mate.

The answer is: not well. I’m handling this not well. I just haven’t shown anyone yet.

Well, anyone except Nicolai. I’m not sure I could hide it from him if I tried. But even so, avoiding him for most of the day yesterday was a dead giveaway.

We haven’t really talked about it much since the night of our mating ceremony. And maybe that’s for the best. Because even if he asked me directly, I’m not sure I could bring myself to tell him the truth. The truth being…

I’m glad. Part of me-a larger part than I’m ready to examine in full daylight-is glad the bond came back.

Not because I want to hurt Nicolai. Not because I’ve been secretly carrying a torch in a way I couldn’t acknowledge. Not because I planned any part of this.

But because there was always something there with Jaxon that didn’t get properly finished. Something that was severed before I’d fully looked at what it was. Before I knew what I actually felt once the bond’s first iteration was stripped away and what remained was just him. The man he’d become. The feelings that were mine, not the bond’s.

And now it’s back. And I’m glad. And I’m wearing Nicolai’s mark and it’s been thirty-six hours since our mating ceremony and I’m lying here glad that my ex-mate’s bond snapped into place on our mating day.

What kind of person does that make me?

I don’t have an answer I like.

This morning I wake to Nicolai beside me. He’s still here, unlike yesterday. So I guess that’s something.

Before I’m fully conscious I reach for him-reflex, the established pattern of the last months-and he’s there. Warm. His arm around me without waking. Still right.

I look at my shoulder. The mating mark. Fresh, still tender at the edges. His mark. Permanent in the way wolf marks are permanent-it will fade to a scar over time but the scar doesn’t go away. I am his mate. I chose this with full information and both eyes open and I love him.

None of that is in question.

And also, the bond with Jaxon is warm and present this morning. Not faint-not the faded echo of the old bond. New. Specific. Like something that arrived with its own furniture and intends to stay.

I don’t know how to hold two things this large in the same body without one of them breaking something. I lie still and try to figure it out.

I don’t figure it out.

Soon enough, Nicolai stirs, his arm tightening around me in a tell-tale sign that he’s awake. I turn in his arms and

stare at him.

“I talked to Jaxon.” He says, watching my face for a reaction. “Last night. After you were asleep.”

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I spend a moment processing this. For the briefest moment, I consider not asking, to let him share in his own

1. But curiosity gets the better of me. “What did you say to each other?”

“Things that needed to be said.” He answers cryptically. “Go talk to him. You need to.”

“Nicolai-“I start to argue.

Not because I don;t want to talk to Jaxon. But because I know this is costing Nicolai something and I hate that for

him.

“I’m not telling you to because I’m managing the situation. I’m telling you because you’ve been carrying this for two days and the only way to set it down is to have the conversation.” He touches my face briefly. “Go.”

Then he presses the lightest kiss to my forehead, gets up and leaves.

I find Jaxon in the garden. He’s sitting on the bench near the roses-my bench, the one I’ve claimed over months of needing air-which makes me feel something I don’t examine.

He looks up when I approach. Something moves through his face. Not the controlled expression. The real one, present for a half-second before he organizes himself.

“Sit down,” he pats the space next to him.

I sit. We’re quiet for a moment in the way we’ve learned to be quiet together-not uncomfortable, just the particular silence of two people who have enough shared history to not need to fill every gap.

“How are you?” I ask.

“I don’t know yet.” He says it simply. “How are you?”

“The same.”

He nods.

I look at him-this man who told me, when he came to suggest breaking the bond, that he needed to be free to move on. Who has been, in the weeks since, learning the absence of the thread with what appeared to be a kind of relief. And now this.

“Jaxon.” I make myself ask it directly. “What do you want? With the bond back-what do you want?”

He’s quiet for long enough that I feel the familiar fear start at the base of my chest. The old fear. The one I carried for three years. What if he doesn’t want it? What if it’s happened to him again and he’s going to look at this bond the way he looked at the first one-like a trap, like something done to him, like evidence that the universe is conspiring against his control. What if I’m in this alone all over again?

“You’re afraid I’m going to react the way I did the first time,” he says flatly.

I blink. “That obvious?”

“I know your face,” he explains. “And I know what I did. It’s reasonable for you to be afraid.”

“Are you?” I ask. “Going to react that way?”

He looks at his hands. “No, but I understand why you’d need to hear more than that.”

“You told me you needed to move on,” I say. “You came to me specifically to say that. You called Gianna, you agreed to the ceremony, you said-”

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“I know what I said.” His voice is quiet. “I meant it when I said it. And now-” He stops. “And now something happened that neither of us expected or asked for. And I don’t know how to reconcile those two things cleanly.”

Translation: He still wants to move on. He’s just trying to be nicer about it this time.

My heart plummets.

Because nicer doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Cara Anderson

Author

Thank you for reading!

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