Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 179

Chapter 179

Jaxon

“Please tell me what you want.” Skye pleads again.

And even as I know I have to answer, I also know there are so many ways this could go wrong. With the bond doing its work, insistent that I still can’t fully separate from what’s actually mine. With the fact that she’s wearing Nicolai’s mark and I’m about to tell her something that was supposed to stay private until I was sure.

But she heard it. And she’s asking. And I made a commitment to not making her wait for things she deserves to hear.

“I want you,” I lay it out there.

The words come out clear. Quieter than I expected, but clear.

“Not because of the bond. Not as something that happened to me and I’m trying to make the best of..” I look at her. “I want you. You, as you are, with everything that comes with you-Benji and Nicolai and the mating mark and the complications and all of it.” I hold her gaze. “I know I don’t have a right to say this. I know what I lost and when I lost it and whose fault that was. But you asked me to say it. So there it is.”

She doesn’t answer immediately. I didn’t expect her to. This is how Skye processes things that are too large-she goes still, she takes them in, she doesn’t respond until she knows what the response actually is. I’ve watched her do this for a year. I know the shape of it.

We sit in the garden while Benji continues his project and neither of us speaks. Then she says, “I needed to know if you meant it. Or if the bond was doing the meaning.”

“I know,” I reply. I’ve never given her a real reason to trust me.

“Do you know the difference?” She asks again, and I could swear there’s hopefulness written on her face. But I also know I can’t lie just to spare her feelings.

“I can’t completely separate them,” I admit. “I don’t think I can, yet. The bond is there and it makes everything feel urgent. But I know that even before the bond came back-before the ceremony, before any of this-I wasn’t gone. There was something already there. I noticed it and I didn’t let myself name it because I didn’t think I had the right.” I don’t use the word love. I don’t think she’s ready to hear that. “So no, I can’t fully separate them. But the something was already there before the bond gave me language for it.”

She nods. Slowly. Taking that in. She doesn’t tell me what she wants from me and I don’t push.

I said the thing. She heard it. That’s enough for right now.

The day before I’m set to leave for Ironwood, I end up in the kitchen at the same time as Nicolai. Without Skye and without Benji. Just us-always an awkward prospect.

But I’m about to leave my… mate, and son behind. And after months of being here every day, having the ability to see for myself they were safe, I can’t leave without telling him my concerns.

I tell him about the estate’s security protocols that I suggest modifying for my absence and Nicolai receives my ideas with a flatness that has an edge. Not hostility. Just: a reminder that this is his estate. His territory. His protocols.

“I’ll note the suggestion,” he says. In the tone that means: it’s been noted and will be considered after I’ve decided whether it deserves to be.

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“Just a thought,” I say. In the tone that means: I know this is your house and I know what that means,

Neither of us says the thing underneath those things. We don’t need to. It’s there anyway. The thing we agreed to figure out and haven’t actually figured out-not really. We agreed to try. We’re still in the trying phase. But we’re nowhere near figured out. And if his attitude at the moment is anything to go by, I’m not sure we ever will be.

Nicolai leaves first. I stay in the kitchen asking myself what the hell just happened. It wasn’t a fight. It was just a reminder of how far we still have to go.

That night, I go to find Skye. She’s on the terrace-she’s usually on the terrace when she’s processing something.

I sit beside her and we’re quiet in the way we’ve gotten comfortable with. The estate grounds in the dark. Somewhere inside, Benji is sleeping.

Then she says, “Don’t disappear.”

Just that. Not come back soon or I’ll miss you. Just-don’t disappear. And for the first time, I realize she and I have been fearing the exact same thing. That maybe this bond, this pull to each other, will vanish the moment we’re apart.

“I’m coming back,” I assure her.

“I know.” She’s looking at the ground. “But-don’t disappear. Not-” She stops. “Not from this. Not from what we’re trying to do.”

I look at her profile in the dark. The woman who spent three years being told, implicitly and sometimes explicitly, that she wasn’t worth showing up for. Who is asking me not to do again what I’ve already done.

“I won’t,” I promise. “You have my word.”

I mean it in the way I mean things now. Not reflexively-not the old version of promising that was really just hoping I’d manage it. As a decision. A decided thing that I’m going to keep being decided about every day.

She nods. I stand. Go back inside.

And she watches me go, which I know without turning around because I know her now-I know when she’s watching. I feel her eyes on me.

I know the expression she has. She’s learning to believe what she’s told. I’m going to be the thing she learns to believe.

That’s the commitment. Whatever Ironwood looks like this week, whatever the council says, whatever perception I have to manage-

I’m coming back.

Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

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