Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 185

Chapter 185

Skye

Nicolai does a great job of distracting me at night, of helping me shut my mind off, keeping me focused on… other things. But in the morning light, when he’s busy working, it all comes flooding back.

This morning it’s our conversation from yesterday that won’t let me be. Nicolai asked me to be more visible as his mate. As his Luna.

I know what that means. I spent three years being visible as Jaxon’s Luna-attending functions, standing beside him at pack gatherings, performing the role of devoted Luna while there was nothing behind it except determination and increasingly threadbare hope.

The difference now is that there’s everything behind it. I love Nicolai and he loves me. I’m wearing his mark. I chose this with full information and I’m not uncertain.

I’m just not sure how to be visible in a way that’s honest when honesty includes things the pack isn’t ready to see Without acknowledging Jaxon openly, I’d only be telling a half-truth.

Still, I throw myself into pack presence. Functions I might have skipped-I attend. Pack gatherings where I’m technically optional-I’m not optional. Business discussions in the main hall where I could have stayed in my office-I’m there, at the table, the Luna who has opinions and knows how to read a room.

I’m good at this. Three years with Jaxon made me very good at working a room. What feels complicated is the difference between what I’m showing and what I’m not.

I’m showing them a mated pair-Nicolai and me, competent and united and stable. But the part I’m not showing them is just as real to me. The morning breakfasts with three adults and the baby we all share. The bond that lives in my chest alongside the other bond, distinct and undeniable.

Is showing them part of the truth the same as performing something false? If not, why does the way my chest tightens remind me of the way I felt every day as Jaxon’s Luna?

I find Dimitri in the administrative office two days into what’s become more of a political campaign than normal Luna duties.

“I feel like I’m running for office,” I tell him.

He looks up from his correspondence with a wry smile. “You kind of are.” He says in his normal, no nonsense tone.

“That’s not-I don’t want to be performing-”

“The question,” he says, setting his pen down, “is whether the thing you’re campaigning for is true.”

“It is,” I say. “That’s the part I’m certain of.”

“Then it isn’t a performance,” he says. “It’s just showing people something that exists that they need help to see. The fact that other things also exist doesn’t make the thing you’re showing them false.” He picks up his pen again, a sure sign he’s already put the matter to rest. “You were Jaxon Vale’s Luna for three years and nothing was behind it. Now there’s everything behind it. The pack can feel the difference. They’re feeling it. That’s why it’s working.”

That catches me off guard. “Is it working?”

“Yes,” he says simply. “Better than you think.”

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After my conversation with Dimitri, I have a rare moment to myself. But I don’t feel like being alone right now so my-feet take me in Jaxon’s direction.

And that’s the thing. Since Jaxon came back from Ironwood, our daily rhythm resumed almost like he never left. Him and Benji. The garden in the mornings. The handoffs throughout the day. I always know exactly where he is and the pull to seek him out is stronger than ever.

Except now there’s the hallway kiss between us.

Neither of us has referenced it directly. But it’s there in the charged quality of the air between us. The bond is present and demanding every time we’re in the same space, and now that we crossed that line, I can’t seem to stop wanting more.

What I don’t know is what to do with him. Do I wait to see if he makes another move? Do I talk to him about it, even though it seems like talking is all we do lately? Or do I just throw caution to the wind and jump him like the bond is urging me to?

So no, I don’t know what to do with him. But he seems to know what to do with me.

He’s more settled than before he left. Certain in his movements around me in a way he wasn’t-the reaching for permission, the bomb-defusing carefulness, that’s gone. What’s replaced it is different. Deliberate. The carefulness of someone who knows what he’s doing and has chosen to do it. And it’s driving me crazy!

When he brings Benji to me, his hands linger on purpose now. He leans over me to get his coffee mug when I’m standing at the counter filling mine. Little touches, like his hand brushing mine when handing me something, or his arm sweeping across my waist as he passes by.

Every touch feels like fireworks exploding under my skin. And I can’t take much more before I actually explode. So maybe that’s why I end up in the sitting room when I know Jaxon and I will be the only people in it.

We sit on opposite ends of the couch and we talk. He doesn’t reach for me. I don’t reach for him, no matter how much I want to. We just… talk. The kind we’ve been managing in fragments while navigating everything else.

He tells me about Ironwood, what he’s actually thinking about how to handle the pack and his absence and how much to tell them about me. All of which is messier and more honest and still doesn’t have an answer at the end of it. The council inquiry. The expectation that he’ll return to proper Alpha presence. The fact that remote management has a shelf life and he knows it.

I listen to all of it and then I tell him my truth. “I’m scared of being the reason you lose something you built.”

He looks confused at my comment.

“Ironwood,” I clarify. “Your pack. Your leadership. You built that after your parents almost destroyed the pack. And if staying here-if,this-costs you that, I don’t know how to-“I sigh. “I don’t want to be the thing someone gave something up for and then regrets.”

He reaches for my hand and I give it to him, squeezing my thighs together and trying to ignore the little zing of electricity his touch provokes. Not the time, I tell myself.

“I built Ironwood,” he says, “because it fell in my lap and I didn’t have anything else worth building toward.” His voice is even. He’s thought about this-I can tell from the quality of it. “I didn’t have a mate. I didn’t have I had a pack because that’s what Alphas have. Because my father handed it to me when he failed and I didn’t know what else to do with myself.

“Then you came along. But by then, my identity was so wrapped up in it, my need to protect it from anyone and anything that might pull my attention away from the pack and turn me into the failure my father was, I couldn’t

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see past my own need for control. Ironwood does not define my identity anymore. That’s all changed.”

axon-“I whisper, emotion clogging my throat.

“I’m not saying I’ve figured it out,” he says. “I’m not saying I have a plan. I’m saying the reason I built Ironwood is different from the reason I’m here. And I know which one feels more like mine.”

I don’t know what to do with that.

But I know what I’d like to do with him.

Cara Anderson

Author

Thank you for reading!

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