Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 187

Chapter 187

Jaxon

I wake up at the crack of dawn to the sound of my phone blaring and nearly fall out of bed reaching for it. Whoever it is better have a damn good reason for waking me up from the dream I was having. It was a very good dream.

“This better be important!” I growl, not bothering with a greeting.

“Good news,” Noah says, way too cheerful for the early hour. “Council inquiry has been tabled. Castillo backed off. Things are stable.”

“Good,” I manage to grunt a response.

I’m fully awake now and it is good news. I should be relieved. I wait for the relief. But it doesn’t come.

What comes instead is the weight of knowing that stable and resolved are not the same thing, and that I’ve been using the temporary version of the first to avoid looking directly at the second.

“You don’t sound like it’s good news,” Noah observes.

“It is,” I sigh. “I’m just-thinking.”

“About?” He draws out the word.

“That stability is temporary and doesn’t fix the bigger.”

Noah is quiet for a moment. “Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

I want to go back to my dream, to a place where Skye is in my life everyday and in my bed every night. But the Ironwood problem is real and it isn’t getting smaller. Instead, it’s a major roadblock to the life I want.

I’ve been running the pack remotely for months now. Noah handles the daily operations with the competence of someone who has, effectively, been doing the Alpha’s job without the Alpha’s title. The pack functions. Business gets done. Decisions get made.

But…

A Beta running a pack is not the same as an Alpha running a pack, and both the pack and I know it. There’s a patience threshold-for the council, for the pack members who need their Alpha present, for the political relationships that require in-person management. I’ve been operating within that threshold but I;ve been pushing its limits, like a dam about to burst.

The inquiry was the first sign that I’m approaching the edge. It won’t be the last. I need a real plan.

Not the longer-term arrangement phrasing I’ve been using with the council, which is diplomatic language for I’m figuring it out. An actual plan that resolves the actual conflict.

The actual conflict being I’m an Alpha. I never thought I’d see that as a problem. But Alphas run packs. Packs require their Alphas to be present. I am not present at Ironwood and I don’t want to be and the reason I don’t want to be is the life I’m building here, which is-

The resolution is one I’ve been circling for weeks. Looking at it and then looking away. I know what it is. I’m just not ready to say it yet. But I think there’s one person I can say it to

Benji is in the nursery. He’s eleven months old and he has developed, in that time, the personality of an Alpha in the making. He has strong views and lots of questions. He has decided that standing is interesting but walking is a commitment he’s not ready for yet. And most importantly, he guards our man to man conversations with the

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utmost discretion.

it on the nursery floor with him. He brings me a soft block. Presents it with a smile so wide, you’d think he offered me the crown jewels. And that smile, it’s everything.

I accept his offering and we sit and talk while he brings me more blocks. I ask him hard questions like “What do I want your life to look like, son?” to which he babbles a response which I interpret as a request for more information.

So I explain the dilemma out loud to him. I tell him all about the two packs pulling me in two directions. About how I don’t want to be a father who is sometimes here and sometimes there. And he listens with rapt attention

I tell him about the choice between a custody arrangement that works because everyone is committed to making it work but that requires constant management of logistics that shouldn’t require constant management.

Or.

Something that actually makes sense. One place. One home. A father who is present every morning, not just the mornings when things at Ironwood make it convenient for me to leave for a few days here and there.

I think I know which he’d prefer. I definitely know what I would.

I’ve been saying I’m choosing Skye and that’s true. Mostly. I’ve been doing it every day in small ways-staying when it would be easier to leave, being honest when lying by omission would be less complicated, learning to be in the same room as Nicolai Woolf without making it worse.

But I haven’t done the thing that would prove it. Not in the way that costs something irreplaceable. Not yet.

Benji takes the soft block back. Re-evaluates it. Returns it while babbling something he seems very serious about. Most likely the answer to all the hard questions I’ve posed.

“I know,” I tell him. “Let’s go tell mom I’m working on it.”

I find Skye easily. I’ve learned all her favorite places when she has time alone. She looks up when I come around the corner-she always knows it’s me approaching, the bond pulling tighter between us before I’m even visible- and her expression lights up at the sight of Benji and me. It does something to my ego it probably doesn’t need but I love it anyway.

“Noah called,” I say, sitting beside her. “Good news.”

“Was it?” She cocks her head and gives me the look that says my tone didn’t match my words.

“The inquiry is tabled,” I tell her. “Things are stable. For now. But-“I pause, “there isn’t a version of this where I run Ironwood remotely forever. The pack needs its Alpha present. Noah can hold it for a while-he’s capable of more than holding it–but there’s an expiration date and I’m approaching it.”

She’s watching me with the expression I’ve learned to read. The one that says she knows what’s coming and is waiting to hear me say it. Only this time, I’m not sure she does know.

“What are you saying?” she asks, a slight tremble in her voice.

“I’m saying “I stop. Start again. “I don’t have a solution yet. But I think I know what the solution is.” Our gazes lock and I hate that I can’t erase the fear in hers yet. “And I’m not sure I’m ready to say it.”

“Why not?” She whispers, looking down at her hands.

But I need her to look at me when I answer her, to read in my eyes the thing I can’t say out loud. So I tip her chin

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up, forcing her eyes to mine.

Because saying It makes it real,” I say honestly. “And real means consequences. For other people, not just me.”

She’s quiet. Waits. She’s good at waiting-she’s always been good at waiting, better than she should have to be. Especially with me. But she’s had plenty of practice, three years of it. She knows how to give someone room to get to the thing they’re trying to say.

“When you’re ready,” she says finally, “You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

“Yes,” The word comes out as a vow.

We sit in the garden for a while longer without saying anything. But she knows, and I know she knows.

And that’s enough for now.

Cara Anderson

Author

Thank you for reading!

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