Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 190

Chapter 190

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The rumor issue weighs on me the rest of the day. Someone is coming for my family, threatening the life we’re building together. The life I’m finally starting to feel is the one I was always meant to lead. And they’re using me to do it.

I can’t let that go. So I decide to fight the rumors the only way I know how. By telling the truth.

I write a statement I’ve been building toward it since I told Diana I was done letting other people define what I’m building. The decision was made then. The actual words take a bit longer to craft.

It’s not a press release. It’s a formal address to the Woolf pack-the people I live among, who have been watchful, who have been waiting to see who and what I am.

I write it in the voice of a Luna who knows what she chose. Not apologetically. Not defensively. Just: what this is, from someone who is building it and has chosen every part of it.

The only problem is, this doesn’t just involve me. And no matter what I say, it will implicate two men who will have to live with the consequences. So I bring it to Nicolai.

He reads it standing at his desk. I watch his face-the expression that moves through several things in sequence. Something like surprise. Something like recognition. Something like pride, which he tries to contains quickly but I see him fighting the smirk forming on his lips.

“This is ” he starts.

“Too much?” I blurt out, cutting him off.

“No.” He looks up with a raised brow. “It’s exactly right, actually.”

“There’s more I want to say-”

“I know. Don’t.” He instructs, looking back at the page. “What you’ve written is what they need. Not more.” He pauses. “Can I suggest one addition?”

“Of course.”

He picks up a pen. Adds a sentence at the end-specific, formal, the language of pack governance that carries weight I don’t have yet but that his name gives it.

I read it. “Perfect,” I say with a grin.

Because he didn’t just approve what I wrote. He made it his too, ours.

There’s a pep in my step that wasn’t there before as I return to my office. But I pull up short when I find Jaxon waiting for me. Not because I’m not happy to see him. Only because it’s never happened before.

Jaxon usually finds me someplace more neutral, public. My office is mine. He’s coming to me in my space. And that’s just another sign this thing between us is slowly becoming our new normal than the thing we all know is there but continue to dance around.

He watches me as I cross the room and take a seat behind my desk,his gaze never wavering. And I don’t miss the way his nostrils flare, inhaling my scent that permeates the room. HIS eyes are full of heat that has me squeezing my thighs together so I don’t squirm. But I know that’s not what he came for.

“I’ve been thinking about the call I need to make to Noah,” he says after taking a moment to collect himself.

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15 Sigmus

“Are you ready to share it with me?” I ask tentatively.

Yes. I think I need to.” He answers.

So he tells me, not the finished plan-but the basics of it, the thinking behind it. “Noah is ready. He’s been ready for longer than either of us has said out loud. Ironwood has a capable Beta who could be a genuinely good Alpha if given the formal authority. And I have-”

He stops. Starts again.

“Something I want to build here,” he says. “Something that requires me to actually be here. Not remote. Not on a temporary basis. Here. Permanently.”

I let this land. Watching his face as he gives me time to process his words.

“What are you afraid of?” I ask, because there’s something he’s not telling me.

He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks away like he’s embarrassed to admit he’s scared of something.

“That I’m making this decision because of a bond and not because of who I actually am.” He holds my gaze. “The bond is-it tells me things. It makes things feel urgent and certain. And I don’t always know whether what I’m feeling is me or the bond doing the feeling.”

“You told me,” I say carefully, “that when the bond came back it felt like recognition. That it felt like something you’d arrived at, not something that happened to you.”

“That’s true.” He admits.

“Does this feel like the same thing? The decision about Ironwood?”

He’s quiet. Long enough that I don’t try to fill it.

“Yes,” he says finally. “I think it does.” He looks at his hands. “I think I’d have gotten here without the bond. I think the bond just-nudged me toward something that I already knew I wanted.” He meets my eyes and his are full of determination. “I think Ironwood was always what I had. And this is what I want.”

“Okay,” I say. “If you’re sure. But I meant what I said, about not wanting you to choose out of a sense of obligation.”

His gaze hardens as he looks at me. “That’s what I did the first time and it destroyed us both. I will never make that mistake again. I promise you.”

I nod accepting his words. “Then when you’re ready,” I say, “make the call.”

Later that night, I come out to the terrace to find Nicolai and Jaxon are already there. Both of them. And just like this morning, neither of them left. They’re on opposite sides of the railing, looking at the grounds, not quite talking, not quite not.

I sit between them. The three of us look out over the estate. Benji is asleep. The house is quiet. Nobody planned this but we gravitated toward each other anyway.

Nobody says anything for a while. Then we all start talking at once, each of us compelled to fill the silence. We laugh, but fall into easy conversation. Nothing ground-breaking or earth-shattering. Just talking about our day. It’s… nice.

Not everything is resolved. Not by a long shot. But…

This. Three people on a terrace, at the end of a day, sharing space. Sharing time together like it’s a completely

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normal thing to do. It’s the first moment that feels like what this might become.

Not a situation being navigated.

A life being built.

Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

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