Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 194

Chapter 194

Skye

I sit in the car in the estate driveway for ten minutes before going inside after returning from Dr. Chernov’s office. The relief of a doctor’s opinion that nothing is wrong, it will sort itself out in good time, is still warring with the concern that 1) He could be wrong, and 2) What of he’s not and my heat comes before Nicolai and Jaxon are both ready to give me what I need, together?

It’s fine. It’s probably fine. Probably.

The probably part is doing a lot of work and I’m aware of that. So I make a decision. Or reaffirm my earlier decision, actually. I’m not going to tell them. Not yet. Not until there’s something concrete to tell. I spent three years managing everyone else’s feelings at the expense of my own information. I’m allowed to carry this one until

I know what it is.

I get out of the car. Go inside. Feed my son lunch and help Nicolai review a trade agreement and have dinner with both of them and don’t say a word about Dr. Chernov.

It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m probably fine.

With that problem safely tucked away for a later date, I choose to focus on something more exciting. The Ironwood succession is moving along and seems to be going well.

Noah has been at the estate twice in the last two weeks. I’ve watched the meetings from a respectful distance- formal, structured, the kind of discussions that produce paperwork. Transfer of authority. Pack governance protocols. The specific legal architecture of an Alpha stepping back from a role.

And Jaxon looks lighter for it. Like something he’s been braced against for months has stopped pushing back now that he’s finally decided to let go. He moves through the house differently-less provisional, less of a guest who might have to leave. More settled. More like someone who finally feels like he belongs here and is leaning in to that belonging.

He and Nicolai have actually found a working rhythm around the Volkov situation too. I watch them in the office together-not often and not for long, because the two Alphas in a room have a particular energy that is better in small doses-but the meetings are productive in ways that feel new. They share information. They listen to each other. They disagree sometimes, briefly, and reach the better answer faster than either of them would have alone.

We’re settling into something new, something better. I can feel it. The way they’ve stopped resisting and started taking small steps forward. The way we’re all moving forward, together.

I watch this and love it and am privately scared about whether my body is going to cooperate with the life that’s being built.

Everyone is still occupied with meetings and pack business when I finally make my way inside, so I go straight to my happy place in the garden. I just need a few minutes to myself to quiet my mind before facing my mates.

It’s late afternoon, the light doing the golden implausible thing it does this time of year. The kind of beauty that makes you look for a reason to stay just a bit longer. So I start deadheading the roses-a task Diana taught me, something useful to do with my hands.

I get lost in the task, my thoughts blissfully quiet for the first time in a long time. And then, out of nowhere, I notice something.

It’s nothing dramatic. Just—a slight warmth. Not the weather. Not the late afternoon sun on my shoulders. Something internal.

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It starts in my chest and radiates outward and has a quality I recognize from before Benji, from the months before he pregnancy. Before everything got complicated. When the biology of being a wolf with a mate bond was simpler and more predictable and I didn’t have two of them.

My wolf lifts her head. Slowly. Like something that’s been sleeping and is remembering it knows how to be awake.

The bond with Nicolai does something. A tingling sensation and a tugging in my gut. A reminder I have a mate and I should go to him. Should be close to my mate, not out here alone.

And then the bond with Jaxon does something similar, but slightly different. The same tingling, the same tug but with a little more urgency-like that bond is still missing something that my wolf wants me to fix. Immediately.

Individually, it’s manageable. But both of them together? It’s intense. And it takes me a minute to think through the fog, to make sense of what’s happening to me.

I stand very still in the garden with my hands full of dead rose heads and the particular awareness of my wolf becoming present in a way she hasn’t been in almost a year.

Oh, I think. There it is. That’s what I get for thinking maybe I’m not ready for this after all. Well-played universe. Well-played!

I decide not to tell Nicolai and Jaxon that night. I’m not certain yet. It could be a false start-the body testing the waters, checking to see if the conditions are right. I want to be sure before I say anything.

But there’s another reason I don’t fully understand until later. It’s not until I’m lying in bed, Nicolai’s arm around me, the estate quiet, that the truth occurs to me. I want to do something for myself first.

Something that’s mine. A small act of agency before the heat takes over and makes me everyone’s to take care of again.

I’ve been reactive for a year and a half. Managed. Protected. Cared for. Loved-genuinely and well, by two men

who mean it.

But reactive. Responding to crises and situations and the things life kept throwing at all of us. I want one thing that I choose entirely on my own terms. I don’t know what yet. I’ll know when I know, I suppose.

I close my eyes. Sleep, eventually. And underneath the sleep, my wolf stays awake for the first time in almost a

year.

Paying attention.

Waiting for what comes next.

Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

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