Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 195

Chapter 195

Nicolai

Everyday, the picture is getting clearer and I don’t like what it shows. What began as damage control in the face of a smear campaign-someone using the situation at the estate to embarrass the Woolf family, trading in whispers and diplomatic suggestions-has developed into a serious threat assessment. It’s looking more and more like something that was planned rather than opportunistic. Our situation just gave them a convenient tool to use to gather more support…

Someone is building toward something far more dangerous than a rumor. And I need to find out what it is.

Jaxon comes to my office at 8 AM. This happens regularly now. We’ve established a morning rhythm around the Volkov intelligence-share what came in overnight, assess, determine next steps. It’s efficient. Neither of us has commented on the fact that it’s become our routine. We just do it.

I lay out what Dimitri’s team confirmed yesterday.

“Volkov is the face. Not the architect.” I explain. “He has resources but he’s not the one with the agenda. Just the one who’d love to see me fall for rejecting his daughter, I expect. And he has the popularity to garner support from the Eastern territories.” I turn the map on my desk toward him. “The target is the eastern alliance structure. These three packs-” I indicate them. “They represent sixty percent of my eastern trade routes and forty percent of my political relationships in that corridor. If they go, I’m isolated from the east. And isolated from the east means-”

“Exposed from the south,” Jaxon observes. He’s been studying the map. “And you have a border dispute with the Carrigan Pack that’s been dormant for six years.

“Which becomes active the moment I look weakened enough that they think they can win it.”

“The mate situation is the wedge,” he says. Not a question.

“Yes. They’ve been running with that narrative since the news leaked. The Woolf Alpha who can’t hold his mate, who invited competition into his house. If enough of the eastern packs believe the narrative, they start reassessing whether the Woolf alliance is an asset or a liability.”

He’s quiet. Looking at the map. But I can see the wheels turning in his head. He’s smart and, I’m coming to realize, actually more of an asset than I gave him credit for.

“The architect,” he asks. “What does your intelligence say?”

“Someone with resources above Volkov’s level. Eastern pack, possibly, or a wolf with eastern connections who’s been waiting for the right lever.” I look at him. “What does your network say?”

“I have a name.” He reaches into the folder he brought. “Petyr Savin. Eastern Alpha. Lost a territorial dispute with the Woolf family twelve years ago-before you were head of the family. Your father handled it.” He sets the document on the desk. “He’s been patient.”

I look at Savin’s information. Twelve years. Someone who waited twelve years for the right moment. And I handed it to him the moment I brought Skye into my home, pregnant with another Alpha’s child. Her unexpected new bond with Jaxon is just icing on the cake, so to speak.

“That’s thorough intelligence,” I remark.

“I have relationships in the eastern territories that predate yours,” Jaxon shrugs. Not a boast. A fact. “My father did business with packs your family didn’t court. Different methods, different alliances.” He meets my eyes and

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there’s something wistful in them. “He did a shit job of everything else but at least this is useful to you right now.”

is,” I agree.

We get back to business, analyzing all the intelligence we’ve gathered, trading ideas and building strategy. We work well together.

I’ve been noticing this. Not wanting to examine it too closely-it sits in the category of things I didn’t expect and am not sure what to do with. But I’m honest enough to admit it.

Working with Jaxon is effective. Not exactly comfortable yet. There’s still the underlying friction of two Alphas in the same space with complicated history around the same person. That doesn’t disappear. But underneath the friction, there’s something else that has been developing over weeks of shared problems and shared intelligence and being forced to think in the same direction.

He asks good questions. Not the same questions I’d ask-the angle is different. Where I approach a problem from the structural level, he comes in from the relational. Who are the people involved, what do they want, what’s their history. It produces information that changes the way I see the issue.

I’m a big enough man to admit the combination is better than either alone. I’ve run complex operations for fifteen years. I know the difference between working with someone who’s useful and working with someone who makes you better.

Jaxon Vale, former enemy, former subject of my jealousy and territorial instinct, father of my mate’s child and whatever else he is he makes me better. And I’ll take all the help I can get, especially when the threat involves my mate and our child.

Speaking of my mate, Skye has been different. Not dramatically different-if I didn’t know her the way I do, as the other half of my soul, I might not have noticed at all. She’s present, engaged, the Luna work she’s been doing continues, she’s been visible in the pack the way I asked.

She’s still the same Skye in most ways. My Skye, passionate, fierce, loving, openly in love with me, our son, and I begrudgingly admit, even Jaxon. But there’s something underneath. Like she’s managing something private, carrying something she isn’t ready to talk about.

I’ve learned to read her well enough to know the difference between Skye being fine and Skye pretending to be fine but dealing with something she doesn’t want to burden me with. This is the second. And given everything else going on, I’ll admit it has me worried.

I haven’t asked. Not yet. I’ve learned she tells me things when she’s ready. Pushing gets me the sugar-coated version, not the true one. So I watch. I notice. I’m here when she decides to say it.

But I don’t push.

Not yet.

Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

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