Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 245

Ch. 17

Noah

Dr. Lukas’s office is quiet when I arrive for my appointment at the end of the day. She already has my latest blood work results laid out when I arrive. She’s organized the information completely, identified what’s changed since the last panel, prepared to give me the full picture without softening it.

“The progression is consistent,” her lips turn down when she delivers the news. “Slow. But moving” She shows me the markers-I’ve learned enough in the past two weeks to read them myself. “The headache frequency is what I want to address today.”

“Two really bad ones in the last two weeks.” I confess. Hiding it won’t help her help me, I decide

“Increasing from one in three weeks. That’s a change in pattern.” She makes a note. “I want you on a mild neurological support protocol-it won’t stop the progression but it may slow the headache frequency. I need you to tell me immediately if you experience any cognitive episodes.”

“Defined as?” I hedge, the episode in the council meeting today immediately springing to mind.

“Gaps longer than a few seconds. Confusion about your location or circumstances. Difficulty with recall that persists rather than resolves.” She looks at me. “Has anything like that happened?”

“No.” My knee-jerk reaction is to deny but I think better of it. “Well, one instance. But it was brief and it resolved within seconds.”

She makes another note.

“How long do you think?” I ask when the silence stretches.

Her head snaps up at the question. “It’s not an exact science, Noah.”

“I know that. Trust me, I’ve done my homework. I just want your best guesstimate”

She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “At current progression,” she says carefully, “I predict about two years before it becomes severe.” She pauses. “But the historical record is inconsistent enough that I can’t give you more precision than that.”

“And the chosen mate option,” I say. Not quite a question. Not quite a statement.

“It’s not an option I’d recommend without significantly more evidence-” She stops abruptly, like she just remembered something vital. “There isn’t likely to be more evidence, Noah. Not in time.” She shudders like the admission physically pains her.

“But it’s an option.”.

“You’ve seen the research. It’s a single documented possibility. That’s all I can offer.”

She’s not saying consider it soon, before the progression makes the question moot. She’s a careful doctor who won’t recommend something with one documented case as its evidence base. But she’s also not not saying it.

“I understand the difference,” I assure her. “Between a documented possibility and a recommendation. Thank you for being honest with me, Sera.”

“That’s my job,” she says, patting my back as she walks me to the door.

As I leave her office, I’m surprised to run into Piper in the hallway outside the medical building. I shouldn’t be. She coordinates the pack’s wellness programs so she’s in this building regularly. She sees me and I catch a flicker

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of something in her expression that I’ve noticed a few times since we stopped seeing each other. But she locks it

ay before I can read too much into it.

“Long day?” she observes.

“Long week,” I answer, then wonder if an Alpha should admit to that.

She falls into step with me for a moment-not pursuing, just companionship. Everything with Piper is easy in a way that I’ve been thinking about but haven’t quite decided what to do with yet.

Then she stops suddenly and I automatically stop with her.

“You know, I thought you’d call. After the last time we had dinner, I mean.” She says it directly, without accusation, just honesty. “I guess I thought things were going somewhere.”

“Piper-“I stop because I have absolutely no idea what I want to say.

“It’s fine,” she shrugs. “I just had to say it. I really am glad for how things are going for you. The Alpha role suits you.”

She starts to walk but I reach for her arm, pulling her to a stop again. She turns and looks at me with the patient expression of someone who isn’t going to fill the silence I’ve created.

I think about what Dr. Lukas said. Two years. Maybe more. Maybe less. I think about Cole’s worried face and how maybe it’d be nice if I had someone else besides him to care about me. And I think about Piper-easy, capable, warm. Someone who would say yes if I asked. Someone who means it. Someone who is not complicated.

She waits patiently while I have an internal battle with myself. I think: that’s not enough of a reason. Then I think: what if it has to be?

“Dinner,” I say. “This weekend. If you’re still-if you’d be willing to.”

She looks at me for a moment like she’s trying to mine all my secrets-the assessment of a woman deciding whether this is worth the risk.

“Okay,” she agrees. “Dinner.”

She smiles and walks away while I stand in the hallway outside the medical building and think about what I just did and why I did it and whether the two-year timeline is the reason or just the occasion.

I don’t have an answer. But I toss and turn a lot that night in my search for one.

The gate guard calls me at 4:47 in the morning. I’m awake-not by choice, the cold woke me at three and I’ve been reading since then, the historical records again, the sixty-year-old case again-when my phone buzzes.

“Alpha Stephens.” His voice is careful, like he already knows he’s treading thin.ice. “There’s a woman at the gate. She says her name is Cassandra Winters.”

The room goes very still like time itself has slowed down. My chest throbs with an echo of the bond I rejected and I hate that just her name can still do that to me.

“She has a child with her,” he continues. “She doesn’t look very well. I think she’s injured.”

Fuck! I sit at the edge of my bed and scrub my hand down my face, trying to shake free of the exhaustion enough to think clearly. Cassandra Winters. At my gate. At 4:47 in the morning, injured and with a child. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

I could swear the non-existent bond flickers in response. Faint. Like a flame that’s been very low for a very long

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time suddenly having enough oxygen.

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Think about what Cassandra did. What she chose and what it cost me. It’s a price I’m not willing to risk again.

But I won’t let her make me a monster either. So I won’t turn her away when she’s injured and a child in her care. And who knows, maybe I don’t have to mark her for her presence to dull my symptoms. There’s not enough evidence to say otherwise. It’s worth a try.

It doesn’t change my plans with Piper. Not in the slightest. But if having her nearby can benefit me in any way it’s the least she owes me.

“Send her to the visitor hold,” I order. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

I put the phone down and dress quickly in the cold room. No sense prolonging the inevitable, even if the inevitable bites me like a snake in the grass.

Time to go find out what she wants.

Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

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