Competing for the Luna’s Heart

Chapter 2

Alina

The first thing that I saw when I stepped into the conference room, made me wonder if I had looked at the time wrong, or if Mitch was playing a joke on me when he woke me up this morning. My father was the only one in here, looking over a few papers while he waited.

I cleared my throat and his head shot up. “Alina, good, you’re right on time.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, “No one is here dad. I thought this would be the preparation for the Alpha Challenge.”

He waved me into the room as he stood. I walked over to him and he hugged me. Any small feeling of positivity I felt about this meeting had vanished.

“It is, but I wanted to speak with you alone first. It’s about the the mate bond, and how our pack finds mates.”

I pulled away from him, though not completely. “You already told me the story when I was thirteen. Everyone in our pack knows. We value and mate for love.”

He nodded, but looked as though he was holding himself back from saying something. He pulled his arms back, and led me to the couch on the other side of the room. Even if I hadn’t been dreading this meeting, I would have been now.

“Yes, we have always taught every child in the pack that they should value the love of their mate over anything else. The bond between mates is always stronger that way. At thirteen your wolf spirit is still dormant, not ready to emerge fully, but it needs time to grow, develop, learn how to control its energy. As our human side grows, goes through puberty, learn our emotions and the values that shape us into the people we will be, our wolves are watching and listening, feeling everything with us.”

“Dad, I learned all about wolf spirits all throughout school. I already know all of this. I studied and worked hard so I could be a good Luna. What does this have to do with the Alpha Challenge?” I felt confusion replace my worry, though not completely.

He sighed, and wiped his hand over his face. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell me. The only thing I knew for certain was that I wasn’t going to like it. It was a feeling deep inside of me, I wasn’t sure where it was coming from.

“My little star, we have a much closer bond than an alpha normally has with his daughter. It started out of necessity, being your only parent. Lucy helped so much when you were little, and I was more than grateful that there was a woman in your life who could help you with things that your mother would have. As you grew, and became more independent, I didn’t need Lucy’s help the way I had when you were an infant.

“The older you got, the more our bond grew. We talk about everything, don’t lie to each other and I have strived to always keep you involved in what goes on with the pack, without it taking over your life. I still wanted you to have as much of a normal childhood and life as possible. But there has always been one thing I have not told you. It was not by my choosing, not at first.

“It is not shared outside of our direct line, and only to the heir and their mate, if there is more than one child-“

I put my hand up, and he stopped immediately. We had always done this, so he knew I was trying to process what he was saying. There was more, but my head was spinning already.

“But I’m not mated yet. Hell, I’m not even of age for three more weeks!”

My father hugged me, “Alina, this is different, you make it different.” I really didn’t like where this going. He pulled away and continued. “The goddess came to visit your great grandfather, alpha Joseph when he prayed to her that your great grandmother would be able to find a mate that loved her for who she was and not for the title of alpha. Selene told him about a pure Luna that would be born from his line. Her birth would bring the mate bonds back and all wolves would feel them once she is marked by her true mate.

“Now, a pure Luna should not be possible, seeing as how the goddess only allows a female heir to be born from the alpha line. I am an exception, one of the few, but the only one who has been mated to a Luna. My parents are both lunas. They wanted a child desperately, but my Luna mother was unable to have children. My birth parents were killed in a rogue attack when I was two and your grandmothers decided to adopt me. Because they were both women, and my Luna mother needed an heir, her father petitioned the council for a blood adoption.

“I was bonded to her through that, her blood mixed with mine and would make sure that their pack leader line continued and I would produce a female Luna heir. My old pack, The White Crescent pack, was small. A neighboring pack had a cruel alpha, who wanted to expand their territory and waged war with us. We fought with everything we had, but with only a few hundred wolves against a pack that was triple our size and their allies, we didn’t stand a chance.

“We had only four or five dozen survivors, and we fled. I made sure that a couple of omegas were able to retrieve the entire contents of the alpha safe and they got as many women and children out of the safe room and into the hidden tunnels below the pack house. I was injured, stabbed with a silver blade and three warriors smuggled me away from the battle to join the remaining pack members. We traveled for almost two weeks before we found sanctuary. It was actually Curtis that found us. But that part is not what is important.”

Beta Curtis had been my father’s best friend for as long as I could remember. I had known that my father was not born in this pack. He had been two years older than my mother. Even though they had seen each other around the pack, they had not actually spoken until her Alpha Challenge.

“The important part, is that when my old pack was overrun and then destroyed, I had not found a mate and had not taken over as the alpha. When you were born, I was filled with so much joy, but your mother couldn’t stay with us and that filled me with immense sorrow. Lucy stayed with you the first night in the hospital, as I let my grief consume me. Nox took over and we took our rage and pain out in the forest. We were consumed with grief but didn’t want to hurt anyone. I still have no idea how long it took before we had nothing left.

“As darkness took over, I saw a bright light. I thought that this was us going to be with your mother. The pain was unbearable and I didn’t want to live with it. When I saw your mother standing before me, I truly believed I had joined her. She let me hold her and it felt like an hour had passed before I realized that I couldn’t hear Nox inside of me. She told me that my blood adoption made me a rare alpha heir and that is what made our daughter a pure Luna.”

No. It can’t be me. I didn’t believe him. He wouldn’t lie and keep something like this from me. What would happen to me? I didn’t know how to carry the burden of something like this. I felt the urge to flee, but my body refused to move.

“I knew I would have to tell you about the Luna prophecy before you became of age. I just wasn’t sure when the right time would be. Nox told me this morning that today was the day. Your Alpha Challenge will be different because of it. You will be able to scent two mates. But you must not tell anyone. Your wolf will be able to tell you who they are, but you must both decide together who is the right mate. Only once you have chosen your true mate and are marked by them, will other wolves be able to scent and feel the mate bond again.”

I couldn’t breathe. I felt the walls of the room closing in on me. My father looked at me, concern and worry were warring his face but worry seemed to win. I stood up, and started walking. I needed to escape this room. I was already feeling uneasy about the whole challenge. The men who would enter to win my heart, they would be put up against stressful situations and face off against some of our fiercest warriors to prove that they would be able to lead.

They would also be given time with me to prove that they would be a loving and loyal mate. Preparations started three weeks before the future Luna’s coming of age to ensure that any potential mates were given the opportunity to enter. After the intense screening, I was supposed to choose only twelve to actually compete in the challenge. That was going to be hard enough, what if i didn’t pick the right person?

Now I had to worry that I might exclude not one, but now two mates. I would be able to scent them the first day of the challenge starting. But worrying about that wasn’t enough, if both do end up in the final twelve, I had the burden of choosing the right one or else no wolves would be able to feel the bond of a true mate. It wasn’t fair.

I burst through the back doors of the pack house and took off running. Several people were in the backyard, enjoying the crisp fall weather. Grilling, socializing, pups playing but I ignored them. I had to run. It wasn’t easy to run in my boots, but hindsight is a fickle thing. If I had known this was how my day was going to go, I wouldn’t have worn the boots. But I also would have likely stayed in my room and hid from the world.

I was more than a mile into the woods, but still well within the pack borders and I fell to the ground on my knees. I didn’t notice the snags in my sweater, didn’t care about the slightly moist earth staining my knees and I couldn’t feel the tears that ran down my face. I tilted my head back to look up at the sky and let out a scream.

It was full of pain, despair and hopelessness. But with a tinge of yearning for my mother. For the woman who I never met but gave me life, who sacrificed her life for mine. The longing to be comforted with a mother’s embrace, something I had never truly known. As my voice faded, I began gasping for air. Taking deep breaths between my sobs of pain.

I didn’t know what time it was, but I knew it hadn’t been too long since I’d run out of the pack house. No one had come looking for me yet, and I was grateful for that. No one should see me like this, not the future Luna. I knew deep down that I couldn’t hide from this. But I didn’t have to like it.

Thankfully, my phone was still in the side pocket of my leggings and hadn’t fallen out. I had a text from my father.

Dad: I’m sorry my little star, I will reschedule everything for tomorrow. Take the rest of the day for yourself. I love you.

I sent him back a short message of ok and you too. It was all I could manage to type. I stood up and turned back to the pack house. I had only taken a few steps and I felt my head start pounding. It was intense and out of nowhere. I had assumed it was from all the tears and screaming, but after only two more steps, I felt what I could only be described as electricity shooting down my spine.

I fell to my knees once again and pulled my phone back out. Before I could unlock the stupid thing, I felt the same jolt go shooting down my arms and dropped it. I couldn’t mind link anyone since I didn’t have my wolf yet, but I had a connection to Mitch. Since he was my future gamma, and had already started taking on his gamma duties with me, the link had formed. I couldn’t speak through it yet, but I could tug on it.

I reached inside of me, feeling for the silver thread that connected us and pulled on it with all I had-which unfortunately wasn’t much with the jolts of pain running through my entire body now. I had to hope it was enough.

Thankfully, I only had to wait a few agonizing minutes before I heard his voice screaming my name. It was full of fear and desperation. I tried to lift my head, but I couldn’t control a single part of my body anymore. A few moments later, I could feel him next to me, but I was hunched over on the ground on all fours now, the pain had increased.

“Oh fuck.” He muttered. “I linked your dad, he’s coming. Just hang on.”

I wanted to say ok, even just nod my head that I had heard him but it was no use. I had been trying to contain the urge to scream, to not show how much pain I was in. I didn’t want to make anyone feel as helpless as I did to stop this all consuming pain. Now the jolts were coming every few seconds and even more intensely.

I let out a scream, and then I couldn’t stop. My body felt like it was being ripped apart from the inside. I had heard plenty of stories about the first shift, but your wolf was supposed to emerge in your mind first. They were supposed to be with you, take over and take some of the pain.

I had no wolf, no voice in my head. My birthday also wasn’t for three more weeks. I couldn’t be shifting. So I didn’t know what was happening to me. I felt the most intense pressure pushing in from the outside of my body, like it was trying to keep me from just exploding.

I could hear voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. I couldn’t tell one from the other. For all I knew it could be just Mitch, or my father could’ve arrived with half the pack. I didn’t know.

My eyes were closed, shut tightly with the fear that I would start seeing my limbs exploding from the pain. It went on for hours, no one touched me, at least it didn’t feel like it. I could feel prickling inside my head, a darkness calling me, urging me to let go. I ignored it at first, but now I was trying desperately to find it. Let the darkness take over.

As if it was waiting for me to accept it, the prickling feeling quickly began to spread throughout my body. I took one last deep breath before I let the darkness consume me completely.