Alpha Raphael’s Second Chance Mate

Chapter 16

NORA

I stare at the ceiling of my room, my eyes tracing the same cracks they always do at this hour.

Isolde's voice is still in my head. The way she announced the wedding. Casual. Like it was already done. Like I was not standing right there in front of the whole pack when she said it.

Raphael marrying Iris.

This week.

I sigh, turning to my side. I should have known better. I did know better. I just forgot for a little while and that was my mistake.

A knock on my door pulls me up.

"Come in."

It was Damon, Raphael's beta. He stands at the door with that careful look he always has when he is about to say something he is not sure how I will receive.

"The alpha wants you in the council meeting room. The elders are waiting."

I stare at him. "Me?"

"Yes, ma'am."

I get up slowly and follow him out.

***

The council room is large and cold and full of old wolves who all look at me the same way the moment I walk through the door. Like I am something they have not decided what to do with yet.

Raphael is already there, standing near the head of the table. He glances at me when I come in and says nothing, just gestures to the chair beside him with a slight movement of his head.

I sat down.

The elders look at each other. Then at me. Then back at Raphael.

"Alpha, we called this meeting regarding the pack's future and the matter of your Luna," the elder at the head of the table says. His name is Matthias. Old wolf. Strong aura. Eyes that don't blink enough.

"Speak," Raphael says.

Matthias turns to me. "Who are you, exactly. Where did you come from? What pack? What bloodline?"

His questions were direct.

I couldn't laugh, or smirk or help it.

"My name is Nora. I came from the greenwood pack. I have no bloodline that I know of. I was raised as an orphan with no family and no standing in any pack." I keep my voice even. "I was the Luna of the greenwood pack before I was falsely accused and exiled."

Everyone starts to murmur silently after my last statement.

I didn't expect less from them, I was used to it all by now, so hearing them say a word didn't affect me.

"Falsely accused," another elder says, a woman with silver hair pulled back tight. "That is a serious claim."

"It is a true one," I say.

"Do you have proof?"

"I have what I lived through," I say. "That is what I have."

More murmuring continues.

"An orphan with no bloodline and no standing cannot be Luna to the Southern pack," a third elder says, not looking at me when he says it, which tells me everything about how much courage the statement actually took.

"Say it to my face," I tell him.

He looks up.

"Say it to my face," I say again, my voice steady and low. "If you believe it, own it."

The room goes quiet.

Alpha Raphael is watching me. I can feel it from where I sit. That nonchalant steady attention of his.

The elder clears his throat and looks away.

Matthias asks more questions. About the greenwood pack. About Kael. About how I ended up at the Southern pack border bleeding and unconscious. I answer every one of them. Not aggressively. Not with emotion. Just facts, stated plainly, one after another until there is nothing left to ask.

The silver haired elder asks about my pup. Her voice is softer than the others when she does it.

I answered that one too.

"I don't know the gender. I never got to see my child at all,not even for a second. He was taken before I could."

The room is very quiet after that.

Matthias looks at Raphael. "Alpha, we will need time to deliberate on this issue."

"Deliberate," Raphael says simply, standing. He looks at me briefly and tilts his head toward the door.

I stand and we walk out together.

**

The corridor outside the council room is empty and cooler than inside. My feet are steady beneath me but my jaw is tired from holding itself that way for so long.

Alpha Raphael walks beside me. He doesn't say anything for a moment.

Then, "You handled that well."

I glance at him.

He's not looking at me when he says it. His eyes are forward, his face is the same with the cold unreadable expression it always has.

That's the first warm thing he's ever said to me. Just like that. Simple. Direct. No big moments around it.

I don't know what to do with it.

"Thank you," I say.

I keep walking. He slows slightly behind me, watching me go, I can feel it, but I don't turn around.

Damn it.

Why does he have to say something like that now. After the wedding announcement. After everything.

'You heard him,' my wolf says, perking up immediately.

'I heard him say four words,' I told her.

'Four words from him are a lot, Nora. You know that.'

'Go away,' I tell her.

'You smiled,' she says.

'I did not.'I protested strictly, without giving her the chance to have her way.

'You did. A little one. The left side.'

I press my lips together.

'It's okay to feel good about something,' she says, less pushy this time and more careful.

'He is getting married to Iris this week,' I remind her. 'His mother announced it in front of the entire pack.'

My wolf goes quiet.

Yeah. That's what I thought.

I get back to my room and close the door behind me and stand there for a second.

‘You handled that well.’

Four words.

And here I am turning them over in my head like they mean something.

What is wrong with me?

I was an orphan in Kael's pack with nothing and nobody and I got used and discarded and ended up bleeding in a forest.

That is my history.

That is who I am.

A woman who trusted the wrong person and paid for it with everything she had.

I was not going to do that again.

I sit on the edge of the bed and look at my hands.

My pup is out there. Somewhere. Getting older every day without me. Probably walking by now or close to it. Growing up with a face I have never even seen.

That is what matters.

Not four words from a cold alpha who is engaged to someone else.

Not the way he watched me walk away.

None of it.

'Nora,' my wolf says softly.

'Not tonight,' I tell her.

She doesn't push it.

And I lie back on the bed and stare at the same ceiling and try very hard not to think about the way he said it.

You handled that well.

Damn him.