The Lost Gem

Chapter 11

John POV:

Rose nearly turned me into a pancake the way she was sprinting down the hall. I barely moved in time to avoid her. I called after her but when I didn’t get a response, I slowly chased after her. I managed to catch up to heron the stairs but I got slowed down when the maids started gathering on the stairs to go down a level. I saw her collapse halfway up the stairs to her floor and I shoved and apologized my way through the maids. By the time I reached her again she was at her door. I scooped her up in my arms and rushed her into her room. She barely managed to tell me what to do. She wanted some weird smelling mix of herbs in a tea. I help her drink it but soon after finishing the cup she started coughing up blood and passed out. I go to get the doctor.

‘NO!’ Kylo yells at me. ‘Honor her wish for no doctor.’

‘But she could be dying!’ I yell back at him.

‘her breathing is started to be even and steady. Just stand watch.’

‘How are you so calm about this? She is our future Luna.’

‘I don’t know how but just before Rose passed out, her wolf told me that they will be okay now that you helped them.’

‘What?’ he is confusing me but he wont explain more.

I sit in a chair I moved near the bed and for serval hours I just sit and watch her breath. It was just before lunch when she passed out and it is now almost dinner. Kylo keeps telling me to hide this from Sam, it doesn’t feel right but I trust Kylo.

‘Where are you?’ Sam asks in a mind-link.

‘With a girl.’ I answer.

‘look at you getting lucky. Ill catch up with you later then.’ He cheers me on and closes the link. If only he knew the girl was his mate and I wasn’t getting lucky. He will kill me when he figure out what I’m hiding. I yawn and decide to take a nap.i quickly dozed off to dreaming about flying with eagles.

I woke up still in the chair cut it was dark now. Someone had put a blanket around me and placed a glass of water of the nightstand beside me. sitting up straighter, the blanket falls as I stretch, and I look at the bed to check on Rose. Panic screams when I see she isn’t in the bed, looking around I notice the bathroom light is on and hear water running. I stand up, picking the blanket up and putting it on the bed, and walk over to the bathroom door.

“Rose?” I call into the bathroom.

“Just a minute.” She calls back. I return to my chair and sit as the water is turned off. She walks out a couple minutes later in fuzzy pajamas, including fuzzy socks.

“Nice PJs.” I say with a smile.

“Don’t judge. They are comfy.” She pouts as she sits on her bed and leans back against the headboard. I move to sit across from her. “You want an explanation, don’t you?”

“Yeah… just a little bit. Everything earlier was nerve wracking and I am worried about you.” I explain. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

“Remember how I said that my wolf put everything we had to keep the poison away from our heart?” I nod. “the doctors cant figure out what poison it is…”

“Is? Don’t you mean was?” concern bubbles in my chest.

“No, the poison is still in my system. They gave me a bunch of herbs to help slow the poison. That what I had you brew in the tea.”

“Wait. You are saying that you are still dying?” she nods “how do we cure it? Get rid of it? Is it the same poison that you help cure Sam of before?” I pant and start to stand up. She places her hand on my arm to stop me and directs me to take some deep breaths.

“That’s a lot of questions. Ill answer them in order the best I can.” She takes a deep breath. “As of right now there is no cure. No way to get rid of the poison. They herbs just keep it at bay. Dilute it enough to not be deadly but its only while the herbs are in my system. I don’t think it’s the same poison. I tried the same antidote that I had your pack doctor give him and it didn’t work for me.” another deep breath. “In complete honesty, if you hadn’t helped me earlier I would be dead right now.” I felt like she just stabbed a red hot iron though my chest. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“Sam needs to know. He deserves to know.” I protest.

“No, especially not Sam. I’m fine when I take the herbs. I woke up late today and forgot to take them. That’s why I got sick.”

“You are Sam’s mate and future Luna to the Silver Pine pack. He deserves to know you are dying.”

“First of all…” she gets serious real quick. “I have not accepted the mate bond nor being Luna. So Sam doesn’t deserves to know sh*t.” she just about growls.

“We hope and want you to accept.” I mumble. She takes a calming breath.

“I understand that, but I don’t know at this time if I can trust pack wolves. I would like to return to your pack lands and see if I can learn to trust but I don’t know if I can.” I perk up at the possibility of her return with us.

“I’ll make a deal with you.” I offer. She nods and motions for me to continue. “I will keep your secret for the time being and help you get your herbs and remind you to take them on time if you return we us when we leave and give our pack, give Sam, a honest chance to earn your trust.” She nods and looks like she is about to cry. “Don’t cry. What is it?”

“I’m… just not use to pack wolves.” She sniffles.

“You weren’t raised by pack wolves?”

“No I learned after I woke up here that my biological parents were pack wolves but were killed.”

“The Nightshade pack.” She nods.

“My adoptive parents found me as a baby floating in the river. They raised me at the cabin and I was never allowed beyond a mile form the cabin. I never knew we were so close to a pack.”

“Were your adoptive parents pack wolves?” I ask, I don’t want to be intrusive but I’m curious. Plus anything I can learn about her just might help us help her to learn to trust us and adjust to pack life.

“I don’t know for sure, I overheard mom and dad talking one day about how she missed the benefits of being in a pack. Dad snapped back talking about remembering someone named Charlie Simmons.” She sighed. “I asked mom about the name later that day and all she would tell me was that he died in a gruesome way as a baby.”

“So your parents were than likely pack wolves. I can look into that name for you, if you would like.” She nods with a sad smile. Honestly even if she didn’t want the information I was going to look into it. The name sounds so familiar.

“My father was very presisiant in not trusting pack wolves. That they lie, chest, us, and manipulate for their own profits.”

“We aren’t like that. At least we try our hardest not to be like that.”

“It’s how I was raised.” She defends.

‘Don’t argue with her.’ Kylo chimes in.

“So, Your wolf…” I try a subject change. “she is solid black. Do you know why?” I watch as her eyes change from baby blue to a stormy grey.

“It’s genetic.” Her wolf answers.

“Well hello there. may I ask you name?” the alpha aura she is emitting is stronger than Sam’s. It’s taking so much will power to stay off my knees and not submitting to her.

“Finn” her answer is simple and takes me by surprise. I thought it would be Fenrir or Fenriris, not Finn.

****Author’s Note: Finn is Fen. I purposefully misspelled it here to show how he heard it.****

“So Finn. You get out much?” I ask awkwardly, still struggling against her aura. She looks at me confused, I’m about to correct myself when Rose’s bedroom door gets slammed against the wall. I jump up and stand defensively in front of Rose, she also jumps up and takes her own defensive position behind me. A glance over my shoulder show her eyes are back to their normal baby blue.

“Why are you in my mate’s room alone?” Sam growls from the doorway.

“We were just talking.” I explain and relax a little knowing it is just Sam. I look back at Rose again and see nothing but fear in her eyes. I follow her fixed gaze back to the still very angry Alpha before us. “Look, Alpha, calm down…”

“How can I be calm when my beta is spending unsupervised time alone with my mate behind my back, behind closed doors, in her bedroom!” he yells. Rose grips the back of my shirt; I feel her tremble.

“We were just talking!” I try to reason with him, but he just charges me instead. I quickly shove him aside to protect Rose. Her hand on my back was still trembling. “You are scaring your mate. Calm down!”

He screams, a scream laced with betrayal. His screams slowly morphs into a growl as he starts to shift. His large grey wolf stares us down; his eyes black with rage. I can’t defend Rose like this but shifting would leave her too open to an attack. I hesitate, truly scared of my enraged Alpha for the first time since taking the oath as his Beta.

I was lost in my head for mere milliseconds when Sam lunged at us. His large frame clearing the small, several feet gap instantly. I braced to kick him away but just before contact a large black shadow tackled him. The roll on the floor for a moment before the black wolf gets on top and pins him to the floor. I freeze; on one hand I need to protect and help my Alpha, on the other hand he did just try to attack us. Finn was larger than Apollo. Both in height and straight size. Apollo is 6 feet at the shoulder and Finn has a good 6 inches on that.

Apollo growls at her and tries to bite her, one snarl from Finn shuts him up quick and leaves him whimpering. She huffs and sits down next to him and nuzzles his neck with her nose. Apollo sits up and shifts back; I toss him a pillow to cover up. He lowers his head to Finn and whimpers. I go to step closer but am hit with a wall of Finn’s aura. I have to step back before I drop to my knees and bare my neck to her.

“I’m sorry… to both of you. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” He apologizes and keeps his eyes on the pillow in his lap. Finn pulls a cover off the bed to cover herself and shifts back.

“Both of you. Please leave.” She says meekly. I stare at her back shocked. The girl I had just been talking too. The girl who was opening up. It was like she just died the second Sam lost his temper. Her entire body language screamed that she had shut down all over again. I understand that she is scared, that Sam actions were terrifying, but what if he just cost us the deal we had made. What if now she doesn’t want to return to the pack with us.

I hang my head, grab Sam’s arm, and drag him and the pillow he was using as cover out of the room. I slowly close the door behind us. In the hallway, Sam still looked like a lost puppy as he stared at her door. I started walking, a maid sees the pillow Sam is using, blushes, then runs off. Sam follows me as I head to the first floor and towards the back door to return to our guest housing. The maid returns as I open the back door and hands Sam some shorts silently before running off again. Sam calls a thank you after her as he puts the shorts on. In the maze garden, making our way to our rooms, I can’t stop thinking about how Rose seemed when we left.

“Dumbass!” I turn to Sam and yell at him. “I was earning her trust. I got her to agree to return to the pack with us when we leave. You might have just destroyed all of that.”

“I’m sorry…” He says again. “I went to visit her and check on her, when I caught both of your scents in the room… and your comment earlier about being with a girl” I sigh, I knew that would come back to bite me. “I just got blinded with rage.”

“You need to tell rose that.” I yell at him as we keep walking. “I was so close to having earned her trust. Yes, I’ve been with her for pretty much the entire day, but nothing besides talking was going on.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were with her?” he asks, his anger starting to rise again. “I’ve been looking for her all afternoon.” I freeze, realizing I slipped up.

‘Don’t give too much info or details.’ Kylo tells me.

“I… uh…” he growls at me. “I can’t explain. Rose said she didn’t want you to know.” I scramble.

“Tell me.” Sam uses his Alpha tone on me. I physically bite my tongue till it starts bleeding to stop myself.

“I’m sorry, Alpha.” Kylo takes control, falling to his knees and baring his neck to Sam. “To honor the trust Luna Rose has given us, we cannot explain anything to do with why we stay with her in her room.” Sam growls but lowers his aura, allowing us to breathe.

“I’m sorry. I lost my temper again.” He sighs. “Let’s just get back to our rooms.”

I knew he wasn’t going to drop this for good but at least for tonight, Kylo and I could breathe. We reach our doors a short time later. I pull out my key and unlock my door. I turned to say goodnight and see Sam banging his head on his door.

“All my s**t is back in Rose’s room.” He says, so defeated.

“Excuse me? What?”

“My wallet, my keys, the nightshade book, my phone. Everything.” He mumbles. I hit my head on the door and started laughing. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because your temper just left you stranded and locked out of your room.”

“Shush… Let me in through your room. I’ll go get my stuff tomorrow.”

I continued laughing as we enter through my room. He tells me good night as he crosses into his room thought the adjoining door. I strip and prepare for bed. I shut off the light and drift off quickly. A dream of running through the woods floods my vision. I was Kylo, Apollo was running next to us. A black wolf who looked like Finn and a large grey wolf with one blue and one green eye ran behind us. A pair of ravens flew overhead.