The Prophesied Luna (completed)

Like Mother, Like Son

Kayla’s POV

            My heart raced as I opened my eyes to see my little pup and my mate beside me in bed. If someone told me four months ago that I’d be waking up on a beautiful spring morning in the middle of the mountains and forests to the faces of my pup and my mate, I’d probably have laughed hysterically in disbelief. Yet, here we were and instead of feeling uncomfortable or angry that Finn had perhaps intentionally made this arrangement, I felt a tranquility in my heart, as if there were no other place in the world where I would rather be. 

            Suddenly, a pair of bright green eyes stared back at me and I turned around quickly, embarrassed that Finn had caught me staring at him while he was asleep. “Good morning, my sunshine,” he said in his husky morning voice and I heard him plant a kiss on Mirakel’s cheek before grinning at me. “Morning,” I mumbled quickly, trying my best to hide my nervousness. “Mama?” Mirakel fussed as he reached out for me. 

            “Come on, buddy, rise and shine!” Finn coaxed Mirakel as he planted more kisses all over our pup’s face. I stroked Mirakel’s hair gently, knowing he must be really tired from yesterday. “Time for breakfast, Baby, and after that we can go see the mountains.” As if on cue, Mirakel’s eyes flew open at the mention of breakfast and I chuckled at what a tiny glutton our little pup was. After breakfast, we checked out and drove towards our next destination. It was a short drive, just over an hour but today was going to be the night that we’d actually be camping and sleeping out in the wild, so Mirakel was more excited than usual. 

            “Papa, are we there yet?” Mirakel asked for the twelfth time as we drove along the Merced River and I knew we must be close. “Baby, Papa is driving, you can’t keep asking him questions like this,” I said gently and Mirakel was about to protest when I noticed our destination. “Let Papa park the car, and then we’re there, ok Buddy?” Finn said patiently. This promise finally placated Mirakel as he looked outside with anticipation. When we got out of the car, I was surprised to see Finn pull out a strange looking backpack. He closed the boot and strapped the backpack into place, before asking me if I could put Mirakel onto the seat at the top of the backpack. Only then did I realize why the backpack looked so strange. 

            “The trail is more difficult today and I thought it would be safer if I carried Mirakel,” Finn explained as I buckled our pup into the seat on top of the backpack. It warmed my heart to know that Finn had thought of everything and Mirakel was beside himself with excitement. “Yay!!” he squealed in delight as he clapped his hands. “I love Papa!” he declared. I laughed at how easily satisfied he was and decided to tease him. “Only Papa, Baby?” I asked with a pout. “I love Mama too!” Mirakel looked at me seriously and declared, sending both Finn and I into a new laughing fit. Our pup is definitely the most adorable pup in the world!

            As we hiked along the trail, I was relieved that Finn had thought of preparing that backpack to carry Mirakel around. The scenery was breathtaking but this was still not a toddler friendly trail. “Mama, flowers! Many many!” Mirakel pointed wildly at the sea of yellow-orange tufted poppies in front of us. “Ain’t they pretty, Buddy? Just like Mama?” Finn asked in a serious tone and I was about to roll my eyes at his cliche and cheesy compliment but my marvelous Dr. Why shut down his father wonderfully. “Mama pretty. Like pink tree in garden! Not like flowers,” explained our pup patiently. I chuckled as Finn slowly realized that he might have initiated Dr. Why’s attack mode again. 

            “Papa, why flowers orange?” 

            “Papa, purple flowers! Why is purple?”

            “Yellow flowers! So many! Papa, why?”

            Our three hour hike was filled with Mirakel’s questions about nature, questions that probably even the Moon Goddess couldn’t answer, let alone Finn. But it was amusing to watch the both of them banter and I had never expected Finn to be so patient. Even though over the years, Finn had become less impulsive and more cautious as his Alpha role demanded of him, on the small and inconsequential things, he’d still act rashly. Seeing him patiently answer each and every one of Mirakel’s questions thoughtfully without a hint of patronizing our pup was impressive. 

            “Alright Buddy, take a break with your questions. We’re going to find a spot to rest and have lunch, ok?” Finn asked as we headed off the trail and into the sea of yellow flowers. Soon, we found a relatively flat spot under a tree and laid out our picnic mat there before unpacking the sandwiches that we had brought from the hotel. “We’re going to head off to a more secluded area after lunch and look for a place to set up camp. When the sun sets, we can let our wolves out for a run, but we need to be careful as humans still hunt wolves in this area,” Finn said between bites. 

            I was a little taken aback by what Finn said and asked, “maybe we should take turns to let our wolves out so one person can keep a lookout?” Finn chuckled in amusement and shook his head. “Kay, if the humans spot us, we’ll just make a run for it. We’re not normal wolves, we’re werewolves. I just don’t want to appear on human news, that’s all.” My face burned as I realized how naive my thoughts were and thankfully, Mirakel changed the topic with another one of his questions. “Can my wolf run too?” 

            Finn and I exchanged a surprised look and I asked Mirakel gently, “Baby, do you remember what your wolf looks like?” Mirakel’s tiny face was all scrunched up like he was deep in thought and I did my best to hold back my chuckle. “He fluffy! Mmm like Sweetie!” Mirakel exclaimed like he finally found the perfect description. 

            Who’s Sweetie? Did I miss something?

            I chuckled out loud at Finn’s thoughts and asked Mirakel gently, “Baby, you mean Sweetie from Paw Patrol?” Mirakel nodded vigorously and suddenly his green eyes began to glow and I had to quickly distract my pup to prevent him from unknowingly shifting. “Baby, look at Mama. Do you want to walk a little on your own after lunch? We can gather some of the fallen pink flowers that you like?” I asked as I looked into my pup’s eyes, hoping that I was distracting him enough. To my relief, his eyes went back to normal and he looked at me with anticipation. “Yes, yes, yes! Walk by myself!” Mirakel shouted happily as he raised his hands into the air. 

Finn’s POV

            I was surprised that it was the same shifting process for pups as for adult wolves but then again, why would it be different. I dismissed my silly thoughts and reminded myself that none of this was normal. Other than Kayla and our pup, no werewolves have been able to shift before their sixteenth birthday. Even the particularly strong Alphas have only been able to shift a few months before their birthdays, which was what happened in my case, and I knew that Kayla had her first shift at five. Mirakel already had his first shift after turning three and to be honest, none of us knew what to expect. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so sure anymore about shifting for a run. What if Mirakel’s shift lured creatures with ill intentions like Kayla’s first shift? What if shifting was bad for pups? I mean Kayla’s wolf went dormant for years after her first shift. 

            Hey hey, slow down Alpha! Don’t let your thoughts run wild. Everything will be fine, ok? My wolf only went dormant because the forest wanted to protect me against a threat to my life and she’s dead now. I killed her with my own hands, remember? And you took down the Werewolf Council. No one is going to come for our pup. Besides, Mirakel has both of us. 

            Kayla touched my arm gently and gave me a reassuring look as she shared her thoughts with me. The touch of my mate immediately soothed my boiling emotions and I forced myself to think rationally. Kayla was right, in two moons time, the Grand Tribunal will reconvene again. We live in a time of peace and Osmond had reported in the past month that the repurposing of the old Council grounds was going well. Everyone was working together more harmoniously than we could have ever imagined and I’m just fretting over nothing now. Lost in my own thoughts, I realized too late what I was doing until my lips brushed against Kayla’s hand. I looked up while still holding the hand she had on my arm in my hand, only to see her blushing. She made no move to take her hand back and my wolf started snickering like a mad man as I contemplated if I should apologize for overstepping. 

            “Oh Papa loves Mama! Mirakel wants kiss!” The excited voice of our pup drew both of our gazes to him and I was glad that our little Dr. Why had chosen this moment to interject. 

            “Papa loves you,”

            “Mama loves you.”

            Mirakel squealed in delight as we kissed him on either side of his cheek, completely forgetting that fleeting moment of bliss just a minute ago. Mate still wants us! Try kissing her again! My wolf, on the other hand, would not let that fleeting moment go and I was resigned to the fact that he was going to give me all sorts of bad ideas for the rest of our vacation. After lunch, we packed up and continued our hike off the trail for another two hours. Mirakel was so excited at seeing the redbud trees and the pink flowers that he had run ahead of us, darting from tree to tree. But after a while, he seemed to be a little disappointed and came running back to us again. 

            “Tree said not the same,” Mirakel said with his arms crossed and pouting. I raised my eyebrows and looked to Kayla for an explanation. A gentle breeze caressed our faces and I saw my mate smiling before picking up our pup. “These are redbud trees, Baby, not the cherry blossom trees on our pack lands. But look, they’re pretty too,” Kayla explained while picking up a fallen flower on the ground to show to Mirakel. “No, Mama pretty!” Mirakel exclaimed and turned his face away from the redbud tree’s flower. We laughed in amusement and Kayla let Mirakel down again to explore the forest.

            “So he can hear the trees too?” I asked Kayla as we walked behind our pup. “Yeah, I wasn’t sure yesterday but I’m positive now. Mirakel said that the redbud trees smell funny, not like how I smell or how the tree in the orphanage smelled like. He insisted that the redbud trees needed to smell right and was unhappy when they said they ain’t cherry blossoms,” Kayla laughed halfway through her explanation and I couldn’t help but be amused by our pup’s thought process. 

            “Do you think he knew? Even before you came back,” I wondered out loud. Kayla’s eyebrows knitted together like she was deep in thought and said emotionally, “I think so. I think he knew me by my scent. It was our connection when he was still in my womb and not even Jake could take that away from us.” Realizing that my curiosity had brought my mate back to a time period in her life that she probably never wanted to remember again, made my heart clenched painfully. “I’m sorry, Kay,” I said softly as I took her hand in mine.

            “No, it’s fine, Finn,” Kayla cut me off before I could say more. “What happened, it’s fine to talk about it. Talking about it is the first step towards healing, at least that’s what my psychiatrist said. I’m used to keeping everything bottled up inside of me because I was afraid of what people would think. And when we fell in love with each other at the same time after what happened at the Moon Lake Pack, I thought the past was behind me and everything was going to be sunshine and rainbows from that point on, but when Lynsie and Jacob showed up in our lives, I realized that deep down in my heart, I still felt like I wasn’t enough. I never truly felt like I deserved you, not even after that display of power against Martha and a part of me was constantly afraid that you’d realized that and when you didn’t choose me that night, it only validated all of my insecurities. I understand now that even the thought of being powerful and strong would make me deserving of a loving mate is wrong. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I had a terrible childhood, Finn, and I should have gone to therapy long ago instead of allowing old wounds to fester. Thank you, for sticking by me no matter what I threw your way.”

            I was left speechless by Kayla’s heartfelt confession and I did the only thing which felt right. I reached out to take her hand in mine to let her know that she wasn’t alone in this. We continued the rest of the way hand in hand until we came to a river and I announced that we would set up camp. We had about two more hours before the sun would start to set, and I wanted to finish pitching our tent before that. Luckily, Mirakel was exhausted from the after lunch hike and ready for nap time. I unrolled our sleeping bag onto the picnic mat and tucked our little pup into the sleeping bag so that he could nap while Kayla and I pitched our tent.