HIS SCENT IS A MOON LIT LIE

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Jordan’s POV

I’d pushed in through my window when the door opened. My mother walked in, her blonde hair in a messy bun and her face scrubbed of all makeup. She looked so tired these days. Although she tried to act like she was moving on quite well after the death of my father, I could see the cracks in her features.

“Jordan,” she whispered, closing the door behind her. “You went to see her, didn’t you? We discussed…”

“I know what we talked about, Mom,” I sighed, my fingers raking through my hair as I pulled away from the window. “But I…I couldn’t, Mom. Not when she’s right across the street.”

“Listen to me, honey.” She moved closer to me, the weariness in her eyes more visible. “She is human. And Blackwater Falls, as far as we know, has no existing pack. We don’t want our settlement to cause a disorder in the natural order of things.”

I shook my head, pulling away from her. “There is no natural order of things, Mom. Elara is my mate.”

“And she is human,” my mother repeated. “Don’t you see that…”

“She can hear me speak to her through my thoughts,” I cut in. “She isn’t even a member of the Thorne pack, but her mind-link works. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“It is not the same thing,” she muttered exasperatedly. “Fine! She can hear when you speak to her, but you cannot compare her to the members of the Thorne pack. There is no way she would be able to hear me speak to her or your cousins. This is probably just some big misunderstanding…”

“No, Mom.” I tried to be gentle with her. She was still grieving. We were all still grieving. “This isn’t some misunderstanding.”

“You don’t get it.” She took my hands in hers, looking into my eyes. “You have to stay away from her.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I snapped. I didn’t mean to, but that was what happened when a person unprepared to be Alpha got saddled with the responsibilities.

And the powers.

Even my mom couldn’t resist it as her back bent in obeisance. As her gaze dropped to the floor, the weight of my authority forcing her into submission.

“She is living a perfect life,” I sighed, restraining myself. “She seems to have no clue about our kind, and I don’t want to ruin that for her. She has friends who adore her, bicker about the most foolish things, and go skinny dipping together. This world…”

“Is unbalanced,” my mom completed. “We do not even have a proper settlement yet. The Lycan chairman has said this land is unclaimed and that we can settle, but we have not even had the time to scout the perimeters or secure our borders.”

I swallowed. “Dad died trying to get us here, Mom. We all deserve some slack. We can get ahead with that sometime later.”

“You see why you can’t see her?”

“What about this?”

“The moon goddess will provide you a second-chance mate. Reject her and let her go while she knows nothing, Jordan.”

But that was the thing. It was impossible to let her go.

Still, I walked to the windows and closed the blinds. I hoped I had the strength to let it remain that way.

***

My blinds were still drawn, yet I felt the change in the air. I tried not to move, to remain on the spot, staring at my father’s picture, with my cousin, Isaac, sitting by the foot of the bed, and going on about his ravaging appetite.

But I couldn’t resist.

Isaac stopped talking when I slid off the bed, moving to the desk by the window. I hadn’t planned on putting it there the first day I saw the layout of the building. But that day we moved in, I knew it had to be there.

Isaac looked up at me with confusion in his eyes. He was the youngest in the pack and had no idea what was going on. Ignoring him, I looked into her room and saw that her windows were open.

Great. The moon goddess not only granted me a human mate. She also had to give me someone who didn’t listen to instructions.

Elara wasn’t inside the room. I found her at the door, receiving someone. That was what got me out of bed. I could smell them from a mile away.

Hunters.

Did she know what he was?

“Hey, Gabriel,” I heard her laugh, walking into his arms. My hands curled into fists on their own accord, and heat washed through me. Every second they spent in that hug drew me precariously close to charging out of the house and ripping his hands off her.

I would be doing our world a good.

“Mom didn’t tell us you were coming,” Elara continued when she pulled away. “I would have made one of those sweet cakes you like.”

“Thank you, Elara,” he mused, ruffling her hair like he’d known her for ages. “But I just want to talk to your mom about our travel plan for tomorrow.”

Elara’s face fell. “You are going on another work trip? Mom didn’t say anything, and besides, didn’t you both just get back….”

“Elara?” Her Mom called from inside. “Is that Gabriel at the door?”

They looked at each other for a second longer before she stepped aside, letting him in. My eyes followed his retreating figure until Elara closed the door. I thought she would look into my room, like she’d always done each time she was walking past.

But today, she didn’t.

“I need to go in there,” I muttered, getting on my feet. Without thinking, I slid my legs into a pair of slides and marched to the door. But when I opened it, my mom was waiting on the other side, about to knock.

She stopped, though, her head tilting back as she took me in. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Erm…No.”

She didn’t believe me, but she didn’t try to pry either. “Good. Because there is someone out there to see you.”

“Who?”

“He said his name is Adrian.. The Alpha of the pack who has claimed this territory.”

“What?”

“The Blackwater Pack”