The Luna of Lunas

Chapter Six: Welcome Home Alpha I

[Duncan’s P.O.V.]

The sound of music fills the packhouse as I enter. I decided to come home a day earlier than planned due to… complications. I haven’t heard music in the packhouse since my mother died. The staff in the packhouse are going about their day with the usual bustle, maybe a little more bustle since they are setting up my welcoming party, but they seem lighter. The whole atmosphere in the pack seems lighter, cheerful almost. The pack hasn’t felt like this for a while, not since my mother died. When the Luna dies, the whole pack feels the loss. A pack needs a Luna the same way a child needs a mother.

-

“Hello son, come back a bit early, I see” my father’s voice comes from behind me. His tone is welcoming but there is something else mixed in there, disappointment maybe. He has never been disappointed in me before, that tone is usually reserved for my brother Gavin.

“Yeah, the search for my mate was a bust.” I brush him off.

“Wonder why that was son?”

What was that? My father has always told me to keep looking, that she is out there, does he know something I don’t? “Is that mom’s music?” I try to change the subject.

“Yes. The human that is helping your sister suggested she learn to play the piano since your mother was teaching her before she…” he still can’t quite say the words “passed”, he finally musters out. “She thought it would be good for Sarah to hear your mother’s music, to encourage her to connect with her. She was so young when she died that we made the mistake of thinking she would move on as we did, but we didn’t move on. We got on with our lives, but we never took the time to support each other like we should have, like a family.”

What has happened to my father? He is a good father, don’t get me wrong, but my mom, she was the heart of my family. She was the one to talk to us about our feelings. I’m sure she was the one to talk to my father about his feelings. Who was this human that could talk to my father the way my mother could? Clara was good for him, but she never evoked this type of change in the two years they'd been together. An awful thought struck me.

“Eh Dad, what age is this human girl?”

“She is twenty-five and it is not what you’re thinking, son. She has just helped a lot of us out of a darkness we didn’t even know we were in.”

Now I’m even more intrigued. A human that my father, the Alpha of Olympic Moon, defers to? A human that could get him to admit that he has done something wrong. Maybe taking a human as a chosen mate wouldn’t have gone over as badly as I thought it would have.

“Told you.” Alistair chimes in.

He always has something to say when it comes to her. Maybe this time he is right. Then again, if my mother, a strong she-wolf, could die like she did, how much danger would my moon have been in? I did the right thing. I don’t want to bring her into a world of blood and violence.

“Idiot.”

I don’t even answer my wolf. I know he won’t say anything more.

“Alistair still giving you trouble?” My father asks.

“Only sometimes” I smile weakly. I start to move up the stairs, heading toward where I know my mother’s piano still stands. I want to see this human.

“Leave them be, son. I need to start the handover with you now. I want tomorrow night to be the start of the rest of my life. It’s time you came back and did your duty, Luna or not.”

I look at him as if he has grown two heads. He has always wanted me to find my Luna. At one point, I knew he was considering pushing me to take a chosen mate if I didn’t find her.

“You can meet the human later. I know you’ve been, let's say working out…” his eyes flash black in anger. What the f**k. “But let’s see how much training you really have been doing. She’ll be out there.”

The human is out training with our warriors. Now I am even more intrigued. An odd scent catches me. “Dad, is there a dog in the house?”

He laughs and continues to walk toward his – well, my – office.

-

[Sarah’s P.O.V.]

“I wish I could play as well as you do” I lament, watching Imogen’s nimble hands move across the keys of the piano. No one had touched this piano since my mother died. I had seen Clara looking at it every time she passed this hallway, and I didn’t want her to get her hands anywhere near it. The day Imogen came to help me, Clara was reprimanding me for tearing through the piano stool. I just wanted my mother’s sheet music before she got her selfish hands on it like she did my father. I hated her – no, I didn’t hate her. Imogen has already explained this to me.

“You will sweetpea, everything takes time.” Imogen says softly, not taking her eyes off the piano keys.

I never let anyone call me that. When Imogen first said it, I thought I would feel anger, but I didn’t, just immense sadness and an odd feeling of comfort. She spoke to me like an adult and never allowed me to get away with my c**p. As an Alpha’s daughter, no one spoke to me like she did. At first it p****d me off but I figured her out quickly, she cared about me. She didn’t even know me, and I didn’t exactly make the best first impression, but from the first moment she showed me care that my family hasn’t for a long time.

“Do you think I’ll ever be able to play like you… or like my mom?” I ask timidly. She makes me feel connected to my mom, it is no longer just about the music, spending time with her makes me feel whole. I’m scared she’ll leave and leave me with an even bigger hole in my heart. I don’t want her to leave the pack, but she is not a wolf. There is a chance she will, or maybe she’ll even meet her mate and leave for another pack. I hated that Gavin wasn’t her mate. Maybe he could still win her over. She would be a great sister.

“I’ll keep teaching you until you do. I can only teach you technique. You have musicality, a feel for music, that I can’t teach you. Playing your mother’s music, I’m certain she had it too. Maybe one day you’ll be able to teach me a few things.”

“You’ll stay that long? Will you stay forever?” I ask her hopefully.

“I can’t say for sure, sweetpea. We never know what the future holds, you know that.”

I nod my head at her. She has taught me a lot about expectations, of people and of the future. To accept that people have their limits but to always stand up for what I deserve.

“But I think this is where I am meant to be. Something here feels unfinished, and I feel I have more to do” she adds cryptically.

Faolchú lets out a low ‘woo’ from underneath the piano. I’m surprised my father let a dog into the packhouse, but where Imogen goes Faolchú goes. Even though Imogen doesn’t have a wolf like we do, she has one in Faolchú.

--------------------

[Duncan’s P.O.V.]

My father finally gives the signal that it is time to go down to the training grounds. I know I should have been listening to him about all that has been going on with the pack, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this human girl. It’s not like I have been a totally absent Alpha, I still got pack reports, I just can’t focus on them now.

-

We enter the pack training grounds and immediately I start scanning the crowd around the main sparring circle.

“The human is not there” my father tells me with amusement in his eyes and maybe just a little bit of pride. Why does he never say her name?

“You told me she would be here.” I say a little too exacerbated. I want to meet this girl, but I can’t seem too eager. “I need to ask her about her qualifications to deal with Sarah, she’s an Alpha’s daughter…” I’m cut off in my attempt to hide my desperation.

“She is here, but she’s not there.”

Why has this man taken to talking in riddles? Seeing my frustration, he laughs and tells me “She’s not there, she’s there.”

I look over to where he’s pointing. The sparring circle, but Hannah, our head female warrior, is in the sparring circle. I look over at my father like he is a sadist, he’s just laughing at me. This is more than I’ve seen my father laugh in years, oddly, it’s in public. He never laughs like this in public.

“Don’t worry son, she’ll be fine”

I watch the two women go at it. The human is impressive, and she is fast. Too fast. I watch as she expertly dodges Hannah. She knows she can’t win on strength, so she’s using her agility and stamina to tire her opponent out. Smart. She then does something completely unexpected. She runs into Hannah’s fist, clearly aimed for her face, grabs it, and flips right over her head, pulling Hannah backwards and slamming her to the ground. She pulls her arm up and out. Hannah is winded and her shoulder dislocated. This would be an easy win, but what impresses me most is that she stands up and waits. Hannah submits. Our head female warrior submits to a human and is smiling…

“You’ve gotten better”, Hannah laughs through the pain.

“Maybe you’ve just gotten slow” the human retorts, helping Hannah up.

“I told you you could do it Gen!” Gavin runs and embraces the human. She still has her back to me, but I can tell he’s wiping what I assume is blood from her face.

“Don’t look so happy, you’re next Beta.”

How is she talking to my brother like this, and everyone seems… fine about it, happy even? Wait, Gen? This couldn’t be…

“Imogen” a whisper escapes me. Her head snaps towards me. There is no way she would have been able to hear me if she was human. Her hair is still black as night, making her face look like the moon against it, a band of silver is the only thing that has changed about her. Her green-yellow eyes pierce me deep into my soul. It’s her, my moon, my Imogen.