by Jess Bryant
The unspoken was that they needed to start over and that broke Luna’s heart. Maya still hadn’t told her all that she’d gone through while Maddox held her captive. She wasn’t sure her sister ever would. Nova had only told her that it had been worse for Maya than for any of them and considering Luna’s experience hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park, she hated imagining what they’d put Maya through. If her sister wanted to stay here and start over, the she was welcome for eternity as far as Luna was concerned.
“I love you, ya know.” She opened her arms and Maya walked into them. “You can always talk to me about anything.”
“I know. I’m just… I’m not ready yet.”
“Whenever you are…”
“You’ll be there. I know. You’re a good big sister and you’re going to make an amazing Alpha Queen for this pack. I want to stick around and watch it.”
“There are no words for how happy it makes me that you’re both going to stay.”
Nova groaned, “Okay, okay, enough waterworks and emotional talk. Let’s get down to business. You said we have a mating ceremony to plan and the new moon is just around the corner. We need to get busy. You’ll have to choose a dress and…”
“You mean you don’t already know what I’ll pick?” She teased and Nova stuck her tongue out like the little girl she no longer was.
“Just because it’s not a surprise for me, doesn’t mean it can’t be a surprise for you.”
Maya barked out a laugh, “Wow, now there’s a new philosophy I’d like to live by.”
“You mean you don’t want to know when Nova sees your future mate?” Luna wagged her brows.
“Hell no, ” Maya snorted, “knowing only causes trouble from what I’ve seen. No matter what Nova sees in my future, I’d rather not know. I’d like to think I get a choice in a few things, even if it isn’t true.”
“Fate isn’t all bad.” Luna squeezed her sisters hand, “It gave me Michael.”
“And a happily ever after.” Nova chimed in but Maya only rolled her eyes.
“If the road to happily ever after is paved through the hell we’ve endured, count me out.”
Luna couldn’t help it. She hugged her sister again. Nova even jumped up to join them. They squeezed Maya until she complained about being smothered and then they all cracked up laughing as they broke apart. Luna couldn’t stop smiling.
“Trust me, when you meet your fated mate, you’ll change your mind.”
Epilogue
Michael stood in the middle of a huge circle of his family, friends and pack members. There was a large arch made of tree branches and vines, decorated with multi-colored flowers. He was wearing a suit for the first time in his life, and what he also hoped would be the last. But it was totally and completely worth it and not just because in a few moments the love of his life would appear and become not just his mate but his wife. He was getting a real kick out of seeing his older brother tugging at his own suit as he stood next to him, shoulder to shoulder, sweating like he was in his own personal version of hell.
“Breathe.” He whispered to Rafe as his brother fidgeted with the collar of his button down for the millionth time.
“I can’t, that’s the fucking problem.” Rafe hissed back at him, “This thing is cutting off my air supply.”
“No, It’s not. You’re just nervous.” Michael held back a chuckle because he wasn’t certain his brother wouldn’t hit him if he thought he was being laughed at right now. “Calm down. Breathe. In a few minutes, you’ll forget all about the monkey suit because Zoey is going to walk through this crowd and straight to you.”
“Zoey.” Rafe whispered his mate’s name like a prayer, his eyes shutting as he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “This is what Zoey wants, right?”
“Yeah, this is what she wants.”
“Then I can do it.” His brother opened his eyes and took another calming breath, “I can do it for her.”
“I know you can.” Michael clapped him on the shoulder as his heart swelled with a love that he’d never thought he would experience again.
He loved his brother. He’d always loved him. Even when he also kind of hated him for leaving him alone with the responsibility of a pack to run all by himself when he’d barely been more than a kid. But since Rafe had returned to the pack, Michael had also found that he respected the hell out of his brother too.
Rafe had only ever done what he thought was best for the people he loved. Even leaving had been his way of protecting Michael. He’d come home to help Leo when he’d found out the Crescent pack was in trouble. And when he’d scented Zoey as his mate, he’d put up one hell of a fight to claim her and he’d dedicated his every breath since to making her the happiest woman on the fact of the planet.
He would do anything for Zoey. Walk through fire. Throw himself in front of a train. Even put on a suit and tie and stand in front of the entire pack, the center of attention, because Zoey wanted a real, true mating ceremony. Whatever she wanted, that’s what Rafe gave her and though at times, as the Pack Alpha, and as the brother-in-law, Michael wanted to roll his eyes and curse his brother for turning his best friend into a werewolf that thought she could do whatever she wanted and get away with it, he understood the kind of love that Rafe and Zoey shared now.
Because that’s what he had with Luna.
A love that transcended all things. No argument was too big. No compromise was too great. He would hand her the world on a silver platter if he could but knowing his generous mate, she’d just divide it up and hand it out to those that she felt needed it more.
She was perfect for him. Perfect in ways that he’d never imagined his mate would be. She’d grown up in a pack and understood the inner workings better than anyone else ever could have. She was strong and fierce. She was unafraid to stand up to the pack or even to him. She wasn’t the quiet type that would sit idly by and watch him lead and back him up without question. She supported him and encouraged him and when needed she helped steer him to the right answer to whatever problem the pack was having. She was his perfect mate in every way.
Everything he’d never known he needed in a mate, Luna was all that and more.
“They’re coming.” Rafe sucked in a breath beside him and Michael shot his brother a look, but sure enough only a second later he felt Luna’s presence grow closer as well.
All around them, the Moirae pack went down on bended knee, as was the custom, and when they did, the two women at the back of the crowd were revealed. Michael’s heart stopped in his chest. Rafe made a low growling sound deep in his chest and Michael couldn’t even blame his brother for his possessiveness. He narrowed his eyes as he stared up the small opening in the circle the crowd had made for them and tried to figure out what was going on.
Luna was on the wrong side. Zoey was standing on his side. They were backwards and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit and clearly neither did his brother. Rafe started to take a step forward, no doubt to go and claim his mate, but Michael shot a hand out and grabbed him by the wrist, stopping him when Zoey smirked and winked at them.
“Just wait.” Michael kept his voice calm as Rafe turned his intense glare on him. “Your mate is up to something. Don’t ruin it for her.”
His brother grumbled something but Michael knew he’d played the situation right when Rafe settled in beside him again. Rafe wouldn’t ruin Zoey’s big day. He’d stand there like a good boy and wait for his mate to come to him, even if he might spank her ass until it was red later for whatever trick she was playing on them.
Michael didn’t care what order they walked down the aisle in. He knew which woman was his. He smiled as Luna met his gaze and when she returned it with a soft smile of her own his heart finally started beating again.
She looked beautiful. They both did. But standing here now, waiting for Luna to come to him, seeing her standing beside Zoey, he knew that fate had gotten it right.
All those years he’d wished for Zoey to be his b
ut fate had known better. Fate had known that Rafe needed her more than he ever could. She calmed his brother, settled him and gave him a home. She was his anchor just as she’d been Michael’s after his parents died, but he hadn’t needed her that way in a long time. Rafe still did and always would. They were a matched set.
Just like Luna was the perfect mate for him. Zoey had been human until Rafe turned her. She’d never have understood the pack politics that went along with being his mate. The way she ignored the rules in favor of doing what she wanted was proof of that and more. She never could have been his Queen, even if he’d loved her and she would always be his best friend.
Luna was his true mate. His soulmate. The other half of him that he’d been searching for his entire life. She completed him and he knew now that fate had planned this all along.
They’d all walked through hell to get to this point.
Zoey had been in foster care, bounced around house to house before losing touch with her biological siblings when she’d been adopted by her werewolf parents. Michael had lost so much that day in the woods when his parents and older brother Gabe had been slaughtered by hunters. Rafe had lost his mind that day, lost control of his wolf, and he’d fled the pack to protect Michael but also to punish himself. And Luna, his sweet, gentle Luna, had been forced to watch as her parents were brutally murdered and then she’d been held hostage and tortured by not one but two psychopaths.
They all had past pains and hurts. They had issues they’d spend the rest of their lives dealing with. But they also had each other. Everything they’d been through had brought them to this point, to each other, and now they would never have to deal with their problems alone ever again.
They were family.
Michael felt a little teary-eyed as he watched the two women walk towards him and Rafe. They were so different. One dark skinned and the other pale. One with black curls and the other with coppery waves. One tall and lithe and the other small and curvy. They were as different in looks as two women could be and yet, where it mattered, they were exactly the same.
Strong. Fierce. Independent. Loyal. Caring. Kind. They were the kind of females that would never be content sitting at home and raising pups. They would be involved in the pack, every day, helping to lead it and steer it into a bright future, not just for themselves or their mates, but for their children and grandchildren.
He and Rafe were lucky, lucky men.
Arm in arm, Luna and Zoey walked towards them. It was tradition for the female to walk down the aisle alone. Her elders and family comprised the first circle and encased the couple, but in this case both Zoey and Luna’s families were all around them. Instead of taking turns, the women had chosen to walk in together, side-by-side, just as they intended to live their lives with Michael and Rafe. As sisters, today and forever.
Once they’d breached the inner circle, the two women paused and turned to each other. This wasn’t part of the traditional ceremony but Michael suddenly understood why they’d come in the way they had. Zoey and Luna faced one another, holding hands, they kissed each other on both cheeks and then they crossed paths to stand in front of their mates.
It was a beautiful nod to fate. Michael smiled as Luna slipped her hand into his. He watched as Rafe all but grabbed Zoey and hauled her into his arms, eliciting a giggle from the redhead and laughter from the crowd of onlookers who had risen again to watch the ceremony.
In another life, in another time, things could have ended so differently. Rafe was supposed to have been the Pack Alpha. Michael would have been the second in command. If fate hadn’t sent them down this path, maybe they wouldn’t have ended up here, or maybe they would have, but with different mates. They’d all crossed paths in so many ways, but until it had been time for fate to make her moves, they’d hadn’t known what was standing right in front of them.
They did now. Forever stretched out in front of them. Fate had given them their perfect mates. Now they would have forever to make the perfect life with them and forever started right now.
The End…
or the beginning of forever.
Bonus - Five Years Later
Maya
The scream that jolted her awake in the dead of night sent a cold shiver of dread down Maya’s spine. It wasn’t the first time she’d be woken by that shrill sound. Not even close. In the first few weeks and even months after they’d escaped Maddox, her younger sister had woken screaming from nightmares nearly every night.
In the years since, as their lives had settled, the terrors had come back to Nova less and less. They’d found a way to bury their past hurts so deep that they rarely broke the surface. They’d focused on the good things in their lives and on the future instead of the past.
Seeing Luna happily mated to Michael had been the start of a joyously peaceful time in all their lives. They’d settled into their roles not just as princesses of the Crescent pack but also as beloved little sisters in the Moirae pack as well. They’d been given whatever they needed, anything they asked for, and more parental figures to fill that gap in their lives than could ever have been deemed necessary.
They’d grown up well and truly loved and cherished despite all that they’d lost. Their parents. Their innocence. Those things had been taken much too soon for both Maya and Nova, but they’d learned to cope and they’d always had each other.
That was why, when Maya had come of age and moved into her own place, Nova had chosen to go with her rather than stay with their other siblings. They’d split time between Luna and the Moirae pack and Leo and the Crescent pack for too long. They needed their own place and to figure out where they fit and which pack they truly belonged to no matter what the DeLuca blood running in their veins said.
Besides, Luna had her hands full these days caring for the twins. The Devilish Duo as Maya had nicknamed them were hell on wheels. The little Princes of the Moirae pack were nothing like their calm, thoughtful father. They were brash, bold and quick to tantrums that could incite the entire pack into bouts of wariness. Michael and Luna had been too busy taking care of their pack and their toddler sons to put up much of an argument when Maya said she wanted to move out and Nova said she wanted to go with her.
Leo on the other hand had argued until he was blue in the face. Their older brother, their beloved protector, had made it clear he wanted them to stay. Even his mate, Darius, who was a man of few words unless he was arguing with his husband, had said the house would feel empty without them and tried to talk them into staying until Nova was of age too. If anyone could have convinced Maya to stay, it would have been Leo and Darius, the most unlikely of pairs and the best mates she’d ever witnessed.
But they’d deserved their time alone too. They’d done their duty, more than that even, and helped raise Maya and Nova into smart, strong, independent women and wolves. It was time they focused on their own family and deciding if, when and how they wanted to expand it. They had a legacy to cement in the Crescent pack after all.
So Maya had accepted the offer to rent Zoey Hudson’s old apartment and she and Nova had moved into it. She wasn’t sure if it was the upheaval of the move that had triggered Nova or the fact that she was nearing her own coming of age. Maybe it was knowing that their siblings weren’t just down the hall and Enforcers weren’t outside the doors anymore. Whatever it was, Nova had woken screaming more and more lately, had gotten quieter and quieter during the days and had mentioned her visions less and less.
At first Maya had thought it was probably a good thing Nova was learning to keep her visions to herself. Not everybody wanted to know what lay in their future. God knew if her little sister hadn’t blabbed about Luna’s fated mate all those years ago they might have escaped Maddox unscathed. But she hadn’t blamed Nova then, as a young girl simply excited at the prospect of seeing a magical future for her eldest sister, and she didn’t blame her now for keeping whatever she saw to herself.
Visions were Nova’s gift. She was a Seer. She contained a powerful magic w
ithin her in addition to her wolf that let her see into the future. Most of the time, she saw happy events. Matings, marriages, babies and all of the things that went with building a person’s life. But other times she was given glimpses of the darkness that existed in the world, of death and hate and destruction.
Maya hated the visions. She hated the idea that she had no power over her own future. Hated that Nova saw things that no girl her age should have had to see. She hated fate. What had it ever done for her? Gotten her thrown in a hole and beaten and abused. It had gotten her parents killed. And for what? She couldn’t see a point to any of it.
That was the other reason she’d wanted to move out. She wanted to build her own life. She wanted to make her own choices. She didn’t want to have to bend to the will of the fates. She had chosen this life, her life, and it was a good one.
But when she walked into Nova’s room and flipped on the light to find her sister breathing hard, her head in her hands, her heart still clenched and she hated herself for hoping whatever Nova saw wasn’t about her.
Her little sister glanced up as she came into the room and offered a small smile that Maya returned. She didn’t look like a baby anymore. She was a teenage girl and every day brought her closer and closer to the precipice of her own fate. Maya wiped her hair back from her face and let Nova cuddle into her side just as she had when she was young, just as she would let her until they were old and gray if her sister needed it.
“What was it this time?” Maya finally asked after Nova’s breathing returned to normal.
Nova shrugged, “I… I’m not sure I should say.”
“Because it was bad?”
“Because it was about you.” Nova leaned back upright and met her gaze, her teeth nibbling on her bottom lip nervously, “I know you’ve said you don’t want to know when I see visions of your future but…”