Luna of Mine (2 page)

When he pulled back she was breathless
and her cheeks were flushed just as they had been so many times in
the past after he had loved her. “Have fun, Mina, and then come
back to me.”

“
I always do, Alpha mine,”
she whispered.

Romanian Proverb # 1

“
Cine
se face oaie il mãnâncã lupii.”

“
He that
makes himself a sheep, shall be eaten by the
wolf.”

“
S
o how did all your men take the
girls’ weekend?” Jacque asked the group as they settled in the
living room of the small cottage.

“
Well,
if Peri and I hadn’t planned for her to steal me, I might still be
in my bedroom with my Neanderthal of a mate,” Jen laughed. “He was
actually standing in front of the door attempting to keep me from
leaving.”

“
Fane
just hates that I’m not within his reach now that there’s a bun in
the oven. He seems to think that for some reason pregnant equals
invalid.”

Alina smiled at her
daughter-in-law. “Unfortunately, Jacque, the further along you
become, the worse that will get.”

“
She
means the wider your ass gets the more incompetent he will find
you, or in my case irresistible,” Jen winked.

“
You are
so disturbed,” Jacque told her with a snicker. “I wonder when Sally
will show up?”

“She shouldn’t be too much
longer. She and Rachel were going over some things for Peri and
whatever this secret mission is that she and Costin are a part of,”
Alina answered.

“
Oh, as
if you don’t know,” Jen scoffed.

“
I might
know something, and you would too if you would ever show up to the
Alpha meetings,” Alina pointed out. “And,” she held up her hand
cutting off Jen’s argument, “don’t say that you have to watch Thia.
You have a pack full of females, not to mention the healers and
your best friends that would all but rip that baby from your
arms.”

Jen flung herself onto one
of the empty loveseats dramatically. “Yes, but only 'my girls'
produce what she wants, and it is at the very moment those droll,
boring Alpha meetings begin, that Thia always gets hungry. Weird
coincidence, I know.”

“
Uh-huh
and since when did Decebel’s man boobs begin producing milk?”
Jacque asked dryly.

Jen groaned. “Dude, that
is so wrong. Why would you even put that out there? I mean first of
all you have seen his gorgeous chest and know that he has the
furthest thing from man boobs, second. . . .”

“
Oh shut
up, blondie. The point wasn’t to insult your man’s wicked sexy
chest; it was that you can’t claim to have to be nursing Thia
during the meetings because you are spending an entire weekend away
from her and she is obviously getting fed somehow,” Jacque
growled.

“
Jacque,
you’ve been to those meetings; you know how boring they are. You
would be making up breastfeeding lies to get out of them too,” Jen
whined.

Alina was laughing at the
two friends when the cottage door opened and in walked a tired
looking Sally. “Anyone call for a healer?” she said as she smiled
at the three women.

“
Crap,
it’s about time you show up. Geeze, you’d think you were off
getting ready to save the world or something.”

Sally shook her head.
“Ah-ah-ah, Jennifer, no more business, we are officially off-duty.
I’m not a healer, you’re not a mamma, Jacque’s not a princess, and
Alina’s not an Alpha. We are simply the chicks, having a chick
weekend.”

“
Yeah,
well tell that to my boobs because they don’t seem to understand
the milk factory needs to shut down,” Jen huffed.

“
Has she
been doing the whole whining about breastfeeding thing again?”
Sally asked Alina and Jacque. “Because I thought we had nipped that
in the bud.”

“
It’s
our fault. We brought up the Alpha meetings she keeps missing,”
Jacque explained.

Sally made and “ah” motion
with her mouth.

“
Oh,
give me a break. I had one little meltdown over the whole
experience, and now you are acting like I complain about it all the
time.”

Jacque rolled her eyes.
“Jen, you were screaming at the top of your lungs that it wasn’t
fair that you had to give up your perky rack, and you were sick of
your nipples feeling as though they had been stuck in a pencil
sharpener while salt was poured on them.”

“
How do
you even know that? I was at the Serbian pack mansion when I had my
moment,” Jen growled.

“Your mate put you on
speaker phone,” Sally said trying not to laugh.

“
In his
defense, he was panicked when he called because you were freaking
out. When I asked him to clarify he simply said
listen for yourself
and then he put you on speaker.”

“
It had
been a rough night,” Jen admitted. “Nobody prepared me for how
rough motherhood could be. Crap, nobody prepared me for how rough
being mated slashed married can be.”

The three girls all
nodded, each pondering their own relationships and their own
difficulties. A clearing throat brought them back to the
present.

“
That is
why I suggested this weekend,” Alina spoke up. “You three have
become like daughters to me. You have each been brought into the
Canis lupis world for different reasons, but the outcome has been
the same. You are now mated. Not only are you mated but you are
mated to very dominant men who are used to getting their
way.”

“You forgot to mention
old,” Jen tossed out there. There was a ripple of
laughter.

“
True,”
Alina smiled. “Some of them are older, though they look only as old
as you, and with that comes an entirely different set of issues.
Things seem to have quieted down, at least for this brief moment in
time. So I thought we could steal away this weekend and I could
share with you my story, which naturally includes Vasile. I think
you might find yourself encouraged to know that we did not always
have it all together.”

“Let me guess,” Sally
smiled. “Vasile was not super happy about you wanting to tell us
y’all’s story.”

Alina laughed and the
musical sound danced around the room. The twinkle in her eyes as
she thought about her mate and his reaction betrayed all the love
she felt for him. “Oh, he was definitely
not
super happy. Men, especially
Alphas, never want their failures, or what they perceive as their
failures, aired for all to see. What he does not realize, and what
I tried to explain to him, is that it is when we are weak that we
can be made strong. It is when we realize that we cannot do it on
our own that we will finally truly understand the value of a
mate.”

“
Please
tell me you brought popcorn, and―for the love of all things
carnal―please tell me we are going to get some yummy details
because it is your job to educate us younger chickadees,” Jen
purred.

“
All you
have to do is ask, Alina, and I’ll use some of my magic on her,”
Sally said smiling sweetly. “I’ll knock her right
out.”

“
Uh,
Sally dear, you do remember that thing you were asking me about?
That certain position…,” Jen asked as her eyes
narrowed.

“You wouldn’t,” Sally
warned.

“You know me better than
that,” Jen smiled. “I most definitely would.”

“
Crap,
sorry Alina, you’re on your own,” Sally said absently as she leaned
back into the chair she had commandeered.

“
Why
don’t we all get settled down for the night? Go wash your faces,
shower if you need to, and then meet back in front of the
fireplace. Though we don’t need it for warmth, I’m sure Sally can
conjure us up one simply for ambience,” Alina
suggested.

Once the girls were back
gathered around the unnecessary, yet somehow appropriate, fire―
surprise! hot chocolate in hand―Alina took her place on the floor
by the hearth. She took in their eager faces and then let her mind
wander back to a time long ago, a time when Canis lupis packs were
still recovering from the great werewolf wars. Their magic was
growing weaker because the fae had retreated to their realm, no
longer offering aide to the supernaturals in the human realm.
Children born to their race were few and far between and most did
not survive because there were no healers to ensure the birth went
smoothly. It was a trying time, a scary time with the future of
their species uncertain. The Great Luna, their Creator, seemed to
have turned them over to themselves as they warred with other packs
instead of working together and building unity between themselves.
But though it had been a time of uncertainty, Alina had hope for
the canis lupis. Something inside of her told her that if she would
just be patient, just not give up, they would someday soon see
their race restored. But she had no idea just how pivotal her role
in such a change would be.

“
I will
begin with the year I met him; it was 1800,” she began. “I
lived on a farm in the hillsides of the Transylvania Mountains with
my parents. My village was called Solca. We were a poor outer
Provence of the Eastern Romanian pack. My father was not dominant
enough to be in the Alpha’s top group, so he fought only when
called upon. The rest of the time he was a blacksmith.”

“
A
lina, it is time for bed.” Alina
heard her mother’s warm voice from where she lay in the forest only
meters from her home. Fifteen years old and her mother still felt
the need to treat her like a child. She endured it because she did
live in their home, ate their food, and used their things, but she
was more than ready to find her mate so she could have a home of
her own to tend and pups of her own to put to bed. Her mother, of
course, reminded her constantly that she was not of age, and even
if she did find her mate, he could not claim her―not yet. Most
girls if they found their mates young would be claimed at eighteen,
but her father had said that was still too young, especially if her
mate was a dominate. He told her twenty was the magic number. When
she was confident in who she was as a female and could hold her
ground with a dominant, then she would be ready for her true
mate.

Her mother’s voice rang out
again. She could have predicted it down to the second when she
would begin calling for her. But for some reason that night she was
reluctant to return home. As she lay on the plush vegetation that
so readily welcomed her and stared up at the bright moon in all its
glory, she felt a pull to stay, to wait. She felt a whisper on the
wind as it tickled her skin and caressed her hair. Her eyes widened
in anticipation because she knew something was coming and not just
for anyone but for
her
. Whether it would be that night, or another, she knew that
something great was in store for her.

Alina’s friends and even
her own mother had always said she spent too much time with her
head up in the clouds. Her grandmother used to joke that for a
village girl her shoes were much too clean. She would just laugh
them off and continued on her own way, because there was no way to
explain to someone else that you knew you were meant for greatness.
She wasn’t arrogant, just sure of her future, even though she
wasn’t sure how it would all come about. She understood perfectly
well how haughty that sounded, but she also trusted the Great Luna,
her Creator, and she would never forget the day that she showed
herself to Alina only a few months earlier.

Alina had wandered out
further away from her home than usual and ended up in a field in
the forest. The Great Luna’s glory and her goodness had been enough
to drive Alina to her knees, and yet she had helped her up from the
ground, and with a touch of her hand, her clothes and shoes were as
clean as if they’d never seen a minutes worth of dirt. She had
looked Alina in the eye and said, “Be ready child. The one I have
for you comes with much darkness and much baggage, and he will need
your goodness. For without you, his darkness will rule and he will
destroy the Canis lupis race. Be strong. I will never leave you or
forsake you. You only have to ask and I will be there. This task I
have given to you because you are his other half. You are his light
and he is your gravity. He will keep you planted on the ground when
need be, but he will also raise you up when it is safe.”