Chapter 5 The Alpha Returns

AVA POV For a full five seconds, my brain simply couldn’t reconcile the image of the little boy I’d helped raise with the gorgeous young man who’d brought us both to such pleasure and comfort last night. The Chris in my mind was a nerdy but well-meaning child. Who was this Alpha now looking over Moonstone Pack with a deep scowl? It was even odder how clearly his authority shone considering that, unlike his sister and my ex-husband, he was not wearing ceremonial robes. He had on simple black trousers with a light blue sweater over a blue-and-white-striped button-up. Even his shoes were plain brown Oxfords. As grateful as I was at having Chris stop Olivia in her tracks, I flushed hot with more than a little shame at having taken what had practically been my little brother to my bed. Chris walked over to his sister now, not breaking eye contact until he was right in front of her. Then he looked at my guards. “Let her up, and take that back to where it belongs,” he said, pointing at the poker in Olivia’s now-limp hand. As they scrambled to comply, he bent down and helped me gently to my feet. Once I was steady, he bent down again and picked up my bag. I took it in a daze, looking around at the crowd and finding a little reassurance in Beatrice’s stunned-looking but relieved eyes. “Olivia,” Chris said calmly, though his voice carried throughout the Square. “What has Ava done, exactly, to deserve such a primitive and dangerous punishment?” Olivia snapped out of her silence with a furious hiss. “She is a traitor to Moonstone Pack!” Chris tilted his head just a bit. The confidence lacking in his kisses last night had been replaced with full-on Alpha authority. It looked good on him. “Is she?” he asked. “She has conspired to take on the position of Luna to the pack. She wormed her way into the people’s favor, trying to keep me from my legacy. Now that you are to make my husband the new Alpha, I am Luna, and she has no place here!” Chris looked at me, then back at his sister. “I did agree to make Ethan the new Alpha.” “Exactly!” “But only because he was married to Ava.” Olivia gasped, Ethan looked thunderous, and the crowd muttered until Chris held up a hand, nodding slightly to the pack before again turning to his sister. “Now, when exactly did Ethan get married to you?” he asked her next. “Was it perhaps last night?” Olivia and Ethan turned pale, and Chris looked back over the crowd. “And this meets with your approval?” “Alpha,” Beatrice said, stepping forward. I saw Juniper standing next to her with her Elder father, Degas. “We had no idea what Ethan and Olivia wanted to tell us when we gathered here. None of us agreed to any of this.” Chris nodded, then looked to Degas. “I have decided my original plans here are unwise.” He held up his right hand to point at his neck, around which I now saw the Moonstone on its chain. I couldn’t help wishing he’d had it on last night. “I will be keeping this for now.” Olivia hissed again, and Ethan opened and closed his mouth. The people around us calmed slightly in relief. “We have an agreement!” Olivia shouted, but this time her eyes looked frantic, the eyes of the spoiled little girl I used to care about. “You have no right to refuse it now!” Degas, wearing the brown robes of an Elder, stepped up to Chris and was soon joined by the four other Elders of the pack. Without a designated Alpha, Degas had evidently been appointed to speak for them. “Alpha Chris,” he said. “Do you plan now to return to Werewolf Territory and resume your role as Alpha to the Moonstone Pack?” Chris frowned in thought. “I have many obligations in the Human World, and I must return there.” Olivia took a breath to speak, but he shot her a look that made her shut her mouth. “The pack has been without a true Alpha for too long now,” Degas said, and I heard a note of rebuke in there that only an Elder can use on a Pack Alpha. “We need a designated Alpha and Luna. If not Ethan and Olivia, then who?” My stomach began to churn as Chris looked at me. He smiled at me in a gentle way, but, thankfully, there was nothing intimate or suggestive about it. He seemed in that moment like an old friend, which he was, really. “Do you want to come with me to the Human World?” he asked me. “Or do you wish to stay here and maintain management of the pack as acting Luna?” Everyone was surprised by his question, and people started talking quietly, asking each other what was going on. I saw Olivia looking at both, eyes narrowed. “I once promised your father I would never leave Moonstone Pack,” I said quickly, and the crowd hushed again. “However, I have no need to become Luna.” I looked at Olivia’s disbelieving face. “I never did.” “Then you will continue to manage the pack?” Chris asked. Degas held up a hand. “Ava is a woman. She cannot be Alpha. As she is now unbonded, you must pair her with an Alpha.” Before Chris or I could say anything, the Elder looked at Ethan. “You must break your bond with Olivia and renew your bond with Ava.” “And why is that, exactly?” Chris asked, looking annoyed. Another Elder, Elise, spoke up, her face as pale as marble. “It is one of the central traditions of Moonstone Pack. The Pack Luna cannot have another marked mate before the Alpha. So Ava can only be the Luna of the pack when she is mated to her first mate, Ethan.” Chris blew out a frustrated-sounding breath and ran his left hand through his hair. I had a brief flashback to last night and tried to erase it as quickly as possible. “Traditions like that, what the Pack Alpha and Luna must do—to say nothing of the medieval slavery of omegas—are exactly why I left the pack.” He looked over the five Elders. “Without my intervention, you would have accepted these adulterous usurpers as your leaders and do nothing while a good woman was exiled. In the Human World, you would be on trial for your actions here today.” Elise sputtered, Degas glowered, and the three other Elders looked five seconds away from having a stroke. “Regardless of your condemnations,” Elise finally said. “The pack you wish to abandon requires an Alpha.” Chris looked up to the sky, and for a moment I saw that recalcitrant little boy again demanding he wanted to be left alone to study his books. But when he looked back to Elise, he was a man once more. “I do not wish to abandon you. I have simply made a life elsewhere. But I recognize I do not know Moonstone Pack as I should for the decision you are demanding.” He continued with a raised voice, “I will remain Alpha until I find a suitable replacement who does not wish to ascend to the position by marrying my sister.” “And whom will you marry?” Degas asked. “We need a Luna as well.” Chris looked to me, and my still-churning stomach dropped down to my knees. Gently, he extended a hand. “Will you be my Luna?” he asked.