Chapter 104

Alaric’s POV

With Cara gone, I feel no more reason to stay at the event. It seems to be winding down now anyway, with only a few couples lingering on the dance floor and a small group hanging out by the dessert table. Most of the guests have already departed.

Ignoring Noel entirely, I say my goodbyes to Eamon. Then, I turn and walk towards the door.

John, my Beta, must spot me from wherever he’s hiding, because when I get to the door leading outside, he’s already there waiting.

John wasn’t privy to my discussion with Cara, her brothers, and Noel, but with one look at my face, he says, “Did something happen, Sir?”

“Not here,” I say.

On the way to the car, I fill in the blanks, giving John the summarized version, not going into very many specific details and certainly not telling him how any of this makes me feel.

He can likely tell, though. Anger is pulsing through me, my hands are curled into fists, and my voice is low. I try to keep my face cool, my expression blank, but with the other tells, my fury is likely still obvious, especially for someone who knows me like a Beta would.

“We need to do some research on this Noel,” I say. “I want to know everything there is to know about him.”

I’m not ready to accept that Cara might actually fall in love with someone else, but just in case, I need to be sure that he is not some wandering cad or playboy who will sweep her off her feet just to break her heart.

Like I did.

The guilt stabs through my chest, right between my ribs and into my heart.

Grey wordlessly snarls at me, and he’s right to do so. I deserve all of his malice for ruining things with Cara, for allowing this other male the chance to be with her to begin with.

Cara is loyal. If I never hurt her, if I’d made her mine back then, she would still be mine now. Maybe we’d have our own children, our own family, our own life.

What a fool I was.

I was such a fool that Cara didn’t even tell me she is Aylon Auburn, BloodyMoon Beta. She’d let me think that was her husband.

Did she even have a husband, then? I assumed not, if Noel waltzed into the picture with such confidence, without Landon to even hold him back.

Where was Ethan and Mia’s father, then?

“Does this mean we are returning to the DarkWood pack?” John asks.

The question catches me off-guard. I hadn’t even considered leaving yet, but with the event over, marking the end of the collaboration between the two packs, there is no official reason for me to stay.

“There are duties waiting for you back at DarkWood pack, Alpha,” John says.

As Alpha, I would be expected to attend to matters of the pack over my own private desires. That was the way it’s always worked before, and I’ve never once thought to stray from it in the past.

Even before, when I was getting married, I had only delayed my duties long enough to account for the ceremony. Then I planned on going right back to work.

Yet now, in BloodyMoon pack lands, I find myself hesitating, unwilling to return home, knowing that if I do, I will be leaving Noel without anyone to counter him. He will have full range to attempt to win Cara’s heart.

I don’t want to give voice to the fear, but he might even succeed.

No, I have to be here. I can’t lose her. Even if that makes me a lousy Alpha.

I put Cara second in the past, and it brought us both nothing but trouble and misery. I will not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Besides, with how adamant the elders were about my courting Cara again, perhaps it will not be so very difficult to convince them of my staying here. At least for a while longer. If I can woo Cara again, and make her my wife this time, then I can bring her back and she will be the official Luna of the DarkMoon pack.

A title she should have been given from the start.

I need to not just not repeat the mistakes of my past, but also to correct them. I can only do that from here.

“Sir?” John asks, and I realize how long I’ve kept him waiting for a reply.

“Delay our return for at least another day, John,” I say. “I’ll speak with the elders tomorrow.”

“You want to stay,” John says.

“Yes.”

“For Cara?” he asks.

“Yes.”

John seems satisfied with that answer. He nods. “Yes, Alpha.”

Cara’s POV

When we reach my house, I thank each of my brothers and then, after they hug and say goodnight to the kids, we say goodnight as well.

When they leave, I usher the kids upstairs and help get their pajamas out while they brush their teeth.

“Do we have to change, Mommy?” Mia asks. She swishes her dress back and forth like a bell. “I want to stay a princess.”

Kneeling down, I pull her into my arms and kiss her cheek. “You are a princess no matter what you are wearing,” I tell her.

She rolls her eyes at me. “But I feel like a princess in this dress.”

“Princesses don’t wear ball gowns to sleep in,” Ethan says, matter-of-fact.

I give him a curious look, which seems to make him embarrassed.

“They don’t in the movies, or in the books I’ve read,” he says.

“You won’t be comfortable enough to sleep,” I tell her.

“I won’t sleep anyway,” she insists.

Thinking quickly, I decide, “How about we hang the dress on the foot of the bed. You need only look over and you’ll see it, but you will still be comfortable enough to sleep in.”

Mia pouts a little, but she’s a good girl and eventually relents. “Okay…”

With the kids changed and tucked in bed, after I’ve placed the dress where I told her I would, I head to the door to turn off the light.

They are already asleep before I even get there.

It was a big day for them, so much dancing and excitement.

It was a big day for me too, but for different reasons.

For better or worse, my identity as Aylon Auburn has now been revealed, as well as my title as Beta. To think that had been what I was most worried about going into the evening.

Alaric had been shocked when he learned the truth.

Yet it’s the face he made when he saw Noel holding my hand that will stay with me long beyond tonight. For a moment, he had looked so pale, so frightened, and then the anger took root, as well as the possessiveness.

In the past, he would have hidden those emotions from me. Yet now, they were clearly displayed on his face.

Pushing thoughts of him aside, I headed to my bedroom where I changed into my own pajamas. Yet, instead of going to bed like I would normally do, I sat on the floor as I sometimes did instead, to meditate.

Admittedly, it has been some times since I last tried to reach out to Lucy. After a while, the consistent disappointment was too much to take.

With all that is going on now, with Noel and Alaric, I need her more than ever.

I sit with my legs crossed and close my eyes. I stretch my thoughts out, trying to reach out to my wolf, wherever she could be hiding in the dark corners of my mind.

“Lucy…” I call out in my mind – again and again. “Lucy, please answer me…”

I don’t know how long I stay like that, searching, but when I open my eyes, two hours has passed.

This time, just like all the times before, there was no response to my calls.