Chapter 199

Alaric’s POV

When I left the airport, back in BloodyMoon pack, I anticipated having a run-in with one of Cara’s family. In fact, on the airplane, I guessed about who it would be. Someone, I knew, would want to come and talk to me about not hurting Cara again.

Honestly, I’d be disappointed if no one did.

My money, exiting the plane was either on Eamon or Aidan. Or maybe Colin, who appeared soft spoken and gentle, but who I suspected might stop at nothing to protect the ones he loved, including Cara.

So I was surprised when I stepped out of the airport to find Noel waiting for me. His arms were crossed over his chest as he frowned at the ground. With his sunglasses on and his bulging muscles, he might have cut an intimidating figure for anyone else, but I wasn’t used to being intimidated, and I had face far more threatening foes than Noel, even if the secrets of his home pack remained a mystery.

As I walked closer, he looked up. I couldn’t see his eyes through his sunglasses, but I imagined he was looking right at me.

“Waiting for me, Noel?” I asked.

“Something like that,” he said.

“I don’t suppose you are offering me a ride?”

“No.”

I set aside my suitcase and prepared myself in case he wanted to fight. “Let’s hear it then.”

“Don’t dismiss this so easily.”

“I don’t mean to,” I said. That was the truth. I just wanted to get this over with, one way or the other. I was nervous enough as it was to move back in with Cara, to prove myself worthy of her this time. Everything else naturally felt like it was getting in the way.

Noel stared at me for a moment, I presumed, through his sunglasses. I stared back, showing my own seriousness.

As I suspected a shovel talk was coming, I knew Noel would take my dismissal of him as a dismissal of Cara. For better or for worse, Noel and Cara were friends, and as such, I needed to take Noel seriously, especially when he was talking about her.

“You’ve hurt her in the past,” Noel said.

“I have,” I admitted. There was no use in denying it. It was well documented, and part of my moving forward had to be an acceptance of the wrongs of my past.

My easy acceptance seemed to surprise him. “I didn’t think you’d be that quick to admit it.”

“I know every wrong I committed in the past,” I told him. “I have faced each and every one, and reflected on the man I had been then. The man who had so crassly and easily cast aside the woman I love. I didn’t even know I loved her then.

“In facing the ugly truths about myself, I had learned from them. This helped me realize how valuable Cara truly is. She is a treasure that I had not appreciated in my youth. But no longer. From now on I will love her with the full extent of my heart and nothing less. You have my word.”

Noel stayed quiet for another moment. “She and I rejected each other.”

“I’d heard.”

“But I still care for her. My love for her was beyond the mate bond,” Noel said. He looked away. “We are friends now, but that makes me no less protective. You say the right words, but will you commit the right actions? That’s what I will be watching.”

As Alpha, I’d faced these kind of threats before, so I didn’t find this one any more bothersome than the rest. The difference for me was that I wasn’t going to give him any reason to carry out on his threat.

“If I hurt Cara, I will be first one to see those threats realized,” I said. “I will treasure her for the rest of my life, and on that you have my word.”

“You think I make idle threats,” Noel said. Slowly, he reached up and removed his sunglasses. I stilled as I saw the strange sight of his pupils, they were red like any werewolf that gets close to shifting, but in addition to that was a strange purple aura, almost like they were… glowing.

I’d never seen anything like that before, not on a shifter anyway. Or a full shifter.

There was no doubt Noel was a werewolf, at least in part. But what his other half was… that remained a mystery.

“My threats are not idle ones,” Noel said, and I felt his voice in my head almost as much as I heard it with my ears. My wolf started to growl in response, sensing the threat.

I tried to hold him back. Noel was provoking us but he was not an enemy.

Even so, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Whatever else Noel was, he was violence wrapped in a human shell.

If he attacked, I knew it would be a fight for my life. I wasn’t afraid, I believed in my own strength. But it would be a brutal, vicious battle that only one of us would walk away from.

“Do I make myself clear?” he asked.

“Crystal,” I replied.

“Good.” Noel returned his sunglasses over his eyes. The tension in his shoulders relaxed and he resumed his less threatening posture. My wolf remained alert now however, very aware of the hunter that resided in human form before me.

“You won’t have any reason to carry out those threats,” I said. “I will treat Cara as a werewolf should there mate, and I will not betray that gift a second time.”

“See that you don’t,” Noel said, and turned. He was gone in a blink, another show of skill and strength.

Another mystery.

Just what was he anyway?

Cara’s POV

Alaric arrived in the evening with his suitcases, to the cheer of our two children, who were excited about this new living arrangement. They missed Alaric as much as I had since we moved to back to BloodyMoon pack. It was nice to see them so excited again.

After hugging them both, he moved to me. “Cara,” he said. He wasn’t smiling exactly, but there seemed to be something lighter about him, like some of the weight he’d been hauling around on his shoulders had been lifted away.

It filled me with hope. Maybe he was going to treat me the way he had before my diagnosis.

Per Ruby’s advice, and per the advice of my own heart, I wanted to spend the next three months making fun memories with Alaric and the kids.

I couldn’t live with this pressure anymore. Under it, I was becoming a different person, someone I didn’t like.

I was done with worrying what other people thought. I wanted to be myself again. Even if it was for only whatever time I had left, even if Lucy never awakened, I wanted to be true to myself from here on out.

And that meant I was done pretending I didn’t have feelings for Alaric.

“Welcome home,” I told him.

For a moment, hope filled his eyes. Yet, too quickly, that hope dimmed.

His guilt returned, almost as if he couldn’t help himself.

Maybe he couldn’t.

Maybe we both had a long way to go to find happiness, but at least, from now on, we’d be searching for that happiness together.