Chapter 72

Luke

I’ve read her handwritten note every night since I received it. Paul and Row tried to hide it from me for a while, something so secretive about their intentions to keep me from having this letter that Aurora wrote for me, knowing our last interaction together would be us running from the Apogee pack, from Xander, and me making sure she would get away.

I should be satisfied knowing we are both alive, but I’m not. She has been such a huge part of my life and now she is gone. I can’t see her again, can’t talk to her again, and oddly, I mourn our friendship. When it gets late at night, every night, I find the note I hid on top of the cabinets in the kitchen and read it over, seeing stains of tears blur the ink in some places.

You will always be my first love, reads the very last line. I so desperately wished she write down where she was, or even gave me a hint, but not her, or anyone here, wants to tell me.

I should forget about her, about our history, and it’s been a hectic few weeks for me, plenty of reasons to be distracted. Mary went into heat a few days back and is already feeling symptomatic to the pups that will come from that entanglement. I’ll be a real mate, a father, and it’s everything I’ve ever wanted, just maybe not with who I wanted.

Mary doesn’t talk to me most days. She is upset with my choices to kiss Aurora once or twice, and I feel her radiate with anger and frustration when my mind shifts to the care I had for her in Xander’s pack house from hell. I just wanted to protect Aroura, and now I’m not doing a good enough job to protect my mate from that hurt.

Ann has been off helping Row hunt, Paul always tinkering with his potions while Mary has been between the bed and the bathroom during her nauseous laps of being newly pregnant. I still haven’t found my role here and I am curious if I ever will. North Woods pack was my home, my normal life, and I was going to be a pack warrior.

The pack we are in now is just part of a larger cluster of tiny villages, all of the packs around here nameless and insignificant in numbers. We’re basically rogues, I feel like, and it’s a little bit of a hard pill to swallow. This may be our new reality but I spend most of my time day dreaming about my old reality, my old life, my old friend…

“Put it up,” I hear Ann mumble, slouching with tire as she slumps down ever step of the staircase. She wipes her eyes and briskly walks past me, making herself a cup of water while I still freeze with the note in grasp. “You shouldn’t even be down here. Mary is awake and I think she’s sick again.”

I nod, guilty that I don’t feel as guilty as I should for reading this note to bring me comfort. “I didn’t ask for your advice, Ann.”

She shrugs, unoffended. “Aurora has moved on, Luke. You should, too.”

I give her a sideways look, wondering if she knows something I don’t. “How do you know that?”

“I saw it,” she hums, sipping on her water. “When Jaxson came back after helping you get away from Xander, Aurora ran out the door and immediately ran into Jaxson’s arms. When I left, it didn’t take long before they were doing some more physical types of attention.”

My wolf whines in my head. He may love Mary, but he is so protective over Aurora. “Well, that’s fine,” I say, unsure if that’s the truth or not. “I mean, obviously there are appropriate circumstances for that stuff seeing as I have been with Mary since being back.”

“Appropriate?” she coughs, giving me a wide-eyed look. “Luke, she has a mate. She is going to be with him and you are going to be with Mary. Why are you holding onto this note from her? It clearly shows she is moving on and you should too.”

I nod, knowing that the note does edge into the idea that my best friend is ready to focus on her mate and not on our history, and I understand that, but not having her unconditional, constant love for me makes me scared. If I ruin things more and get rejected by Mary, I won’t have either of my loves in my life. I’ll be alone.

I fold back up the note and put it where I got it from, hidden from the likes of my mate, and apparently not the likes of Ann. She gives me an exasperated look, fed up with my antics by now, all of us a little too agitated since moving into such close quarters. These people are my family.

It just doesn’t feel complete. And it may never feel complete without Aurora.

I hear the movement upstairs in my bedroom and decide even if I don’t want her advice, Ann may have a point. It’s time to return to the new normality. I drag myself upstairs, Mary sitting on the bathroom floor, head buried into her hands as she tries to calm the morning sickness. It hits at all hours of the day so I’m not sure what I could do at this point to settle her nausea.

I sit on the edge of the bathtub beside her, seeing her perk up slightly with my entrance but she doesn’t look me in the eyes, she won’t since everything happened where Aurora and I made a feverish decision to kiss, almost leading to something more in the moment.

Mary saw it all and she hasn’t stopped replaying it in her mind.

“Do you need anything?”

She shakes her head, her hair matted with sweat but she shivers with a chill. “I’m okay.”

“Do you want me to stay here with you or…” I mumble, seeing as in every other time we’ve been left alone together, she tries to leave the room and get as far away from me as possible.

It’s a little perplexing to me, seeing as how Mary can’t get over what I did with Aurora but Ann wants to tell me that Jaxson is all too forgiving and that they’ve been moving on together. I shouldn’t be thinking about it more, in this moment, and I feel Mary bouncing off my mind.

“Just go,” she grumbles, frustrated with me as always.

I may not want to leave her alone in this moment, but I don’t want to argue with her more. That’s all we have done since being together, since I’ve been healing slowly and trying to outlive the pains and marks on my body from that damn royal. I just wanted to come home to a doting mate and a calm house.

I came home to another damn battle. My record isn’t very good with those, either. I will lose this one too, or give up, and I retreat out the door only to hear her cough a cry.

“Wait.”

I stop, not much in a mood of causing another argument by not doing exactly as my fated mate says. I turn to see her, face flushed and tears on her cheeks, and it’s not to go unnoticed that she looks away from my eyes when I try to meet hers.

“I just want to know what it’s going to take to forget about her?” she hums, so broken in her shaky words. “Is it me? Is it something I can do?”

My wolf thinks I am an asshole; I don’t disagree with that assessment. “It’s not you, Mary. It’s just the history I have with her. It’s hard to let that go.”

“Is it going to take having this pup to make you get over her?”

My throat hurts and I really want to avoid answering this question because I honestly don’t know what will help me move on. Maybe I never will. I can’t tell her that though, she is already sick and in turmoil over our future.

“I wouldn’t want to have this pup with anyone but you, I mean that.”

It’s a lie.