Chapter 73

Aurora

Jaxson works hard, too hard in my opinion, but he has been quiet the last few hours. I lay on the couch, my wounded leg still useless but my back healed with our mating mark finally back where it belongs, from who it belongs to. He helped with a burial for the lost pack members, but he won’t tell me who was killed in the royal raid.

I can see him struggling to clear his mind, sweeping away the glass on the floor from the broken window of our hut. He is meticulous, and a little bit abrupt, stopping me when I lean forward to stand, his heavy hand find my shoulder and guiding me back down with just a stoic look.

“What do you need?” he asks, his tone stiff.

I motion for the kitchen, my mouth dry and my head light. “I was going to make some coffee,” I hum, seeing his dark eyes and wishing they would turn back to their real gentle blue color. “I just figured because we didn’t get to sleep and we probably won’t get to for a while…”

He leans the broom against the wall and takes to the kitchen, staring to make some coffee. I growl a frustrated noise. I didn’t want to add to his stress or his number of chores but I know by his dim, dark eyes that he won’t let me get up to help him.

“Will you talk to me?”

He glances up, remorse in his sad features. “I’m sorry I’m quiet, sweetheart. There’s a lot that happened last night. I’m still processing it all.”

“Is this about seeing Xander?”

“Not exactly.” He shakes his head, bringing over two cups of steaming coffee. I aim to move so he can sit beside me but he gives me that look again and I keep my leg propped up. He sits on the edge of the wood table, pushing over a cup for me and keeping one for him. “He is after the royal pack. Now that I’ve taken myself out of the way, I’m sure he is done hunting us down.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, right?”

He only shrugs. “Never know with Xander. But our biggest problem is the village, sweetheart. A lot of people are wounded and there is a lot of damage to their houses and such. I just—”

He pauses, something so frustratingly quiet about his mind right now.

“Alpha Marc and Luna Helen are gone.”

I sit up, my stomach dropping suddenly like I’ve fallen off a cliff and continue to tumble aimlessly through the air. “W—What?”

“They stood on the path to come into the village to stop the warriors from the Royal pack but they were outnumbered and were killed instantly. The royals only made it into the village a little more before I got there, killing one of the pups in the process, and I managed to take control at that point but it was too late to save any of them.”

“So what does this mean?” I say, my eyes welling with tears already. “We have no Alpha.”

Looking away, he holds his coffee in both of his hands, my fear being he will break the cup of he grows any more tense than he already is. “They want to vote at sunset,” he says, shaking his head as the sun almost wants to rise outside the window.

We won’t sleep today, not with this new information knowing that we have to pick a new Alpha.

He looks at me, wide-eyed and exhausted. “They want me to be voted in as Alpha.”

I’ve never seen Jaxson like this. He is confident and always steering in control, so being an Alpha is obviously natural to him. He comes from a line of authority, of Alpha’s, and it’s something I thought he wanted, even after rejecting the Royal pack. Seeing his depleted face now, his eyes that swing to the floor and have no energy to lift back up, I feel like his world has been turned upside-down and tossed into the bobbing waves outside.

“Well, to be fair, you are the most equipped for the job, Jaxson.”

“I know that, sweetheart, I do. I took on fifteen royal warriors on my own and instructed others on how to fight them off. It’s easy for me to be the Alpha, I just feel like I don’t deserve to be their Alpha, given how my family and my old pack has treated people just like these…” he brushes a hand down his face, sipping his dark coffee. “I feel guilty.”

“You are not one of those royals,” I breathe, knowing he is far more gentle to me and my kind than any other royal. “You said it yourself, you never hurt a commoner, Jaxson.”

“That doesn’t mean I wasn’t oblivious to the other royals harming commoners. I ignored it for years when I should have just stopped it immediately. If they vote me Alpha here, I am worried they will think of me as one of the royal warriors that killed Alpha Marc and the others. I don’t want to be in the same group as those devils.”

“You’re not,” I breathe, my wolf buzzing when I brush his arm gently, needing him to feel he is safe to speak to me about this and as a commoner, I don’t hold him accountable for the Royal pack’s actions. I know he tried to change the pack and wasn’t able to. But he tried. “You should be the Alpha, Jaxson. You make everyone feel safe, especially me.”

He forces a lopsided grin, his eyes relaxing to their old cyan hue. “Thanks, sweetheart.” He stands, grabbing the broom nearby to finish with the glass. “Let me do this and then I’ll go help the others clean up around the pack.”

“Can I help?”

Instinctively, we both eye my swollen, broken leg.

“I think you are helping plenty enough, sweetheart, just by being here with me.”

I roll my eyes, blushing hard and hot with his words. “Is that right, Alpha?”

He gives me a glowering, feverish look. “Careful calling me that, my Luna.”

We both giggle at our little humor. When Jaxson would be an Alpha, I never pictured it with a pack of less than fifty wolves. I pictured him leading an army, in a palace larger than life itself, and yet I prefer this Alpha more. He sweeps up the glass and talks about trying to find Snowflake, our little kitten, so desperately needing to get back to our simple lives.

I look aside at the thought of Snowflake wandering the woods alone, fearing the worst has happened. It only floods my mind with the memory of the royal breaking into the hut, sniffing me out with every intention to kill me. I wish I understood their motive, their reasoning behind these mindless attacks, but it has to have something to do with when Jaxson killed those royals at the market the other day.

It was retaliation, I’m sure, I just hope king Alpha Kennedy doesn’t know where we are. He could try to kill us, to force Jaxson back to the palace, and even while he has been nice to me, he could very well have me killed for his son leaving his pack for me.

I try to push those thoughts aside. They frighten me immensely.

Enough, I hear my mate call into the link. After everything you and I have been through, do you think I would allow anyone, especially my father, to even lay a hand on you?

I shake my head, feeling small and broken already, I cant handle much more fear as it is. Every time I think we’ve settled, I think we have calmed down our lives, it’s thrown back into the air to be shattered once again, leaving us to sweep up the pieces. I just hope this cycle ends soon. We deserve a calm life. Jaxson deserves peace. I deserve a life without fear. It’s just a matter of if the moon goddess admires us enough to give us those things.