Chapter 148

Aria

The phone call with Dr. Edward lasted longer than we expected. Darren paced back and forth in our bedroom while I sat on the edge of the bed, watching him wear a path into the carpet. We had put the call on speaker so we could both hear.

“I’ve been working on the tincture day and night,” Dr. Edward explained. “The initial tests are promising, but I need a few more days to perfect the prototype.”

“How soon can you get here?” Darren asked, running a hand through his hair. “We’re sitting on a ticking bomb here. The attack on the little girl has everyone on edge.”

Dr. Edward sighed heavily on the other end of the line. “Three days, minimum. I need to stabilize the compound and run a few more tests. It might not be perfect, but I should have something workable by then.”

“Will it be safe to test on werewolves by then?” I asked.

“I believe so,” Dr. Edward replied. “You’ll need to gather some willing volunteers, though. People who are comfortable getting close to the dogs to see if the tincture works.”

Darren and I exchanged glances. Three days was a long time with tensions this high, and after what happened to that little girl, it wasn’t going to be easy to find volunteers.

After ending the call, I sank back into the pillows. “Three days,” I muttered, passing my hands over my face.

Darren tossed his phone aside and crawled onto the bed, kneeling between my legs. He looped his arms around me and tugged me into his lap, holding me close. “It’s either this or send the refugees off into the forest and ruin all of the hard work we’ve done to make humans and werewolves stop hating each other.”

I sighed into his shirt. “I should go visit the little girl,” I said after a moment, my voice muffled by his chest. “It’s the least I can do.”

Darren nodded, and we disentangled from one another, sharing one last tender kiss before we parted ways for the day. I headed to the house where the little girl and her mother lived, carrying a bouquet of spring flowers I’d picked from the pack house garden and some fresh cookies courtesy of Wendy, and Darren headed off to make his rounds around the pack and the refugee camps.

The mother and daughter lived in a modest but quaint cabin near the edge of the village. I knocked gently on the door, and a moment later, the mother opened it. Her face showed surprise, then wariness as she recognized me.

“Luna,” she said, not quite a greeting.

“I came to see how your daughter is doing,” I said, holding up the flowers and the cookies. “And to apologize for what happened.”

The mother hesitated, then stepped back, opening the door wider. “Come in.”

The inside of the cabin was warm and cozy, with handmade quilts draped over furniture and children’s drawings taped to the walls. The girl sat at the kitchen table, her arm still bandaged. She looked up as I entered.

“Hello,” I said softly, approaching her. “I brought you these. I thought they might make you feel better.”

The little girl glanced first in question at her mother, who nodded, then reached out with her good hand to touch the flowers. “They’re pretty,” she said. “Thank you.”

I sat down across from her while the mother busied herself finding a vase for the flowers.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

The little girl shrugged her small shoulders. “It doesn’t hurt so much anymore. The doctor gave me special medicine.”

Her mother returned with the flowers in a mason jar filled with water. She placed them on the table, then sat down beside her daughter.

“Darren and I spoke with Dr. Edward,” I told the mother. “He’s working on something that might help with the pet situation. He’ll be here in three days.”

The mother’s eyes narrowed. “No offense, Luna, but it sounds like you’re peddling snake oil instead of casting out those beasts.”

I felt my chest tighten. The little girl suddenly piped up, “Mommy, don’t be so mad.”

Her mother sighed and ruffled her hair. “I’m sorry, sweetie. But if you become a mother someday, you’ll understand.” She shot me a narrow-eyed glance.

Sighing, I nodded. “I understand your pain, I truly do. Lucas might not be my biological son, but there was an… incident a couple of months ago during which he almost got gravely injured in a very similar fashion.”

I shuddered just at the thought of what my sister had done that day. I didn’t like to think about it.

“Anyway,” I went on, looking at the mother and daughter both, “we’re going to ensure things like this don’t happen again. But I also hope you understand that we’re in a difficult situation, and it’s not easy to make everyone happy.”

The mother snorted. Her daughter said softly, “I didn’t mean to scare the puppy, you know. I just wanted to play with him like I play with the other pups.”

My heart ached at that. Of course she would approach a dog the same way she would approach a werewolf child in their wolf form. “So you approached the dog first?” I asked. The little girl nodded.

“Honey, dogs aren’t like werewolf pups,” the woman explained gently to her daughter. “They pick up our scents and it makes them go crazy. You should stay away from them. They’re not safe, and they’re not intelligent.”

I bristled slightly at the words, having spent too much time around dogs in my life to think of them as unintelligent. But I chose not to comment on it and instead said, “Humans have build a special bond with their pets. It’s not easy to ask them to suffer for it.”

The mother’s face darkened. But her daughter suddenly said, “I don’t want the puppies to have to leave. It wasn’t their fault. They were just scared.”

The mother’s expression softened as she looked at her daughter. She turned to me with a sigh. “She has a bigger heart than I do.”

“You’ve raised her well,” I said, offering her a gentle smile. I rose from my chair and nodded my head politely before turning to leave. The mother followed me to the door, opening it for me.

As I stepped outside, the mother was quiet for a moment, then said, “You’ve been a good Luna so far, for what it’s worth. People seem to trust you. I want to trust you too. But my daughter’s safety has to come first. I hope you understand that.”

“I understand,” I replied. “And I promise we’re doing everything we can to make sure everyone is safe—werewolves and humans. And their pets.”

As I left the cabin, her words echoed in my mind. A good Luna. The title still sat strangely on my shoulders, like a coat that didn’t quite fit. I’d never aspired to be anyone’s leader, let alone a good one.

And now people were looking to me for leadership and protection, and I felt like I was just barely keeping my head above water in a world that I was only just beginning to scratch the surface of.

I wandered through the village, considering our next moves in this whole ordeal. Unbidden, my thoughts drifted to the conversation I’d had with Wendy during the search party about Darren potentially running for Alpha King.

What would that make me? Luna Queen?

The idea was both terrifying and hilarious, for some reason. Considering myself as worthy of leading this pack was one thing, but being the leader of all the packs, responsible for creating peace and happiness? It felt absurd.

Suddenly, a strange sound caught my attention—a cough, followed by a low groan. I paused, listening. It came again, from somewhere to my left, behind a thick cluster of bushes.

Concerned, I moved closer. The sound became clearer—someone was retching. I pushed aside a branch and peered through.

Bella was on her knees, bent over, her body heaving as she emptied the contents of her stomach onto the forest floor.

“Bells? Are you okay?”

She startled, looking up with wide, teary eyes. Hastily, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “A-Aria! I—I was just—”

“Are you still sick?” I asked, stepping through the bushes to help her up. “This is more than just ‘werewolf veggies,’ isn’t it?”

Bella avoided my gaze, brushing dirt from her knees. “It’s nothing, really. Probably just a stomach bug.”

“Bells,” I said firmly, “this is the second time I’ve caught you throwing up. What’s going on?” She tried to move past me, but I blocked her path. “Come on. I can tell when you’re lying. Is it stress? Are you worried about your dad? Whatever it is, I can help—”

“Okay, fine!” Bella exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air with exasperation. “You caught me! I’m fucking pregnant, Aria!”