Ivy.
There was nothing like spending the day with my mates and the rest of the pack. After the warm invitation I had had from a few of the female wolves of the pack to join their play group, I was more than thrilled to entertain the idea.
Kate and my mother had suggested familiarizing myself with other women of the pack would help me be a better Luna.
I was so nervous about the idea of them accepting me. Differing from them, I had spent months watching them gaze at me with wary eyes.
I had thought they perceived me as a monster, but in the end, I was wrong.
There would always be women in the pack who didn’t like me. I expected that. It was the same in the real world. Not everyone is going to like you, but I was pleased these women could accept me as I was.
I wanted to be a Luna they respected and wanted around.
After a fun, eventful day, I made my way with James, Hale, Talon, and my mother back up to the house to prepare for dinner. The smiles and conversations still on our faces from the fun we all had.
It would have been complete if only Damian had graced us with his presence.
“I cannot believe that you spun that little boy around like that, Hale.” We made our way through the front door and I laughed. “I thought he was going to puke.”
“Hell no, he was having the time of his life. Plus, his mother didn’t seem to care, so why ruin mine and the boys’ fun?”
He did have a point, but as I looked at him with a small smirk on my lips, I couldn’t help but picture him with our children.
“Perhaps that’s true, but he was still so tiny, and I cannot believe that he didn’t cry. He just laughed and laughed and kept wanting you to do it again.”
I had never really seen Hale in his kind of way, but seeing him like this made me excited for the future. He was going to be a good father. I had no doubt about that.
Even James and Talon were more than pleased with being able to spend time with the kids that were there. With things being quiet lately around the borders, the guys had a little more free time, and I was grateful for it.
Passing Damian’s office, I watched Kate and Damien come out with expressions of concern across their faces. Something was wrong, and that was obvious.
“Is everything okay with you two?” I asked as I tried not to show I knew something was wrong. Kate’s eyes quickly met mine as she forced her frown away.
“Oh yeah, don’t be silly. Everything’s fine. Just talking about pack stuff back home is all.” Kate lying wasn’t something she did, and because it wasn’t, she was horrible at it.
However, I let it slide. If she wanted to tell me, she would.
Letting my eyes slid from Kate to Damian, I raised a brow staring at him. His dark chocolate eyes gazing at me with a ferocity I had grown accustomed to seeing.
Our conversation hadn’t gone the way he had planned previously, and I felt guilty for making it seem like I didn’t care about him because I did. I just honestly didn’t know what to do.
This was something far beyond me, and with my inexperience, I wasn’t sure how to handle it. The only reason I knew how to help James was because of the mate bond healing him. It was clear the bond was hurting Damian instead.
“Everything good?” I asked him as Kate stepped around me, making her way down the hallway towards the kitchen.
“Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?” he replied without hesitation.
Shrugging my shoulders, I smiled at him. “Fair enough. I’ll go help with dinner then.”
There was no point in pressuring him for information he would not give me. Doing that would be pointless, and I wasn’t about to make pointless conversations cause arguments. At least not right now.
In the end, we would all need to be honest with each other. We promised no secrets, and yet we all seemed to keep them.
As the night carried on, we all sat down and enjoyed dinner together with light laughter and conversations about what was to come for the rest of the week.
Not to mention baby names.
That was a subject I didn’t even want to speak with the guys about.
Through all of it, though, Damian sat quietly watching. He was a mysterious man at times, and even though I loved him dearly, I couldn’t help but feel I was missing something extremely important.
There was something I just wasn’t getting.
“So, Damian, what are your plans for the rest of the week?”
My calm response seemed to catch his attention, and as he looked up and met my gaze once more, he shrugged his shoulders. “I have some business to attend, but as soon as that meeting’s over, I will be back and more freely able to take part with things around here.”
“You mean you’re actually going to take a vacation?” James scoffed as laughter quickly flowed from the brothers.
“I suppose if that’s what you want to call it, then yes. Ivy is due to have the baby soon, and I want to be here to participate.”
A smile grew wider on my face when I heard him. My eyes stared at him in disbelief. Little by little, every day, Damian changed into somebody I could barely recognize.
At times he was cold and distant, but even those days were far and few between. Instead, he was warming up to the idea of our happy family being able to be whole and live in harmony.
He wasn’t fighting anything anymore, and it still caught me by surprise every day.
“Well, time to clean up this stuff. I have reruns to catch up on,” Talon said quickly, breaking the silence at the table.
“If you’re talking about reruns of that stupid romance show, I am absolutely not watching that,” Kate responded quickly, causing Talon to look at her in absolute shock.
“There is nothing wrong with that show. I don’t know why you’re acting like this.”
“What do you mean there’s nothing wrong with that show?” Hale replied.
“I mean exactly what I said. Why are you guys acting like this?” Talon snapped with disgust on his face. “That show is brilliant.”
Talon was not the kind of man you would expect to watch something like that, but in reality, even though he was dangerous at times… he was also a giant teddy bear.
“Talon sweetie, the reason why they find it shocking you enjoyed that show is because of the kind of person who you are. You don’t seem like someone who would watch such things,” I butted in.
“All right, all right, I get it,” he huffed, rolling his eyes as he slid his chair back. “Regardless, that’s what I’m watching, so can we get this shit taken care of?”
As everyone stood from the table, my mother remained back with me. A smile on her face as she stretched her hand across the space between us, placing it upon mine.
“Honey, can I just say that I am extremely happy for you being here?”
“You’re happy for me being here?” I asked with a small smile.
“I am as much as I hate being you being away. The day that I found out that they were your mates, I knew that you just had to be here. Even when you were a little girl, you showed such potential to be so much more than you were, and I couldn’t believe it. That you could be mated like that. I couldn’t believe that I could, but then I met Blake.”
Tears slowly filled her eyes as she forced them back.
“No, mom, please don’t cry. You know I love them, and I love you, and I wish that we were closer, but I know that you have a life there. Moving here wouldn’t be an option for you.”
“I know, but perhaps I can convince Blake to want to move.” My mother laughed, and as I heard Kate yell from the kitchen, that was not happening.
It turned out that Blake was actually Angel’s uncle, and the only remaining family that he had. If Blake left, Angel would try to make it to where Kate had to move as well, and Kate, as much as she enjoyed visiting Idaho, was not excited about having to move here.
With the conversation over, my mother and I stood to help the others. Yet, I could feel Damian staring at me and, as I turned around, I saw him standing there. His eyes were fixated, and a gaze that I found almost unreadable.
Until he gestured for me to follow him.
I wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but I was intrigued.
“Are you okay?” I said, as he pulled me into the living room.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just wanted to apologize for the conversation that we had before. You were right. If I honestly think that something is wrong like this, I need to speak to someone who would know how to handle this. I shouldn’t expect you to handle everything just because of who you are.”
“Damian, you don’t have to apologize—” I whispered before he held up his hand, causing me to stop talking.
“Let me finish, please,” he whispered as he took a deep breath. “I found somebody who can help me and I’m going to see them. I spoke with Kate earlier and told her my idea, and she persuaded me to let you know what I was going to do.”
“Is that the business meeting that you have to have? Were you going to try and keep this from me?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief.
Why would he want to hide something like this? It just made little sense.
“Yes, I know. Please don’t get upset with me, Ivy. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to get your hopes up. I didn’t want to tell you that everything could be ok and in the end, we find out that it’s not.” He replied, making my heart slowly fall.
“Damian, you’re not going to leave me, and you’re not going to die. I love you too much for that. You are a big part of my life, and even though our relationship started out rocky, that doesn’t mean that it has to be that way again.”
“I know it doesn’t,” he said as he reached up with his hand and brushed the hair from my face behind my ear. “That’s why I’m telling you, because I don’t want there to be secrets.”
Stepping forward, I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him close to me. His chin rested upon my head and slowly, I inhaled him deeply, relishing in the smell of his cologne. Each one of the guys had their own particular scent.
And Damian’s was the most unique out of them all.
“When are you leaving?” I asked him, after a moment’s silence that had passed between the two of us. If he was going to leave, I wanted to know when, I wanted to know where, who he was going with, and how long he was going to be gone.
It was just how things worked when you were in a relationship. You let people know this kind of stuff, so they knew where you were and that you were okay. Even if, at one point in time, I didn’t actually give him that kind of satisfaction.
Chucking, he lifted my head to look up at him, and slowly he kissed my lips. “I leave bright and early in the morning before you wake up, and I shouldn’t be gone more than a day. But I will let you know when I get there, and I will let you know when I’m on my way home.”
Hearing his reply, I felt a little satisfied.
Of course, he didn’t exactly tell me where he was going, but I knew with him there were some things he couldn’t quite explain, and he would always have a good reason for why he couldn’t.
“You better not forget to tell me when you get there,” I said teasingly before he leaned down and kissed me once more.
“I won’t. I promise to let you know, and just to show you how serious I am about keeping my promises, I will have words with my brothers about the current situation.”
“You promise?” I asked with wide eyes, slightly shocked that he was going to actually go into detail with them about what he thinks is going on.
“Yes, I promise I will actually go do that here in just a moment. In the meantime, why don’t you go upstairs, take a nice long bath or hot shower, get yourself relaxed, and perhaps you can sleep in my room tonight?”
Biting my bottom lip, I glanced up at him and nodded my head. It wasn’t too often I actually got to share a room with Damian simply because he worked crazy hours, and I was often gone sleeping with the others.
With him, I didn’t honestly get to spend that much time.
Tonight, though, I would change that because there was no telling what tomorrow would hold.