“She can handle it,” he told his mate and gave her a kiss on her hair. It was such a tender gesture it moved me. There was an ease in it that told me it was more of a habit than anything else. It reminded me of how our mom and dad always acted and I was happy Elder had got the same type of relationship.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I had heard a lot about you,” Becky started. “Not just from Elder and your parents, but the pack still remembers you. They are still upset about how things turned out,” she told me. I looked at Elder. He nodded.
“Very few thought James did the right thing. You were always helping out with things, you were kind to everyone and the pack saw you as a good wolf. They liked the idea of having you as their Luna. As time has gone by and James has remained unmated, the talk about you hasn’t died down,” he confirmed.
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. It was a surprise to me.
“You didn’t know how loved you were?” Becky asked.
“Well, I thought I did. But then everything with James happened and I thought that if he looked at me like that, others must do as well. For a long time I felt abandoned by the pack. It was one of the reasons I lived so long on my own,” I told them.
“We failed you back then,” Elder told me.
“No. It was a bad situation for everyone. I get that loyalty to the pack and the Alpha and his family is hard to deal with in a situation like that. I was just very young.”
“You are back now, and there is still time to make up for old mistakes,” Becky said. I smiled at her.
“I’m happy I got to meet you. I can see how happy you make my brother,” I told her. There was a slight blush on Becky’s cheeks.
“He makes me happy as well,” she said, and they shared a quick kiss.
“When all of this is over, we need to talk about a real family reunion. I know mom and dad want to see you in person and you need to meet our son,” Elder said.
“I would love that. Let’s see what happens and we will go from there,” I told him. The future seemed far too unstable for me to make any plans. Everything depended on what would happen for the coming three weeks.
Chapter 41
Amie
The following day was dedicated to training. The five of us all felt a little off and distracted and getting a day to work out was just what we needed. Both to work out some of the pent-up emotions we were dealing with, but also to ease us back into being a team. When we finished training in the afternoon, we all felt a lot better than we had done going into the training in the morning. We were ready to take on the game the next day. After dinner we had another call with the pack back home and I felt relieved to see they had also settled into the news and seemed to be doing better. We went to bed early but when I got into my bed, I couldn’t relax.
‘Are you sleeping?’ Finlay mindlinked after half an hour.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘Liar, why aren’t you sleeping?’
‘I could ask you the same,’ I countered.
‘But I asked you first.’
‘Too many thoughts. Trying to figure out what the game will be, wondering if we need to be worried about sabotage andtrying to figure out what kind of game we are playing tomorrow,’ I told him.
‘Those are big thoughts. Maybe put them to the side and deal with them tomorrow?’ he suggested.
‘Brilliant, why didn’t I think of that? This is why you are the Alpha.’
‘Did you just sass your Alpha?’ he asked. The amusement in his mindlink was clear.
‘I did.’
‘And you admit to it. I may need to reconsider if you are Beta material.’
‘Stop saying stupid things and I won’t need to sass you. It’s just me doing my Beta duties to make you the best Alpha you could ever be,’ I told him. I could swear I heard him laughing through the wall.
“Go to sleep, Red. We need that brilliant mind of yours to be on point tomorrow,’ he said.
‘I will if you will.’
