The Lunar Queen Chapter 106

Cole POV

The trip to the west was long. Long enough that by the end of it I was questioning every parenting decision we’ve made in the last week. Driving the hour to the airport with Hannah and Ezra was like running a track marathon. I have fought wars that felt more organized than taking two excited pups through human territory. Being in a super big car as Ezra called it was fascinating for them. They touched everything, sat in every seat. Every time I turned around one of them was somewhere they absolutely should not have been.

At one point I turned around and Hannah was sitting in the trunk area explaining cup holders to Ezra like she personally designed the car.

When we got to the airport which is in human territory they completely lost it. The amount of excitement in two tiny bodies should honestly be studied. All the stores and restaurants had both of them completely losing their minds.

Every five minutes one of us had to stop one of them from disappearing into another store.

By the time it was time for us to board the plane we were all exhausted from chasing behind them. The plane ride was worse because we were on a private plane, reminder never let Lyric cry her way into getting them to go anywhere with us that isn’t a family vacation.

My mate spent the entire flight laughing while her warriors became unpaid babysitters.

The entire time Lyric is smiling and laughing at every single one of my warriors chasing our two pups around including poor Joshua.

I caught her recording Joshua chasing Hannah at one point and I’m almost positive she plans on blackmailing him with it later.

Traitor. Absolute traitor.

When we finally land Hannah and Ezra are both fast asleep.

Kids somehow have unlimited energy until they suddenly don’t.

Like they didn’t spend the last several hours terrorizing grown men.

Joshua picks up Ezra and I take Hannah and we exit the plane.

When we get off the plane the SUV’S we ordered are waiting on the tarmac for us. I load Hannah in Lyric’s arms and Josh straps Ezra in, in the seat in front of us.

Lyric is quiet on the drive to The Howling Moon Pack.

Quiet in a way that makes me pay attention because she’s normally talking to the pups or staring out the window pointing things out. Instead she’s twisting her rings and her emotions through the bond feel crowded and hard to separate.

“Hey princess talk to me” I say lightly brushing her cheek.

“I’m just thinking about what Selene said and what that may mean for our future and the future of everything” she says.

Her eyes don’t come to mine when she says it and I know she’s trying not to spiral before we even get there.

Before I can even respond Hannah jumps up out of her sleep but her eyes are white which means she is in a vision but this feels different.

Every instinct in my body immediately goes on alert because I’ve seen Hannah have visions before and she normally looks through us not at us.

She looks directly at Lyric and touches her cheek.

The second she touches her the air inside the SUV feels heavier. Not colder. Not warmer. Just different. Like suddenly there are more people in the car than there should be.

“Daughter of the moon, you have endured so much in this life and there will be more to come but trust in the fates, heal him and he will be whole” she says

Her voice doesn’t sound like Hannah anymore. It sounds older somehow. Bigger.

Then she looks to me.

And when those white eyes settle on me I swear for half a second I feel seen in a way I can’t explain. Like something looked straight through me and didn’t stop until it reached Zeus.

“Fate has given him to both of you. Open your heart young King. Destiny has finally been restored” she says before her eyes close and she is fast asleep again.

Nobody says anything for a second.

Not because we don’t have questions but because nobody knows where to even start.

“Okay what the fuck was that?” Joshua asks.

“Not what, who?. I think that was fate” Lyric says looking at me.

“What did she mean by destiny has been restored?” Hunter asks.

Lyric shakes her head.

“Not sure, but I don’t really want to think about that right now” she says.

But through the bond I can feel she’s already thinking about it. Her emotions keep shifting too fast for me to catch one before another takes its place.

She goes quiet after that and her emotions are all over the place through the bond. I grab her hand and rub small circles on the back of her hand and she rests her head on my shoulder.

She relaxes almost immediately and I hate how relieved I feel over something that small.

“Alpha we are pulling up at the gates” Hunter says.

Lyric stiffens as we drive up to the pack house.

I feel it before I see it. Nova goes completely still and Zeus starts pacing.

Hunter stops outside of a house that has seen better days.

A man who looks to be my age is waiting for us outside the house when we step out of the car.

“Hello your majesties, my name is Javier and I am King Kairo’s beta” he says glancing at Lyric.

Not lingering. Just curious. Like he’s trying to figure out if she looks like someone he's met before.

“He is waiting for you two in the study” He says.

“Mama can we go?” Hannah asks half asleep.

“No honey stay with uncle Hunter and uncle Joshua” I say to her.

She pouts and puts her head on Lyric’s chest.

“But he’s papa too, I saw it” she says tears welling up in her eyes.

The words land differently now because after the SUV nobody can pretend that was just Hannah talking.

I take her out of Lyric’s arms.

“We know you saw it princess but right now his wolf is sick and it isn’t safe for you to be in there” I say gently to her.

She nods easier than I expected.

“Okay papa, but mama will make him better” she says softly.

“I will try honey” Lyric says to her.

I put her down and she takes Hunter’s hand.

“I will show you where you will be staying after I show your King and Queen where my Alpha is” Javier says to them.

When we walk inside the house everything is dark and feels cold.

Most of the furniture is tattered and it feels empty almost like nobody lives here and that has Zeus pacing in my mind.

Not abandoned, survived. There’s a difference and somehow this place feels like something barely holding itself together instead of something already gone.

How has he been surviving like this.

Javier stops at a door.

“He is in there” he says before turning and walking back down the hall.

Lyric looks at me.

“I’m not sure what to expect after what fate said” She says over the link.

I squeeze her hand.

“I know, we will do this together princess” I say taking her hand and bringing it to my lips and kissing it softly.

And I mean that. Even if I don’t fully understand what together means anymore.

She opens the door and when we step inside she freezes.

In the corner of the room is a massive beast. Half man, half wolf with red eyes.

He tilts his head to the side as he watches both of us.

There’s no immediate aggression in the way he looks at us. Just exhaustion so deep it makes something uncomfortable settle in my chest.

Lyric lets my hand go and walks slowly towards him and he growls at her and she stops.

The growl should make me move. Should make me pull her back but she doesn’t even flinch. Through the bond I feel curiosity, sadness and something else I can’t place coming from Nova.

Next thing I know she shifts into Nova and the room goes still.

The shift feels different somehow. Softer. Zeus immediately goes quiet and I realize he isn’t watching Kairo anymore he’s watching Nova.

He whimpers and Nova walks closer to him.

She doesn’t stalk towards him or challenge him. She moves like she already understands something about him that the rest of us don’t. Like she sees something injured where everyone else would see something dangerous.

It’s almost like he’s scared to get too close to her.

That realization catches me off guard because nothing about him feels threatening anymore. He’s huge and terrifying to look at but the way he keeps his weight shifted back and watches her feels less like aggression and more like somebody expecting to be hurt if they reach for something they want.

Nova whimpers at his reaction and that makes Zeus whimper in my mind for our mate, or should I say mates.

Not possessive, not upset. Just sad in a way I’ve never felt from him before and suddenly I understand this isn’t about replacing anything. Zeus feels bad for him.

The thought settles strangely instead of hitting me like I expected. I wait for panic, jealousy, anger, anything. Instead all I feel is confusion mixed with this weird feeling in my chest that I don’t have words for yet.

I never thought I would ever be mated to a man, I never been into men but I guess you can’t change fate.

And weirdly enough that isn’t even what I’m struggling with right now. I keep looking at him and all I can think is that nobody should look that broken.

She said destiny has been restored, was this how it was always supposed to be.

Not us meeting. Not this exact moment. But the feeling that somehow something that should have happened a long time ago finally found its way back to where it belonged.

“Mine” Zeus says with certainty in my mind.

Mine. Both of them and as much as I want to say this is wrong or it feels off, it doesn’t. It just feels like this is how it was supposed to be all along.

That realization should scare me more than it does. Fate already told us what this was. She didn’t leave room for interpretation. She said she gave him to us. She said destiny had been restored.

So why does watching my mate walk toward him feel less like something beginning and more like watching something find its way home?