“Ava, just who I was looking for. I’d like to speak with you.” Ava turned to see Anya.
She didn’t really know much about him save from the one time that she and Gabby had seen her that day two years ago when they had come to see Adrian. Jonny had also informed her about Adrian’s new shadow who was training him.
She looked as unusual as ever with her blond white hair and violet eyes, her face was as youthful as ever. No youthful wasn’t the right word. It had remained unchanging. Like no time at all had passed.
“You were looking for me? ”
“Yes. Walk with me, Luna Ava.”
Luna. She was actually the Luna of her pack.
“Okay.” It wasn’t like she had anything to do like hunt down her luggage and a change of clothes.
Following Anya, they left the pack house and walked through a patch of woods around the pack lands that Ava didn’t usually follow.
“So Anya, what did you want to talk to me about?”
Anya was quiet, moving around the foliage even more quietly than most wolves Ava knew. Then she spoke.
“Aren’t the woods beautiful? Everything is interconnected.”
Ava looked around at the same woods she had known her whole life.
“Sure, I guess.” She wanted to push Anya for answers but recalled the reverence with which Adrian treated her and simply followed her, little sticks and wood scratching her skin in the process.
“Everything has its place in this connection like your place in the pack.” Anya stopped walking to regard her seriously.
Oh, so that was what she was getting at.
“Funny, I don’t feel like I have a place here anymore. I don’t know what the pack expects of me now. I don’t know what I can deliver. I don’t know if I can deliver.”
Anya nodded sympathetically. Her hand reached out to touch Ava’s shoulder.
“It is alright to feel unsure during these times. Everything happened suddenly and I doubt anyone expects you to take charge of the affairs today. Or anytime soon. But the problem isn’t that is it? You feel like a fraud. Like your sister would have done a better job.”
Ava looked away sharply, her eyes prickling with tears. Anya had put it so clearly as though she had plucked it straight from Ava’s head.
“Do you believe in fate? That what is supposed to happen will inevitably happen regardless of the different routes it might take to reach there?”
“I guess I have to.” Ava gave a harsh laugh. “I mean look at Adrian and me. We tried so hard to resist this, hurt many people and ourselves just to make sure we got to pick our own lives not fate. But look at us now, we got mated anyway.”
“Life I’m afraid doesn’t always go the way we plan. What do you plan on doing now? By marking Adrian yesterday, you didn’t just accept him as your mate, you also accepted the position of Luna of this pack. You have duties and responsibilities to them now.”
Ava gave a wild laugh. As though trying to hold back tears. “No one wants me here, Anya. They know Gabby. They trust Gabby, and they have built a relationship with her. How can I be seen as anything more than Gabby’s little sister that stole her mate? ”
“So you will just give up?” Anya quirked a brow. “I didn’t take you for a quitter. They were used to Gabby, they will grow used to you too after some time has passed. Even if they don’t, your duty as Luna isn’t to be liked by the pack. It is to fight for the pack. You are supposed to defend them and be a pillar of strength. It is going to be hard. Extremely difficult in fact but it is what must be done. If you don’t want to take up that mantle, you can leave.”
“Leave? What do you mean leave? I don’t have a flight ticket or money or–” Ava tried to deflect.
“I’ll front you. Everyone saw you leave with me and I can tell them whatever lie I want to and you can live your life. Your sister Gabrielle can take your mate and your place and it would be like you never happened. Like this thing with you and Adrian was a terrible dream.”
Ava envisioned it. Going back to Spain. Her work, her life, and her friends. Leaving California and hoping Gabby and Adrian would be able to reconnect. That her parents would forgive her and that things would go back to how they used to be.
It was a beautiful dream. All dreams had to end though.
“No!” Ava almost shouted. “I… can’t do it.”
Anya merely regarded her calmly waiting for her to speak.
“I thought I did but now… I don’t. I destabilised and upended everything. To run away like this to go and enjoy my life while people deal with the aftermath of what I caused is cowardly and I can’t do that. Thank you for the offer, Anya but I think I will pass.”
Anya had helped Ava realize something. She had to make up for the hurt she had caused and the only way to do that was to be a good Luna, the best Luna and protect her people’s interest.
“And your relationship with your mate? Will you also be giving that a go?” Anya asked looking too amused.
“No.”
“Why not? How can you be a good Luna without being a good wife?”
“I will try. Marking Reeve cut me off from my family, my sister, and Adrian doesn’t even like me. He is also a victim of the bond.”
Anya raised her brows. “You are in his clothes, I don’t think the bond made him give them to you. Or made you accept them. I feel Adrian cares about you even though he is too foolish to show it and you are too unstable and stubborn to accept him for who he is.”
Ava’s mind went unbidden to the events of the morning when Adrian had kissed her and she had felt the entire world melt away. It was just her and Adrian left. Thinking about the kiss made her neck and face redeem. Had that been the bond only or had it been them?
No, it had to be the bond. She was not attracted to Adrian.
“But it’s alright if take time to think about it. It is a huge decision after all.”
“No, I do not need time to think about it. I already know Adrian and I will never be that way together.” Ava said. If only she believed that. Before the marking, she had been unable to control herself with Adrian. Now, now she didn’t know how she would do it but she would try.
“I’ll hold you to that, now I must get going. I’m not as youthful and spry as I used to be, stay safe Luna.” Anya began to walk away.
Youthful and spry? She looked around at most twenty-eight years old.
“Who are you really?”
Anya cackled and walked on.