Ava couldn’t sleep all night. She’d tossed and turned half of the night away. When she woke up, it was with a headache and an irritable attitude. She left the pack house while Adrian was still in bed not knowing exactly where she was going just that she had to leave that place.
She couldn’t go home because her parents were there with Gabrielle. She knew she had promised not to keep anything from them but that was before she’d found out about what Gabrielle had done. If she told her parents about the sort of daughter they had, their hearts would probably give out or something.
She realized that she was walking towards the central location where she had left Anya the last time she had seen her. Yes, Anya would be able to give her advice on what to do now.
The only problem was when she reached the area, Anya was nowhere to be seen. It was disappointing although she would have been unnerved by Anya waiting for her to come back.
She couldn’t just give up like that. She had to find Anya. Following her instincts, she walked deeper into the forest sure that she was getting lost. Then she saw the unassuming bungalow. Anya was outside watering her plants. She looked up at the sound of Ava’s approaching footsteps.
Her white hair was pulled up in a messy bun and her violet eyes sparkled as she regarded Ava curiously.
“Good day Luna. This lowly servant is honoured by your esteemed visit.” She looked like she was biting back a laugh as she inclined her head slightly. “Why did you come here?”
Ava sucked in a breath. “I need your help.”
********
Cynthia walked out of her room to go downstairs.
Hearing the noise from her family, she wished violently to have her own space to do with as she pleased but the pregnancy drained her of energy at the oddest times and she had a live-in cook. Who could say no to that?
She had settled for claiming the entire upstairs floor giving the excuse that she got violently sick in the early morning and evenings if she inhaled the scents of other people.
Her parents, eager to make her feel at home after abandoning her for years, easily capitulated to the silly rule.
Wishing her so-called family a good morning, she grabbed two plates of breakfast.
“You are eating that much?” Her mother exclaimed.
Cynthia smiled serenely. She knew it was serene because she had practised it so many times in front of the mirror.
“The hormones seem to be getting the better part of me today. I’ll eat upstairs.” Then she was walking up the stairs before they could try to convince her to stay downstairs and have breakfast with them so that they could try to badger her with questions about the father of her child and other details she hadn’t shared with them.
When she entered the room, she handed the second plate to the she-wolf who sat on her bed.
“Eat up, you’ll need your strength.”
She said her thanks and tore into the food like a glutton and Cynthia twisted her lips with disgust.
She comforted herself with the fact that if everything went according to plan the girl would kill Adrian and the pack would blame it on Ava. Naturally, Gabrielle didn’t know about this part of the plan.
Cynthia smiled as she bit into the sausage. The Mountain Coast Pack didn’t know what was coming for them.
********
“So your sister did all of that?” Anya looked almost impressed. “I knew there was a reason I felt off with her.”
“You did?” This was news to her as she hadn’t experienced the dynamics between the both of them as she had been away from the pack at the time.
“Of course I did. Why do you think I moved the wedding?”
Ava’s mouth fell open. “You did what?”
Anya had been the one to move the mating ceremony? Anya was the reason that Adrian was mated to her now, not Gabrielle? The woman had just gone up a couple of notches on the creepy scale.
“That is beside the point.” Anya waved her hands as though dismissing her very valid concerns with the movement. “The most important thing now is how you intend on getting your name cleared.”
“That’s the thing, I have no idea how to go about that. That’s why I am here. I need your advice. Your help.” Ava pleaded locking gazes with the strange woman fitted across from her.
Anya regarded her. “You know years ago, your mate also sat in that chair in which you currently sit and asked me for advice. He didn’t take it, at least not in the way that I meant but I will give you my advice anyway.”
She paused before continuing. “There is only one thing you can do to save your mate bond. You must come clean to Adrian. I know you feel in his temper he might hurt your sister but you must understand that she has brought this upon herself. If you can tap into your mate bond, you might be able to stop him before he kills her.”
“Might?” Ava croaked out.
“Yes. You cannot afford to do anything less. He is your goddess-given mate. You need to fight for your bond.”
Ava sighed. “I’m tired, Anya. I’m tired of fighting for this bond. Ever since I discovered Adrian was my mate, it had been problem after problem, ordeal after ordeal, tears upon tears. I never wanted this bond in the first place and it keeps putting me at odds with my family yet I can’t stand the thought of losing Adrian.”
Anya hummed sympathetically. “I wish I could tell you that it gets better but it doesn’t. You will still face more troubles. Your bond will be tried again and again. That is what makes it all the more stronger. The more opposition you face together, the tighter you are bonded together.”
“When this started, did you feel the way you do about Adrian now? Or have your feelings for him intensified?”
Come to think of it, they had. Little by little Ava had lost herself to him. And now she felt she might have even started falling in l– no, the moment she admitted that to herself, she was a goner.
Taking her silence for the affirmation that it was, Anya continued on. “If you know this is not what you want, you must let go of him now. It is not yet too late. I know of unmated couples who broke their mating bond after marking. It is extremely painful and deadly to some. But you’ll be fine if I look after you.”
“You must make a conscious decision now to choose your bond and to continue with it not because of the forced situation that brought you together, not because of me or even what society will say, you must do it for yourself. Tell me, Luna, do you wish to fight for your bond?”
Minutes later, Ava walked back towards the pack house, her head filled with thoughts. She was already decided. She wanted to fight for them. She would beg Adrian, fall at his feet if need be to forget Gabby’s crime and to forgive her for Ava’s sake.
Her path was suddenly blocked by two pack warriors. Ava looked at them in confusion.
Neither of them bowed to her in fact one regarded her with a faintly disgusted look.
“Ava Gavin, you have been summoned to the presence of the council for your trial to confess your wrongdoings.
*******
Gabrielle’s hands shook. She wasn’t scared. Not really but she was bothered. Ava wasn’t supposed to have suspected her so quickly.
Rather Cynthia had taken too long to deliver on her part of the deal. So Ava had found out the truth before the protest masterminded by Cynthia who had planted reports of what Ava had done all over the pack at strategic locations so as to cause unrest in the pack.
Every household in the pack had been summoned to bear witness to Ava’s trial. Their parents had been bothered and asked her if she knew anything about it. She had denied it of course. She wasn’t stupid.
But once they located Ava and put her on that podium, she would open her mouth and accuse Gabrielle. What would she do then?
She had wanted to go over to Cynthia’s house this morning to go over the plan but the protests had begun early and as the sister of the treacherous Luna she dared not step foot outside before she got lynched.
So here Gabrielle stood in the crowd beside her parents, her mother’s face pinched with worry and her father supporting her although his shoulders remained tense.