Ronan’s POV
I was filled with a fierce protectiveness towards her.
Her blue eyes were filled with fear and sadness and I squeezed her hand gently to offer comfort.
She might think she was being a burden but she wasn’t. She was worth every shred of loyalty. She was worth dying for.
There was no way I’d allow anyone to take her back to her former pack. Except if she was willing to return. My heart ached at the thought of that.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she said.
I could tell through her eyes that whatever she wanted to say was pretty serious and she was only telling me because she felt she could trust me.
She suddenly looked so fragile and vulnerable and I wanted to wrap my arms around her so badly.
She licked her lips and gave a tiny shake of her head and I wondered if she had changed her mind about whatever it was she wanted to say.
I released a sigh and slowly moved to position myself right in front of her.
“You know you can tell me anything right?” I said, cupping her chin. “No matter how bad you may think it is. You can trust me.”
She gazed deeply into my eyes as though to confirm how true my words were. Then she closed them and breathed in deeply.
“I’m wolfless.” She said. “It’s a curse that has been affecting all the females in my family. I do not know what we did to deserve it. I do not even know which generation it started from,” she said in a quavering voice.
I heaved a sigh and closed my eyes for a moment. I was filled with both rage and sadness.
Realization suddenly hit me. So that was why her Alpha mate had taken another woman.
I understood perfectly. As Alpha, your Luna was supposed to be close to perfect or even perfect. Being wolfless was a great flaw. It was something that would have caused the elders to complain and push him into choosing another Luna.
The weak bastard.
This time, I wrapped my arms around Malia. Violent sobs racked her body and my rage tripled.
I could kill her mate at that moment if I saw him. Hadn’t he known that she was wolfless before he made her Luna?
It would have been better if he had rejected her immediately instead of crowning her Luna and making her go through this emotional torture.
I patted her back gently until she was somewhat composed.
I released her from my embrace and tilted her chin to look at me. I needed to confirm so that my actions would be justified in case I ended up meeting and killing her mate.
“I’m so sorry that I have to ask this but I really need to know,” I began, smoothening her hair with my other hand.
“Did he know about your curse before he made you Luna?” I asked softly.
She nodded. “Of course, he knew. I had to let him know because I knew how these things worked. The Luna must be suitable.”
“He promised it didn’t matter and we were going to find a cure together.”
“I guess he wasn’t able to ignore the urging of the elders anymore,” she finished, nearly on the verge of tears.
“I have another question. My brother knows all of this, right?”
She nodded as she fought to keep the tears from falling.
I hugged her again. “You’re going to have a nasty headache if you keep on crying like that. And please for the love of the Goddess, you look like a chipmunk when you cry, so stop,” I teased.
She wriggled out of my embrace and smacked my arm.
“Ouch!”
She scowled at me and I grinned, happy that she was at least returning to her usual self.
Her stomach gave a loud growl and I chuckled.
“Are heartbroken or sad people supposed to have an appetite?”
She frowned and made to get up from the bed.
I held her back. “And where do you think you’re going?” I asked.
“To get some food obviously,” she answered.
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you know how you look right now? If you go out like this people are going to think you’ve been maltreated or you’ve lost someone you love.”
“Naturally they’d think I’m the one who died,” I added with a grin.
She scoffed. “What makes you think that if you died, I’d cry my eyes out and look miserable?”
I winked at her. “I don’t think so. I know so. Don’t bother pretending that you don’t like me that much,” I joked.
She snorted. “Whatever.”
“Anyway just stay put or go take a warm bath while I go get you some food.”
“Thank you,” she murmured.
I planted a kiss on her forehead and exited the room.
As I headed towards the kitchen, I thought about what Malia had told me.
The fact that my brother knew about this and still wanted to make her his Luna was baffling.
Let’s say he succeeded, was he going to be able to ignore the protests and complaints from members of the pack when they found out?
There was surely no way he was going to be able to keep the secret for so long.
Or did he know of a cure? I wondered.
You also don’t care about her curse, a voice in my head pointed out. So why do you think your brother should?
He doesn’t love her half as much as I do. I argued.
“And how can you be so sure?” The voice asked.
It didn’t matter. Wolfless or not, I loved Malia and she belonged to me.
I just hoped Lila had already come up with a plan to cause Ryder to change his mind about making Malia his Luna because if he kept on like this, I wasn’t sure of the action I was going to take next. Even if it meant betraying my brother.
I wondered if I should just confront Ryder and warn him about the consequences of making a wolfless woman his Luna. Or better still, just come out clean to Lucien and tell him who he was planning on crowning Luna.
I shook my head. I knew how stubborn my brother could be and besides, it wasn’t going to end well for Malia. If I told Lucien, there was a high probability that other pack members were going to know about it and shame her for it.
It was going to devastate her.