VIKTOR
“I cannot believe you told them that! Are you insane?! What if they used that information against you?!”
Andre paces around the study, ranting as he has been for almost fifteen minutes.
It is impressive actually.
To be talking, non stop, on your own in a high and frustrated pitch, for fifteen minutes.
He should be a singer.
“Your mate, our Luna,” he continues. “Is an important and integral part of our pack, the mother of the pack and you just decided to broadcast it to other wolves?! Other alphas?! Do you not know how we are regarded among the wolf community?”
“With fear! Fear, Viktor. I mean we are probably just below the Winter wolf coalition and you went ahead to reveal that important secret? Are you out of your mind?!”
“If they were the kind to reveal my secret, I wouldn’t have told them,” I reply calmly, finally able to get a word in.
“Still!” He snaps. “You can’t just trust anybody with something like that. Least of all, strangers.”
“They knew something was up,” I tell him. “I couldn’t lie to them, not when there was the risk of it coming to bite us in the ass.”
“How? How would it have affected us?”
“Imagine if I had hidden that fact,” I explain as I lean out of my chair. “And they join me in welcoming the coalition into our society, thereby weakening and disregarding Dominik, a fellow alpha. And then, they discover that Rowan is my mate, something they would figure I have known all along. They would think I played them, that I was planning it from the onset.
“The biggest, most dangerous pack, aligning with a mysterious rogue coalition, we would be on everybody’s watchlist. Everything we say or do will be scrutinized. No,” I say as I recline back into the chair. “It is better this way. If they choose to go forward with me, they will do so, knowing that she is my mate.”
“But… but what if they used it against you? Can you actually be certain that they will keep it a secret?”
“I trust that they are honorable men, who have no desire for war or whatever stupid games Dominik plans to play. They detest him almost as much as I do. That has to count for something.”
“Oh! This is a disaster!” He whined as he collapsed into the chair in front of me, wearing the most dour expression I have ever seen.
I let him bemoan his existence and wallow in the uncertainty before giving him a reprieve.
“Besides,” I say as I pull a folder towards me. “I had them swear a moonbound oath.”
“You did what?!”
“Yeah. They are not allowed to mention or reveal in any way to anyone that roan is my mate,” I answer with a smile.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that earlier?!” He roared. “Do you have any idea, the mega sized panic attack I was having?!”
“Hmm, I know. I was here and watching you. You were making me dizzy with your pacing.”
“I hate you,” he says Ina dull deadpan tone.
“The feeling is mutual,” I reply in similar fashion and without lifting my head.
A moonbound oath is one of, if not the most important and sacred oath a wolf can make.
We all pay homage to the moon goddess in one or another. We give her and her moon, reverence when she is mentioned or invoked.
So, invoking the moon, her believed seat of power, is sacred, one no wolf, even a wretched one at that, will ever dare to break.
The three alphas had made that oath, so my secret is as good as sealed.
There has only been one record of someone breaking a moonbound oath. His name was never mentioned as he was wiped from history, but it was recorded that the moment that oath was broken, he was stripped of his wolf and eventually went mad with the loss.
True or not, no one wants to test it.
So, yeah. No one is going to be saying anything about my mate.
“Okay then,” Andre announced as he leaned towards me. “What is the plan?”
“We had discussed a meeting with Rowan, so that they can see for themselves that they are no threat but…”
“Do you think she would willingly open her gates to them? I don’t.”
“Neither do I. Which is why it was decided that I meet up with her first, discuss the meeting.”
“How are you going to do that? Didn’t she kick you out and ban you from coming into her settlement? How are you going to set up a meeting?”
“That is the million dollar question. I do have a plan, but it might be tricky and she might also resent me for it,” I reply.
“You are already on thin ice, do you really want to test that ground?”
“If I don’t do anything, Dominik is going to get what he wants and attack her. And the other packs might join him. I know she hates me right now and most likely never wants to see me again, but she is my mate and I love her. I can’t watch her do this alone… I can’t let her do it alone. Whether she admits it or not, wants it or not, she has me. Forever.”
“The only thing I need to know, that I need to be sure that if it comes to the worst case scenario, if a war does break out, can I count on my pack, my people to join me in defending those rogues?”
Andre stares at me for a good ten seconds before he gives me a curt nod.
“You know you have me,” he says. “You will always have me. And as for the pack, you know they will follow you to the ends of the earth.”
“I needed to hear that. Now, let’s get to work.”