Fated: The Alpha's Unwanted Luna

Chapter 193: Adorable wolf

’Don’t you dare tell her your name or I will rip your soul from mine.’ Sebastian warned sharply, but Muffin ignored him with the same ease Sebastian used to ignore Muffin when he was the one in control, and leaned further into Viola’s hand as he said,

"My name is Muffin, mate." He said it in wolf language, and Viola’s brows pulled together before a soft laugh escaped her. "Oh, I forgot. I can’t understand your language. I don’t have a wolf to bridge that gap."

’How unfortunate.’ Muffin thought with a genuine groan of disappointment.

Sebastian allowed himself a brief exhale of relief, but it was short-lived. His eyes had found the bruise darkening her cheek and the dried blood still on her face, and something tightened inside him at the sight of it.

He leaned in and began to lick her face carefully, and Viola startled at first, tensed beneath the unexpected contact, before she understood what he was doing and relaxed. She felt his tongue stroke across her cheek, and along with the warmth of it came a soothing, cool relief that spread over the bruised and swollen skin where Javier’s fist had landed.

When he finished and pulled back, he looked directly into her eyes, his tongue passing briefly over his own mouth, and Viola smiled at him.

"Thank you. Not just for this, but for earlier. You saved me from being crushed by that door." She whispered, shuddering slightly at the thought of it. That door would have definitely crushed her to death.

He made a low sound deep in his chest that she took as an acknowledgment of her words. Stroking his neck, Viola turned to look at the sunflowers growing at the edge of the cliff, their faces open and turned toward the sun, and she thought she could stand here forever just watching the birds drift past and listening to their songs. Without thinking, she bent down and plucked a sunflower, then turned with a smile and tucked it into the wolf’s fur.

"It looks good on you." She said, smiling when the wolf gave her a deeply wary look for putting a flower on him.

’Don’t take it off, leave it.’ Sebastian said to Muffin, who was not at all pleased about being decorated with flowers.

’I am not a girl, man. She is putting flowers on me.’ Muffin said in dismay, already wanting to shift away before she added another one, but Sebastian took control of the body and held him firmly in place.

’You are the one who brought us here, so let her enjoy herself for a while. Look at her, she looks free and happy.’

This place had always been one of Sebastian’s favorites. The wind here had a way of clearing his head like nothing else could, and looking down at the sunflowers, which happened to be his favorite flower, made something settle warmly inside him, like being a boy again watching his mother plant them.

"You really do look cute with the flowers." Viola remarked, tucking the last one into the fur along the side of his neck, and she was fairly certain the wolf was glaring at her by now. "You don’t like it, do you?" She asked, biting back an amused laugh.

The wolf shook his head and made a low, disgruntled noise in his throat. How could he possibly like it? If she had any idea how many people he had intimidated, how much enemy flesh he had torn through in victory, she wouldn’t dare put flowers on him. He was an Alpha, the leader above all others, and having flowers tucked into his fur was, frankly, embarrassing. What would his enemies think if they could see him right now?

Had she been anyone else, he would have let his aura flare and sent her stumbling back in fear without a second thought. But she was his favorite of all his mates, this little stubborn hellcat he wanted more than anything to keep close and protect. The problem was that with her personality, she would draw trouble to herself faster than he could ever get ahead of it.

"If I had a wolf, I would love to have flower decorations put on her, but don’t worry, I will take them off since you didn’t like them on you." She reached out to remove the flowers, but the wolf shifted away from her hand as though he didn’t actually want her to.

"You don’t know what you want, do you?" She patted his neck and clicked her tongue at him.

"I wonder what it feels like, having a wolf, shifting between forms, running through the trees. It must feel wonderful." She turned her face back toward the open sky, her blue eyes going soft and distant, her hand still moving absently through his fur without her realizing it.

She had never let herself dwell on what she lacked, she had made a habit of not doing that often. But standing here before a wolf who was her mate, in a place where she should be feeling the pull of the bond and the freedom of running alongside him, she felt it settle over her quietly, the sense of being incomplete.

There was a saying in the werewolf world that a person without a wolf could never truly be considered whole. And that was precisely why she would never fully earned the respect of her new pack members, because she couldn’t force any of them into submission the way a Luna with a wolf could. Luna or not, today’s incident had reminded her sharply of just how powerless she still was in this world without it.

And then it hit her, that somewhere out there, her sister was living with this exact same feeling. The same quiet loss. The same incompleteness. Being seen as less than whole.

’I hope it has been easier for you than it has been for me, Ivy. I will hate to find out that you suffered more than I have.’

The wolf pressed his head gently against her side as though he could feel the sadness that had crept over her, and Viola smiled down at him, her hand finding his fur again. "I still don’t know your name." She said softly, rubbing his head. "Will you tell me after you shift back?" She asked. He made a sound she chose to interpret as a yes, and she laughed quietly at that.

After a little while, he bent down and jerked his head toward his back in a clear, wordless instruction for her to get on.

Viola looked out one last time at the beautiful, open horizon stretched before them before she reluctantly climbed back on, knowing that returning meant having to face him in his human form and account for everything she had done today.

She had stepped well beyond her boundaries by interfering in a matter between mates, something she had known even as she was doing it, and something he had every right to take her to task for.