Mate Me in Moonlight

Chapter 112

POV: Adeline

He couldn't stop pacing.

The floor of his study had seen better days—years of his boots wearing familiar paths into the wood—but he was fairly certain he'd added a new groove in the past hour alone. Back and forth. Window to desk. Desk to door. Door to window again.

Three days. Three days until the ceremony. Three days until he stood before the pack and pledged himself to Adeline in a bond that couldn't be broken, shouldn't be broken, wouldn't be broken—

His wolf stirred, restless with his restlessness. Calm. She is ours. We are hers.

Easy for the wolf to say. The wolf dealt in certainties—mate, pack, territory, hunt. The man had to deal with everything else.

"You know, if you pace any harder, you're going to fall through to the basement."

Aiden stopped mid-stride. Luca leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching with an expression that hovered somewhere between concern and amusement.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough." Luca pushed off the frame and entered the study, settling into one of the chairs with the easy confidence of a wolf who had earned his place a hundred times over. "You've fought wars, Aiden. Led armies. Killed an enemy Alpha with your bare hands. And you're scared of a ceremony?"

The word scared rankled, even though it was accurate. Especially because it was accurate.

"This is different."

"How?"

Aiden turned to the window, staring out at the compound below without really seeing it. How to explain? How to put into words the weight that had settled in his chest, the magnitude of what he was about to promise?

"This matters," he said finally. "Everything else—the wars, the politics, the fighting—I could survive failing at those. I could lose and keep going. But this?" He shook his head. "This I can't afford to get wrong."

Luca was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice had lost its teasing edge.

"She already chose you. You know that, right?"

Aiden didn't turn from the window.

"Multiple times," Luca continued. "Through everything. The war. The secrets. That mess with her past coming to light. Every time she could have walked away, she stayed. Every time you gave her a reason to doubt, she chose to trust instead. What are you afraid of?"

The question hit somewhere tender. Somewhere Aiden had been carefully not looking.

"That I won't be enough." The words came out rough, scraped raw. "That she'll wake up one day and realize she deserved better. That she stayed out of obligation or trauma bonding or—" He stopped, jaw tight. "That everything I am still won't be what she needs."

The silence stretched.

"Stop."

Aiden turned. Luca was on his feet now, expression fierce in a way that had nothing to do with battle.

"She's not going anywhere," Luca said. "I've watched her, Aiden. Watched how she looks at you when you're not paying attention. How she gravitates toward you in a room without even realizing she's doing it. How she talks about you when you're not there." He took a step closer. "That woman loves you. Not the Alpha. Not the title. You. The scarred, stubborn, emotionally constipated wolf who paces holes in his floor because he's terrified of being happy."

Aiden almost laughed. Almost.

"Neither of you is going anywhere," Luca continued. "That's the whole point of the ceremony. You're promising to stay. Both of you. Through everything that comes next. And you will, because you're both too stubborn to do anything else."

Aiden breathed.

For the first time in hours, he actually breathed—felt the air fill his lungs, felt his shoulders drop from where they'd been creeping toward his ears, felt some of the tension in his chest begin to ease.

Luca was right. Of course Luca was right. The wolf had known him for fifteen years, had stood beside him through every triumph and failure, had earned the right to call him on his nonsense.

She had chosen him. Kept choosing him. Would keep choosing him, just as he would keep choosing her.

That was the point. That was the promise.

He met Luca's eyes. "Thank you."

Luca's expression shifted immediately, the intensity giving way to something that looked almost uncomfortable. He waved a hand dismissively, already backing toward the door.

"Don't get soft on me," he muttered. "Last thing I need is an Alpha who cries at his own pledging ceremony."

"No promises."

Luca paused at the threshold, glancing back. For just a moment, something warm flickered in his eyes—pride, maybe, or affection, or the particular bond that formed between wolves who had bled together.

"You're going to be fine," he said. "Both of you. Now stop pacing and get some sleep. You look terrible."

He was gone before Aiden could respond.

The study felt quieter without him. Calmer.

Aiden looked out the window again, toward the small cottage where he knew Adeline was preparing, where she was probably just as nervous as he was, where she was counting the same days he was counting.

Three days.

He could wait three days.