Page 169 of His Fated Luna

"I'm never leaving you," I assured before we finally fell asleep holding each other. As long as we had each other, we'd get through it all. We'd protect our pack, and we'd figure out a way to fix this mess with Dylan. I refused to believe otherwise.

On Christmas morning, everyone gathered around at the alpha residence to open their presents. Dylan was doing much better, the bags under his eyes completely gone. But it was like a ticking time-bomb. We were running on borrowed time. The entire family was pinning their hopes on the witch healer that was due any day now.

Around mid-morning, Tony walked in bleary from rushing over after Aiden called him to get a move on.

“Sleeping beauty awakens,” Iteased, using his favorite line to use on me.

Tony held up his hands defensively.

“Hey, I thought you’d be waking up late today too. Trying to make sure you didn't feel left out.”

I shot him a glare. “For your information, I only sleep in when there's nothing important going on.”

"I don’t know, babe; you missed that board meeting last week just so you could sleep,” Aiden spoke up in a teasing tone.

I bit back a mischievous smile, remembering it was the night Aiden kept me up until the early morning light filtered into ourroom. He'd experimented with me, letting me be on top, trying various movements to figure out what we both liked. But if anyone caught on to what was going on inside my head, they didn’t give it away, busying themselves with opening their gifts.

I was surprised when Aiden handed me a ring-box, asking me to open it.

“But you already got me a gift,” I stated, referring to the gift card for my favorite book shop. I was set for the entire year with the amount Aiden put into it.

“Well, since it’s our first Christmas together, I wanted to make it memorable,” Aiden replied, a hand coming up to brush my hair back away from my neck, exposing my mark. He then passed a self-satisfied smile, while drinking me in. My mate sent an image my way, so that I saw myself from his eyes.

I looked gorgeous, sitting next to him in my pajamas with tousled hair and my mate’s mark showing. I felt Aiden's contentment as he stared at me and couldn't help a small, satisfied smile of my own as he projected himself into my mind and I saw myself from his eyes. With a pleased smile, I moved to open the box.

As I opened it and looked at the ring, my eyes widened happily. A beautiful princess cut diamond ring twinkled up at me merrily.

I knew it was the wedding ring handed down from father to son, the ring the Alpha of the Bloodfire Phoenix Pack bestowed on his luna. And Aiden had given it to me.

“Is this…mine?” I asked in disbelief.

He was giving me the ring he’d always meant to give Lexia.

Aiden folded me into his arms.

“Did you actually think I would never give it to you?” he spoke into my ear.

The top of my head brushed his chin when I nodded.

Josie smartly began ushering everyone towards the kitchen for hot cocoa.

“Giving you this was my choice, Rose. I didn’t have to. But I did, because I want you to know that I chose you as my luna. You’re the only one I want by my side, helping me take care of my pack. You’re the only one I want to crawl into bed with after a long day. You’re the only one that understands me and tells me when I’m wrong. I love you, Rose, and I wanted to give you this to show you that whatever I did, I did because I love you not because the Moon Goddess made me do it. But because I love you, your soul…your body. I love all of you.” Aiden kissed me sweetly, pouring his feelings into that kiss. “And I hope that after today, you would never ever be so insecure about your position as my mate.” Aiden pressed another kiss over my forehead and looked in my eyes with profound love as endless as the sky.

Aiden's POV

“Do you have a minute?” Rose asked, peeping her head into my study.

I looked up from my desk and smiled. Rose did that to me.I just had to look her way and I couldn’t help but smile. She walked over, holding multiple account books spanning the past few years. She came around the side of the desk, laying one book open in front of me, tapping towards an exorbitant amount of money being transferred to… Jake’s mother.

“What’s this?” Rose asked softly, leaning down as her hair fell to one side.

I expelled a breath as I took in what she was showing me. Each month, without fail, an amount was transferred to her. The transfers had stopped after Alpha Austin's death.

“Why was your father sending money from our pack funds to his sister?” Rose queried. “There’s no precedent for it. There’s no allowance for…for that kind of activity within the pack.”

I leaned back speculatively. “You don’t think it was...an incentive for them to stay away from you?” I really didn’t want to voice this concern about my aunt, but if I knew Rose, I knew she would talk it through with me without being “judgy”.

Rose sighed heavily, perching herself on my desk so that her right thigh was next to my right arm which was clutching the pages of the book open before me.