Page 47 of Losing My Siren Luna (Hidden Cove #1)

Lachlan POV

I watched Lira’s face change from anger to worry. I caught on to Meldec and Cedric a few days ago. I recognized the look that would pass over Mel’s face whenever Cedric was nearby. His eyes would be trained on the siren man, his emotions clear on his features.

If Cedric was laughing or seemed happy, Mel would be smiling at him too.

When Cedric was being too affectionate with Lira, like just now, my Gamma would start going off in angry tirades that resulted in the men under him doing some form of physical exertion they would hate.

Yesterday, when we walked in the great hall and Cedric was feeding Lira pieces of an apple that he was cutting up with a pearl-handled dagger, Mel lost his shit and had our warriors combing the training yard to find some imaginary pen he said he dropped when we went back to training.

I didn't like it either, but I was just happy that someone was getting my wife to eat.

She's getting to a healthier weight now, and Cedric's non-chalant way of feeding her is helping with that.

While we were in our meeting discussing the arrangements for the festival that is to be held at the end of the month in my wife's honor, Cherum let slip that Lira went for a swim with Cedric in the sea.

My panic took a leap, imagining the evening that Lira rejected and left me again, but Mel got up and started pacing the room in an aggressive manner.

He couldn’t focus, and I too really wanted to see Lira and make sure she was still there and not swimming off into the sea.

I cut the meeting short and we all went to the docks to find my wife and her siren bodyguard.

Lira and Cedric were diving under water together, then they would pop up after some time, wrestle and splash around playfully, then disappear beneath the water's surface again. Watching Lira be playful with another man hurt, but even Killian said we had no room to get angry. She endured far worse from us. He was annoyed, but I think knowing that Cedric isn’t as much of a threat as we originally thought he would be has helped to keep his angry side at bay.

Plus, she is staying open to Killian entirely.

Killian is even able to feel flickers of the bond at times.

When he comes forward each night to brush her hair, she will talk and laugh with him, not holding back her affections like she does with me.

She likes my Lycan. I just got to get her to like me and trust me.

“Lira, my wife,” I called to her, not liking her being in Cherum’s hold but knowing I couldn’t come right out and tell her that.

I also do not like her dripping wet in nothing more than a short slip with undergarments showing underneath.

I should have a proper swimsuit fashioned for her.

One that fully covers her beautiful body in a darker, non-transparent when wet material.

“ I like the transparent material,” Killian purrs in my head, pushing forward to check out or mate.

“ I do too, but I don’t want anyone else to see her like this.”

“True. She isn’t marked. Other males will want her if they see her like this.”

I want to groan at his reminder. I want to hurry and mark my wife, seeing the affection that others show her constantly, since she is such an easy woman to love, but I know we are nowhere near that stage in our relationship yet.

She may allow me to hold her from behind while she sleeps, but if I try anything more she begins to panic, and panic is the last response I want my touch to bring out from my wife.

Lira looked back at me with her big green eyes questioningly. I was lost in her beauty and speaking with Killian, that I forgot I had called to her.

“I’m going to head back to our room for a rest. Would you like to join me?

” I held my hand out to her hopefully. She eyes my hand, then looks back at Cedric and Mel one last time with a sigh before stepping forward to join hands with me.

I can not keep my smile off my face at how regular an occurrence this is now.

She doesn’t deny me this privilege of holding her hand.

I will be ecstatic about any affection that she allows of me.

I can hear Cherum behind us yelling at Percy for his inappropriate behavior with his new mate on the beach when he was supposed to be watching Lira, but ignored it.

Cherum has his warrior handled. Lira must hear too because she turned to look at them with an amused grin.

When she catches me watching her, she bites her lip and looks forward once again.

“Are you cold?” I asked her, seeing her shiver as we began to walk back towards the main castle.

Her cheeks turn an alluring pink, but she shakes her head. “No. I’m actually quite warm.”

My eyes trail down to the stiff peaks on her chest proving she is chilly, but I quickly pull my mind out of the gutter and look the other way. Killian is smacking his lips at the lusty thoughts of seeing her alluring wet body brings us, but I’m working hard to not show how it’s making me feel.

“You looked like you were having fun with Cedric,” I told Lira to distract myself from thinking of helping her out of those wet clothes and what lies hidden underneath them.

“We were racing,” she smiles, like it is already a fond memory to her. That sends a pang through my heart, but I’m also happy for her being happy. It’s a conflicting feeling, the emotions running inside of me; jealousy and happiness for my mate. “I won.”

“It looked like he touched land first if that is what you were racing for,” I chuckled, earning myself a glare from her. The glare is adorable, making me laugh further. “I would like to swim with you some time. You looked so free in the water.”

She bites her full bottom lip, making my hand flex at my side with the desire to pull her lip from her teeth and tracing the indentations out of it with my thumb.

“I feel free in the water. It’s my favorite place to be.”

With that one statement, my mood plummets and anxiety grips me. Killian whimpers as well, wishing her favorite place to be would be with us.

“Hmm,” is all I managed as a response. I’m wracking my brain trying to come up with something, anything to say to make her consider only having a life on land with me,

“ The gardens,” Killian tells me, “ Take her to your mother’s gardens.”

My mother’s gardens are beautiful. She loved to escape into her labyrinth of rose bushes and hanging flowers when she was feeling overwhelmed.

The maze of fragrant flowers soothed her.

Maybe they can do the same for my wife. Maybe I can give her another option besides the sea for when she wants to escape for a little while.

“Lira, have I ever shown you the gardens?”

She tilts her face up to mine. “No. I don’t think I’ve even seen any gardens here.”

“They are hidden in the forest past the stables a bit. My mother had them designed to be a refuge for herself when she was training with the warriors and needed a break.” It weighed on my mother being a top warrior during the war while also being the pack’s Luna.

More was expected of her than any Lunas before her and she needed an escape.

Lira’s radiant smile makes my heart skip a beat, my breath hitching in my throat from her beauty. “I would love to see your mother’s garden, Alpha. It sounds lovely, but didn’t you say you needed to rest?”

I smirked, “That was an excuse to spend some time with you.”

“ Smooth,” Killian is smirking with me in my head, just as happy with Lira’s bashful response as me.

“Okay,” Lira whispered. “I’ll go see it with you, if you would like.”

“I would like nothing more.” I lifted her hand to my lips and placed a tender kiss on the back of it. Her face turns that beautiful pink again, making me grin, pleased with her reaction to me.

Baby steps. It took me 2 years to destroy our bond. I don’t care if it takes me two years to restore it. I just want my mate to know I love her and desire nothing more than to give her the world by the end of these two years. I can take baby steps, as long as we get to the goal in the end.

~

Elelira POV

Val is sighing contently in my head. Lachlan is gripping my hand in his large, warm one, the sparks shooting up my arm and making my bond buzz and tingle with rejuvenation.

It's like this every time our skin makes contact. No matter how apprehensive I want to remain, the bond reacting to him won’t let me when we are together.

Not when he is treating me like this; like I am cherished.

When he is kind and gentle with me, I can't react with hostility or coldness like I tried to before.

I half expected him to get mad at me for swimming in the ocean with Cedric.

I expected him to get angry and yell at Percy.

My expectations from the past had me thinking the worst of him without realizing it, but he proved all those preconceived notions to be wrong.

He was the same doting husband he had been all week.

Now, he is even about to take me to a garden special to his mother.

I never even knew of this garden before.

If it's in the warrior's area and by the training grounds, that would explain why. I wasn't allowed to go there before.

“ He wants us,” Val exhales tenderly in my head. “ He likes us.”

“It’s more than that,” I told her, “ Do you….do you think he knows? Do you think he feels the mate bond?”

That’s the only explanation I can think of for his behavior all week. If he felt it, he would have said something, right? Killian would have. He wouldn’t have been able to hold back from claiming his mate as a Lycan Alpha.

Val was deep in thought, contemplating what I suggested. “ I don’t know. It would explain a lot.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.