Page 44 of Wishes in the Moonlight (Rocky Mountain Wolves #4)
~Troy~
The planning meeting ran late, but we were making such good progress, nobody wanted to stop.
The Crimsontooth men brought a fresh perspective to our situation, sharing tactics and strategies they’d developed that would be a departure from what our attackers might expect.
Darius was firm and decisive while Leo sat back, absorbing everything before interjecting with a single sentence that shifted everything.
Even Kalo got swept up in it, sharing military strategies he’d encountered over the centuries, and though surprising our opponents with a fleet of elephants wasn’t an option, his stories kept us all engaged, entertained, and surprisingly, offered a few useful insights.
By the time we finally broke for the night, exhaustion clung to my bones, mixed with a restless energy that wouldn’t settle until I was close to one person in particular.
I glanced down at my watch and winced. Nearly midnight.
Amanda should be resting and I hated the idea of disturbing her, but she’d said to come back to the pack house when I finished, no matter the hour.
Besides, it might be one of my last nights on earth.
Even if she never fully accepted me, I couldn’t spend it anywhere other than by her side.
Outside her temporary room, the night guard had changed shifts.
The new man stood straighter when I approached, giving a quick nod of respect, and I took a moment to check in.
No suspicious activity since the shooting, he assured me, and no one had gone in or out of Amanda’s room since Leo left hours ago.
“She ate and told me two hours ago that she was going to sleep,” the guard added. “She said not to admit anyone besides Beta Savannah or... you.”
Though he didn’t voice it, his curiosity was evident. Savannah’s access made sense, but me? A captain of the border patrol?
Rather than answering the unspoken question, I simply clapped him on the shoulder before slipping into the darkened room.
My eyes adjusted quickly in the dim light, my werewolf abilities kicking in, and I could make out Amanda’s sleeping form beneath the covers of the same bed where I’d recovered from my injury earlier that day.
She looked so peaceful, and for a long moment, I simply stood there, watching the soft rise and fall of her breath.
Eventually, I crept over to the ensuite bathroom, slipping out of all my clothes except my underwear and getting ready for bed.
Unlike the night before in the cramped bunker, this bed was more than big enough for the two of us, so I could climb in without disturbing her.
Though she said we would talk that night, I had no intention of waking her.
We could wait until the morning, when she’d had a chance to rest.
However, when I returned to the bedroom, a lamp on the bedside table had been switched on, its gentle light creating a warm glow that illuminated the woman sitting up in her pajamas, hair tousled from sleep, smiling at me.My breath caught in an involuntary stutter.
Even after all these years, she was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
Though she didn’t seem upset, I still had to apologize. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. Cinder did,” she said with a soft laugh. “She felt you nearby and wouldn’t leave me alone.”
She pulled back the covers next to her and I wasted no time in settling into the empty space and leaning back against the headboard beside her. “Cinder is your wolf? That’s a pretty name.”
“She thinks so.” Amanda’s eyes twinkled in the lamplight, full of amusement and warmth. “What’s your wolf’s name?”
The excited howl inside my head made me wince.
“Hunter. He’s losing his mind right now because we’re talking about him.”
This was a conversation we should have had a long time ago, things we should have known about each other as mates, but better late than never.
That went for everything about our relationship, including the way her body curled into mine as she relaxed, the warmth of her skin branding me. My pulse thrummed beneath her fingertips as she traced an absentminded pattern against my stomach, each touch sending heat swirling through my veins.
My arm circled her, pulling her even closer, and beneath the covers, my cock began to swell.
“How did the meeting go?” she murmured.
“If I go into detail, we’ll be up all night,” I warned her. “But it went well. We have some training to do with the men tomorrow but I’m feeling good about it. We’ll be ready.”
“That’s good.” She inhaled deeply, breathing in my scent, and my cock jerked, blood pumping fast. “Did Leo seem okay?”
“Um, yes?” The answer came out as a question because I had no idea why she was asking. “Shouldn’t he have?”
“Of course,” she lied, unconvincingly. “I was just curious.”
As I thought back to Leo in the meeting, I couldn’t remember anything that seemed off, but I did remember his strange behaviour earlier.
“Although, now that you mention it, he had kind of a weird reaction when we brought the men into the territory. I have no idea what caused it. He said he was fine but he clearly wasn’t. Do we need to be worried about him?”
“Not at all.” Those words had the ring of truth. “He’s a good man.”
Hunter growled in my mind. Why are you talking about other men? Get back to her wolf.
I didn’t want to talk about her wolf any more than I wanted to talk about Leo, but I did have something I desperately wanted to discuss.
Before I could get the words out, though, she spoke again. “I wonder why some people’s mate bonds are simple and straightforward while other ones are so complicated.”
How she made the leap from talking about Leo to wondering about complex mate bonds, I had no clue, but since that was exactly what I wanted to talk about, I didn’t complain.
“I don’t think there’s a reason. Luck, maybe? It’s like asking why some people are smarter than others, or prettier.” My hand curled up to brush her hair behind her ear, my thumb softly stroking her cheek.
“I don’t know if those are exactly the same thing,” she protested. “People can study to be smarter, and makeup can make them prettier.”
“And people can reject their mate bond,” I pointed out, treading carefully onto that subject.
“They can make it go away if it’s too much trouble.
But if you work at it, if you have to fight to make it work, I think you appreciate it more than if it came easily.
Maybe it even makes it stronger in the end. ”
She pressed her face against my skin, as if she could climb inside it and find peace there. I knew the feeling. “I wish we could start over. Go back to that night and do it all differently.”
How many nights had I spent lying in pain, wishing for the same thing? A week ago, I would have agreed with her whole-heartedly, but over the past few days, my perspective had shifted. “I don’t.”
Instantly, her head lifted off my shoulder and she turned to face me, confusion written all over her beautiful face. “What?”
“I don’t wish that,” I repeated, holding her gaze in the soft lamplight.
“It would have been easier, certainly. And we would have been happy, I don’t doubt that for a second.
But I would never have fully appreciated a moment like this, holding my mate as we talked about our day, would never have seen it for the miracle it is, if I hadn’t spent so long dreaming about it, convinced it would never happen. ”
She blinked as she processed that, her eyes still full of uncertainty as they searched mine.
“Besides,” I added, “I think we’ve learned that wishing to fix something isn’t always the best solution.”
A reluctant smile crept across her lips as she conceded that point.
“If you accept me now, Amanda, I’ll know that it’s not just because of the mate bond.
We’ve both had seven years to see what life apart would be like.
And every day of those seven years, I chose you.
I chose to wait for you, and to hope even when hoping seemed pointless.
And that’s far more powerful to me than any wish could ever be. ”
Her smile grew more understanding, more radiant, and her head bobbed in a gentle nod. “I wish I could say the same, but I think I held onto our bond more out of stubbornness than hope.”
“There you go wishing again,” I teased her, leaning down to place a soft kiss on her forehead. I would never take that opportunity for granted either. “Your stubbornness is part of what I love about you. Without your stubbornness, I would have died today. You just refused to let it happen.”
At the reminder, her smile dimmed, just a little. “I was so scared that I’d lost you, Troy. Lost you before I even really had you.”
“You have me,” I promised. “You’ve had me since the first time I saw you, and even if I don’t survive the bullet a second time…”
“Don’t say that,” she tried to cut me off, but I placed a gentle finger against her lips so she’d let me finish.
“Even if I don’t survive, I will always be yours. That’s never been in any doubt.”
Our gazes held, her lips soft and full against my finger, the air thick with promise.
And then she said the most beautiful words I’d ever heard in my life.
“I’m yours too. I want to be yours. I accept you as my mate.”