Beatha (completed book 7 of the blood moon saga)

14

To my surprise he orders one for himself with the same design on the back and he tells him to save the Logan so if anyone else wanted one they could get one. When we left we decided to go for breakfast at a small diner.

"When did you come up with the name?"

He asks, taking a sip of his coffee from the seat opposite me, he pushes his hand through his messy hair and away from his face.

"Well the estate was called old ridge estate, our pack is surrounded with pine trees and your pack is the sa-"

He puts his finger up and frowns

"-it's your pack to, you might be Arthur's Luna but your also mine"

I hadn't thought of that before, why hadn't I even considered that. I decided to think about it later

"Ok well our pack is also covered in pine trees then the estate between us linking us is a ridge so I thought pine ridge. I love it but do you?"

He watches me closely, his eyes trail over my face like he's taking my face in for the first time. His eyes glimmer in the early morning sun making his green eyes pop against his beautiful tanned complexion.

"I love it. I'm excited to run the pack from our house I'm sick of running back and forth"

"Why don't you just start when we get back, do what you need to do"

I answer by taking a drink from my own cup, he taps his chin to think about it, honestly I would have done it a long time ago if I knew he had been struggling.

"It's because our needs have been coming second to Arthur all this time, we haven't even been on a date before baby. I don't mind and I know you don't but we haven't been thinking about ourselves this entire time. If you think about it this is like our first real date"

I frowned at him for being inside my head again but I chose to ignore it because I know it keeps him distracted so instead I decided to play with him.

"Considering i've never been on a real date before, I really hope a trip to the doctors doesn't counts as a date"

He frowns and grabs my hand squeezing it.

"You have never gone on a date? Ever?"

I roll my eyes at him

"Seriously Luca, Arthur was my first kiss"

"Ok well when we get home I'm taking you on a date and it's going to be amazing"

We spend the rest of the morning walking around the small town hand in hand, chatting about ourselves for a change and talking about how we see our future, our hopes and dreams and it's nice. Really really nice.

As we get back in the car luca sighs and pulls his hands down his face. I grab his arm and squeeze it.

"You ok?"

He sighs again and looks at me sadly.

"Yes, I'm just wondering how to handle him. I'm pissed he's been keeping stuff from us both but also pissed he was keeping the rogue attacks a secret"

I frown

"What else has been happening in the pack that I should know about?"

He rolls his shoulders and pulls out a smoke and hands me one, he lites his own then turns on the car.

"I don't know? The rogue attacks have been higher since you arrived, the rumour mill was going wild for ages, but they shut that down fast enough. Thankfully my pack has more sense then to say anything like that"

"Like what?"

His eyebrow shoot up and he growls shaking his head pulling out onto the road

"Damn why the hell are they keeping this from you if anything they should keep it from Arthur, the pack was gossiping saying stuff like you wanted the pack and me and you hitched a plan to take down Arthur and poison him then you take over and we merge both packs, but after your hen do they mostly stopped and if they didn't the woman fought in your favour"

I growled and clenched my fists

"What a pack of disrespectful bastards! If anything like that comes up again please tell me. It's wrong that we didn't address that. It could have been easily put to bed. What else?"

He shrugs and sighs looking over at me worried, I focus on him and our bond

'Why would they keep this from her? She's so strong. Why do they not think she can handle it when she clearly can?'

'I wonder does she know she officially owns all the businesses, real estate, packland already? That he had it all signed over to her and out in her name?'

"No I did not know that!!! What the fuck since when? Did I not need to sign anything?"

He looks a little shocked at my outburst but doesn't say anything about it, instead answering me.

"No, all the accounts are in your name to, we have people managing all that stuff and we are not really involved anymore but anything that was in Arthur's name is now in yours"

I pince the bridge of my nose in frustration, seriously what the fuck.

"Great so he just goes off to die and leaves me with all this responsibility with zero warning. What kind of fucked up is that? Fuck I swear I'm about to lose my last fucking nerve with him. We have 4 weeks left with him and we don't know how sick he's going to be and yet he thinks it's ok to lie to me? not tell me things? hell, to not tell you things? Like him being sick all the time he should have at least told you!
I get it, it's maybe the last thing he can handle on his own but does he not realise how hard this is? To live with a man I love and watch him slowly die in front of me. I just don't know how I'm going to continue doing this. It all feels like too much and every instinct inside me is telling me to run because if he can't trust me with the truth after everything I left behind to be his damn maid or nurse. I was the beta of the biggest pack in the world and I chose to follow him and respect him. I just feel pissed that he didn't give me that same respect"

He takes my hands and kisses it, I feel the tears pool at the corner of my eyes, I try and fail to blink back the pain. He grabs my leg and starts to move it up and down my thigh. I concentrate on his touch and I push all other problems out and focus on it allowing me to calm down.

The rest of the ride is silent, I'm terrified of how I'm going to react to him when I get home. When the car stops Luca looks at me and pulls me out of my seat and onto his lap, he pushes hair from my face and tips my chin slightly so he can see into my eyes.

"Remember I love you and I'm here for you, if you ever feel how you felt this morning come to me. Please don't hurt yourself because your my lifeline, to see you hurt, hurts me and I need you"

He puts his finger to his lips and points to his head. I concentrate on him, the feel of our bond.

'Don't tell him you can hear me like this, if it ever gets too much just think it and I'll be here to listen. You won't need to pull me away or anything. This is for just you and me to keep us both sane ok?'

"Ok I promise"

He kisses me softly again and I moan into his lips then pull back, he opens the door and helps me out taking my hand in his and kissing it then he leads me inside and up to our room, Arthur was in bed watching tv. As I walked in he paused the tv and looked at my hand and a guilty look passed over his features.

"Listen aspen-"

I put my finger up and walk to the deck

"-just let me have a joint first"

I take a seat on the deck and turn the chair so I'm facing the bedroom, Luca walks into the room and sits by my feet and lites another joint. Arthur gets out of bed stretching, he rubs his hand through his messy black hair and takes a seat in front of us.

"I want the truth and I mean the entire truth, everything you have been keeping from me since the day we met"

Arthur frowns then realisation crosses his features and he growls at Luca, I growl back standing to my feet

"No you don't get to growl at him! You don't get to be pissed at him for choices you made now talk! Do it now or I swear the next 4 weeks are going to be extremely quiet because I won't say a damn word to you again"

His eyes snap from Lucas to mine, fear and guilt written on his face. He rubs his hands down his face and looks at me.

"I'm sorry ok, I didn't tell you about the attacks because you have had enough going on!"

"Yeah well for the last 7 years I have been beta of the largest pack in the world, I ran drills, training, patrols. If anything I could have helped! Why would you keep that from me? It makes no sense"

"Because I wanted you all to myself"

He stands up and opens his arms clearly uncomfortable with telling me the real reason.

"I wanted you to be by my side spending as much time as you can with me. I wanted you aspen and if I could take Lucas chores away I would do that to! I'd take them so he wouldn't leave my side. Not until I'm gone. I don't know what's waiting for me when I die but I'm certainly not a good person so I don't know where I'll end up so I wanted to make the most of the time I do have with you both! I mean is that so wrong?"

His response makes me falter a little. In a way it makes perfect sense and I feel a little better but that's not the only lie he has told me.

"Ok, so that's why you avoided pack stuff, what about signing everything over to me without telling me? That's a big deal Arthur! What was going to happen? You drop dead and some random man walks up to me and says hey here's the keys to his castle figure it the fuck out??"

His eyes blaze at Luca again and I stand in between them protectively. There is no way in hell he's putting this shitshow on my fated.

"Honestly yes basically, I didn't want to have the argument of you not deserving it all and bla bla bla, when I know you do deserve it and your my wife now anyway everything would be in your name legally!! So basically yes I drop dead and then you get handed the keys to my castle it's not how I'd fraze it but hey whatever!"

I growl pissed. My mind goes to Luca, Luca touching my thigh. I think about the feeling of our skin and slowly my body starts to relax a little.

"And what about lying to us about being sick? We could have helped you! We are the ones looking after you! We have a right to know what the hell is going on especially if it's making you weaker!"

He sighs pinching the bridge of his nose and he sits down again a little wobbly on his feet. My hands reach out to him but I drop it when I realise he's ok.

"I honestly don't know, it's not like I was running to the bathroom and locking the doors so you wouldn't find out, yes I didn't tell you but that's because I try not to think abou-"

Luca stands up and growls at him, now it was his eyes blazing

"Bull fucking shit Arthur! We had a right to know and that's a lame ass excuse! If you told us it was happening we would have helped you, or let you deal with it on your own with our support from the sidelines. Do you realise what that lie did to her?"

Luca unwraps the bandage from my hand, it's starting to stitch itself back together but it looked horrible

"28 stitches, just trying to get the fact that you didn't trust her enough out of her head, she basically broke the tree. If you lie to her again and she gets hurt again I'll fucking kick you into next week. I love you man, I really do but she's the one that's going to need to survive when your gone and you lying to her doesn't fucking help!"

Arthur studied my hand obviously seeing our Ailm marks for the first time and he raked both hands down his face.

"I'm sorry to both of you. You're both right and I'm sorry. I won't keep anything from you again and I'm sorry your hurting that's not what I want"

I sigh and sag down onto the seat and take a few more drags of the joint.

"Are we ok?"

He asks us both, I nod and give him a small smile. I'm unsure if it's genuine but I do know I want this fight to be over.

"Yep"

Luca nudges his shoulder playfully popping the p the end of 'yep' after that I pull my jeans off and climb into bed stealing the remote so I can watch something.
------

1 week later... 3 weeks to go..

After our fight the week prior everything had gotten better, and was actually even better then before the secrets were spilled. All fears that the mate bond would disappear evaporated. Our love for Arthur was much stronger than a mate bond and I think that's why it stayed firmly in place.

Arthur was still having bad days and good days, he rested on the bad and we made the most of the good ones.

My bond with Luca was amazing, I'm not sure why we were so connected to each other already, it was easy to read his mind now and he seemed to spend his time in my head. Apparently I'm relaxing and my thoughts are funny, distracting Luca from the world around us.

I didn't bother blocking him out because for one iv nothing to hide and he was the other half of me so in my own mind I believed he had every right to be in there.

Arthur was in bed asleep, yesterday and today had been a little overwhelming and if he wasn't so ill I'd probably have brought him home already.

Me and Luca lay on the deck watching the sun go down, but all thoughts of that went out the window when we heard spluttering and coughing coming from the bedroom. Both of us instantly got up and ran towards him.

Arthur was laying on the side of the bed, He was coughing blood all over the floor and even more spilled out of his nose. We both froze in shock, just a few seconds ago he had been asleep peacefully and now he's like this?

Luca is the first to respond he grabbed Arthur from bed and lifted him into his arms

"Get the weed, his medication, the phones and a bin we need to get him to the hospital"

He took off down the stairs leaving me probably resembling a deer in headlights

Beatha
Move it now!

Her words kicked me into gear, I ran and got the basics out of the bathroom, grabbing the weed, a bin and a towel. I scanned the area and decided I had enough to do me and anything else could be posted home.

I took off down the stairs and jumped into the back of the car where Arthur was laying. I placed a blanket on my knee and he rested his head on it, the small tin bin by my knee in case he needed to puke. I stuffed a joint in his mouth and lit it up he sucked on it like it was oxygen

Honestly I should probably be worried by the sheer amount of weed he smokes but an idiot could see the benefits of it, he's like a completely different person after a few short pulls on the magic stick or that's what I call it now.

Arthur sucked a few more drags then hands it back to me, I take a few drags then I hold it until he needs more

"How do you feel?"

"The sparks are distracting so that's good"

I continue to rub my hand down his face and over his head trying to take the pain from him. I'd do anything to see the boy that I hid from that first day. Within a matter of weeks he has shrunk in size, losing so much weight he looks like a different person, his muscles were still there but nothing like they were.

He starts to shiver so I heat my body up and throw a blanket over him. Soon he's sleeping soundly, he wakes a few times during the ride with nosebleeds but then smokes until he passes out again.