The Royal Alpha, & Loyal Luna

40. Things Happen, People Change .

Grey's POV

She looked so different. Her hair was the same, the feel of her skin was the same, her face was hers. But there was something.. more, even more prominent than what it was before. Was it the wulphed? No. Was it death at her own hands? No.

Her body was hers, but more muscular, toned. She wasn't the amateur pup she'd started out to be. No, she had evolved into something much greater. And her eyes, the color.. or rather, colors.. changed again. And yet, for what felt like once in a long while, she had looked at me, if for only but a moment, like she had before.

"Wake up." I had arranged to be firm, to make my demands and even pull rank, if necessary. But all of that had left my voice the moment she stirred. "It's time for you to wake up." I wanted to touch her, I hadn't, in respect to her outrage before, even allowing the vampire to carry her in after our encounter with bat shit boy. But I was antsy, anxious even, to feel her again.

"I want to believe I'm awake, but it seems too damn good to be true. So let me sleep, wolf boy."

I closed my eyes, a sigh of relief filling the air I'm sure she could hear, and an overwhelming build up behind my lids involuntary began to spill over.

"You're back to me." It was all I could muster in the moment.

She slowly sat up, curiosity tinging the air around her as well as static-like power that had not been there before. When her two-colored eyes landed on mine, she sprang upright like a seasoned chicken.

I could hear her voice wash over my mind, words reflecting my own.

'Of course you'd bring me back.'

"I always do." I reached my arm out, wanting her to do nothing more but to fill the space in between us and grab ahold of it. "But today, sweetheart, we're both not going back home. Not yet."

She stared openly at me for a moment, whether she was uncertain or contemplating running, I wasn't sure. But one thing was for sure, I smelled no fear. Another thing for certain, what I did feel oozing off of her, was far beyond anything I'd ever felt before.

After a brief moment, she looked away, using her hair to hide the side of her face as she looked to the window "Why.. are you here?"

"I thought you'd be happy to see me."

She turned, looking at me with a smirk. "The last time I seen you.. I was.. we were.. I'm not myself."

I sighed, dropping my hand and closing the distance between us myself. And though she didn't move away, I could physically see her tense up. I took a careful, slow seat on the opposite side of the bed.

"I haven't been myself since you left, Nova."

The moment I said her name, her eyes shone like flashing lights, violet and gold as it overtook the blue, dancing about as they looked back and forth between my own light brown ones.

"I can't.." She gripped the covers. "I won't apologize.. I did what I had to, I had to leave or I.. I would've hurt you, the pack, someone important.. The wulphed-"

"Hasn't left your system, I know. I can.. still smell it."

"I'm unpredictable right now, Greyden, even more than I was before. I may not sound like that batshit crazy lady I was before leaving the packhouse, but she's there.. in me.. all of the time. At.. all times."

"She's taken them, Nova."

For a moment, she was confused.. and then slowly, etching across her face was just what she had told me. That batshit crazy lady was definitely still in there.

"I'm going.. to EAT her fucking HEART!" She turned to me with mad, wide eyes, hair whipping wildly across her face.

"I won't stop you."

She looked at me as if I were toying with her. "We felt you leave. And I see it in your eyes.. how you look for me, so much so that you're looking through me.. My plug threatened to get pulled and you left me to flatline.. alone.."

We?

"That's not true."

"Isn't it? You look at me with nothing but pity and guilt and you have nothing to be guilty for, nothing but loving me when not even my mother could. But you won't see that, you won't see me unless I'm back to whatever I was before. Unless I'm back to being the annoying little bitch that depends on you just to get around Aureate Moon territory. My territory."

"You were Nova, perfectly Nov-"

"No! I was weak, afraid, pitied and patronized like you're treating me right now! But you can't, because now.. I'm not perfectly anything!" She laughed as if the joke was on me. "I'll never be that Nova again. Not after what's happened, what will happen.. what I've done.."

"Things happen, people change. I know that better than anyone. And you're right, I left because I was afraid that I wouldn't know you when I looked at you, when I opened my mind to you." I closed my eyes. "You.. killed someone. And that is a burden heavy to bare. I didn't know how I would handle.. your change after that."

"And didn't I just witness the same of you? Difference between you and I, Greyden, is that you wished someone looked at you with pity in their eyes, when I, I never did. I don't want your pity anymore, I don't want you to look at me like the girl I was, and I damn sure don't want you to look at me like how you're looking at me right now!"

"What do you want from me? To hate you?! I could never hate you, blood on your hands or not."

"You cross me while going after Minette and I can't promise that blood won't be your own."

Even I knew she was bluffing, but I wouldn't want to see where she'd put me if I stood in her way. She'd find a way to seal me beyond the gates of hell if I tried to stop her. "I told you, I won't be the one stopping you. If you don't fucking kill her, I'll claw out an artery of hers myself."

"We're warning you, Greyden."

"You and your flanks?" But I knew better than to think she was referring to Kalen and Gabe, she was speaking from somewhere deep inside her. Maybe even beyond her wolf.

She hummed in response. "Something like that." She eyed me warily. "Inner flanks, you could say."

"I'll burn that flea infested, shithole of a packhouse down for what she's done to you."

"No."

"Nova-"

"You'll prove it to me." She stood from the bed, walking over to face me. "You want me to believe you'll have my back after you turned yours on me at the first sight of me changing.. then you'll prove it to me now."

If this was a challenge, she should damn well know I wouldn't miss a beat to accept it. "Anything you need of me."

"If Baptiste gets in my way.."

My eyes reflecting, a tight smile stretched across my face. "He won't come close to touching you, of course. Anything else?"

"I'll let you know when we get there." She smiled, but it held no humor. It was a dry, sad smile had you known what such a beautiful face had gone through. "But you won't be burning my packhouse down. No one will, but me."