Filed To Story: Chasing the Rejected Luna's Heart (Clara & Liam) Book PDF Free
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Clara asked, looking over my shoulder as we both stood in front of the ovular standing mirror in the reception hall dressing room. I was dressed in the ornate white gown that was traditional for a she-wolf of high standing within the pack to wear on her mating day.
It was similar to a human wedding dress in color only. The gown was more like a set of ancient court robes with long sleeves that billowed out, hanging down even lower than my cobalt tresses, gathered half-up in a loose braid falling down my back. The fact that I had refused to dye it back to my usual dark brown for my mating day had sent my father into a fit, but it was far from the first time I had failed to conform to his lofty expectations of how the future Luna of the pack should behave, dress, and think.
It was a small act of defiance that wouldn’t lead to anything, really. Just enough to let me pretend I had some semblance of autonomy over my destiny.
The truth was, my fate had been written for me from before I was even born. As my father’s only child, and a daughter at that, my existence was practically a slight against him. It meant one day soon, he would have to hand over the reins to my mates, and the seat of alpha would fall from the hands of a Carter for the first time in six generations.
Shifter packs could all be a little…traditional. Typical euphemism for backward as hell, but who was counting?
Our pack, however, took it to a whole other level. I was expected to justify my existence and the cumulative cost of my room and board for the last twenty-one years by proving a worthy mate to at least continue the bloodline.
Today was a day I had been waiting for my entire life in a sense. Now that it was finally here, I didn’t feel anything like I had expected. And I wasn’t even sure what I expected, exactly. Justsomething. Something other than the sense of vague anxiety and resignation that had made it impossible to keep anything down this morning.”Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” I answered.
Clara’s gaze lingered on my reflection in the mirror. “You know, you look exactly like those old pictures of your mom on her mating day. You have her eyes and that alabaster complexion. The freckles, too.”
I blew a puff of air through my nostrils. “I guess,” I said, smoothing the robes down over my torso. Mom had been tall and willowy, while I was shorter and a little bit soft around my curves. The robes fell loose enough to hang off my shoulders, but the tight red sash was fitted, cinching in at the waist, and the thin white fabric skimmed my body closely the rest of the way down, outlining the exaggerated curve of my hips. I wasn’t strong and fit like most she-wolves, which was to be expected, considering I had barely even been allowed outside once I hit puberty and was expected to attend to more “refined” matters than running with the boys as I had done throughout my childhood.
Clara gave a wistful sigh. “It must be nice to have such a glamorous destiny.”
I gave her a look, because she knew full well exactly how I felt about my “glamorous” life.”It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” I assured her for the thousandth time. Clara belonged to a good family. In fact, her father was among my father’s most trusted betas. He had a high rank within the pack and a good deal of authority. Theirs was one of the nicer homes in the suburban confines of what humans probably would’ve considered a commune, albeit a luxurious one. Of course, ours was the biggest mansion on the block, complete with a large staff who were there to respond to our every beck and call.
From an outside perspective, I guess I could kind of understand why she would envy my life. And yeah, there were parts of it that were nice. I had learned early on, though, that the bars of gold that had surrounded me my entire life were meant to keep me in, not the other way around. I hadn’t even been allowed to attend regular schools like the rest of my packmates. I was tutored instead by private instructors who were tasked with making me an acceptable socialite my future mates could parade around just like my father did.”You shouldn’t be so somber,” she scolded. “Every girl in the pack would give anything for the chance to have not one butthree gorgeous mates, and you act like it’s a death sentence.”
I sighed. “It’s not the mates I have a problem with.”
The truth was, Jax, Damon, and Liam were among the only things that made this evening less terrifying and more nerve-inducing. We hadn’t been close, not since our paths had diverted after the relatively happy childhood we had all shared, but it was better than being mated to strangers from other packs. That was a fate that usually befell the daughters of pack alphas who didn’t have the privilege of being only children. The guys were the closest thing to siblings I had ever had, which might have been weird if they hadn’t been practical strangers for the last few years.
I told myself the distance was nothing more than the propriety the pack demanded. It was one thing for lower-ranking shifters to intermingle with the opposite sex, but as always, a different set of rules applied to me.
The truth was, deep down, I knew it was more than that. This night would bind the four of us forever, irrevocably. For me, it was just a matter of trading what was essentially ownership from my father to my mates, but for them, strong alpha males tethered only by the extraordinary bond that united them, it was a different kind of shackle–an end of the era of unbridled freedom strong young males from important families took for granted, along with everything else it afforded them.”When was the last time you saw them, anyway?” Clara asked, tilting her head.
It was an innocent enough question, but it felt like a loaded one. I shrugged. “Liam came by the house last week to give a report to my dad.”
I fiddled absently with the wedding ring hanging from a chain around my neck. It was the only real memento I had of Mom, other than the pictures Dad kept locked away somewhere. After her death, it felt like he tried to erase every part of her from memory, but when I rubbed my thumb over the dark blue stone, the reminder was enough to make me feel like she was still here. Part of her, anyway.
She’d always talked so dreamily about my mating day. About how she was going to feel watching me walk down the aisle to be claimed by my Prince Charmings. Whenever I used to ask her about her mating day, she would get this strangely melancholic look in her eyes, so I had eventually just stopped asking altogether. Hers and Dad’s mating had been arranged, of course, and unlike me and the guys, there had never been the foundation of friendship between them to make things a little easier.
In that sense, I considered myself lucky and felt guilty for even thinking to complain. It could be so much worse. It couldalways be worse.
Clara gave me a sympathetic look, which was far from comforting since it meant the ambivalence of my intended mates was as obvious to everyone else as it was to me. “Well, I’m sure things will be different once you’re marked,” she said with a confidence I could only envy. A mating mark was supposed to unite mates in theory, but as my parents proved, it was far from foolproof. It could just as easily be a prison as a bond.”Yeah,” I said, not sounding even half as convinced as I had hoped. “I’m sure it will.”