Filed To Story: Chasing the Rejected Luna's Heart (Clara & Liam) Book PDF Free
There was a knock at the door, and I felt another twinge of anxiety. Our conversation had done the exact opposite of settling my nerves.”It’s time,” the guard bellowed from the other side of the door.”Duty calls,” I sighed, lifting the hem of my robes.
Clara gave me a playful swat before opening the door. I followed the guard out of the room down the back passageway of the reception hall, and as we drew close enough to pick up the chatter of the guests waiting in the main room, my nerves spiked. It was like they had been waiting for this moment to surface all along.
I took a deep breath.
You can do this, Lavinia. No big deal. Just the most important day of your life.
Damn, I really needed to get better at my internal pep talks.
The reception hall was an essential part of the pack’s central district. As the largest pack in the entire region of North America, regular functions and a complex pack culture were the keys to keeping us united. Otherwise, we would’ve broken into several smaller, warring factions decades ago. It was what had taken out most of the other mega packs in the region, and as my father always liked to say, “Tradition is the key to stability.”
He was probably right about that. He was right about most things, even if he was an ass about it.
The hall was usually decorated to impress diplomatic visitors from other packs, but as the great doors opened and I saw the sea of candles strewn all across the room, I realized they had gone all out. I had been to a few other mating ceremonies, but none of them were so…extra.
One day, as the future Luna of the pack, I was going to be expected to be a glorified party planner and event coordinator, on top of everything else. I pitied the poor souls whose mating ceremonies ended up in my hands.
There were even a few representatives from other packs in attendance for diplomatic reasons, or so I heard. I had never actually met any of them more than in passing or while sitting quietly at my father’s side during a formal meeting, but this day wasn’t about me. It wasn’t even really about the guys, either. Until they took the reins of the pack, we were all just shiny royals to hold up as a glamorous example to the rest of the pack. A monarchy of beasts in designer clothing.
I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. As I walked down the aisle, I noticed the admiring gazes of the younger she-wolves who were probably dreaming of their own impending nuptials. And why not? Most of them would be allowed to pick their own mates, or at least have a significant say in the matter. The fact that I actually didn’t hate the guys was a privilege. Even so, if it was entirely up to me, I wouldn’t have been doing it this soon.
I took another deep breath and continued on toward the stage set up at the end of the hall. It was what I had always considered a stage, anyway, where the Lunar Church held every important ceremony or other religious events. Tonight was just another example.
There they were. Liam, Damon, and Jax were all waiting for me at the end of the aisle, and even though it still didn’t feel real, the sight of them settled my nerves a little.
Liam was the first to make eye contact, and his gentle, approving smile immediately soothed my frayed nerves. He was always a comforting presence, and while I was sure he had to have anxieties of his own, he had never once shown it. I had never actually seen a guy as beautiful as Liam, and I did mean beautiful in a literal sense. With long, fiery hair with threads of gold and vivid green eyes that contrasted it so sharply they almost looked supernatural, he was striking, to say the least. He was the only person whose complexion was as pale as mine, but it wasn’t dotted with the freckles I had always hated. A little less so when he traced their constellations with his fingertip and remarked on how cute he thought they were.
Then there was Damon. He was always stoic, almost comically so at times. And he looked the part, standing at just shy of seven feet tall with a muscular build that would’ve made any bodybuilder envious. He was intimidating even for a shifter. He had black hair and dark brown eyes so intense they resembled pools of ink. They somehow darkened even more when he was angry, and as rare as that was, it was not something anyone wanted to encounter. As my father’s chief sentinel, he was formidable at keeping rogue alphas in line. No one wanted to get on his bad side, but I was willing to venture I was one of the few people who had ever seen a side of him that was even less common.
He could be gentle at times, surprisingly so. When we were younger, I had run away after my mother’s funeral, and while the entire pack had been searching, he was the one who had managed to track me up onto the top of an old barn on the edge of the territory. He didn’t turn me in or anything. He just sat there next to me and put his arm around my shoulders, letting me cry until I was finally ready to let him take me back home.
Finally, there was Jax. He was even more of an enigma than Damon, even if he wasn’t nearly as austere in demeanor. It was an act, though. The whole charming extrovert routine would have made him a shoo-in for pack alpha, if he wasn’t already part of a marked triad, but he had a dark side. More than most wolves realized. He was willing to do whatever it took to win, and more than a few of his packmates bore the scars that were proof he could fight dirty when the occasion called for it.
Of course, what Jax determined to be a justification for fighting dirty was a bit different from a normal person’s standard.
When his eyes mine, his expression didn’t change. He looked down, unaffected as usual.
Damn him, but he wore the apathy well.
Jax was tall and muscular like the others, even if he wasn’t as elegant as Liam or as burly and intimidating as Damon, at least not on the surface. He had dirty blond hair and piercing blue eyes that were dangerously easy to lose yourself in. And I had, on more than one occasion. There was no sense denying it. He was certainly onto me, not that he had ever made any attempt to return that interest or really acknowledge it in any capacity.