Chapter 101 - Their Cursed

Gentry

“Remi won’t answer her phone. Just give me the key, Gen. She won’t care!” Pip whined. I sat at my desk, running my hands over my face. My sister came in this morning wanting to borrow one of Remi’s blouses or something. When she wouldn’t let it go, I told her to ask Remi’s permission. She tried calling her for the last few hours, but I guess Remi wasn’t answering.

“Just find something in your own closet, Pip!” I argued.

“Come on! This is really important. He wants me to meet his parents before he marks me!” she continued. I sighed; I knew this was important to her. She had been going on about it for days. I also knew how badly she wanted Ryker to mark her. I was pleased that she was happy with her second chance mate. I was also content with the person it was.

“Alright, fine. Let’s go. But I swear if Remi gets mad, you are taking all the blame,” I told her contritely. She beamed.

“You’re the best, Gen!” she squealed. I stood up, grabbing the spare key to their room from my drawer. Pip skipped along with me the entire way to their room. I hoped everything was going okay on their vacation because I needed them to start working again when they got back. They were going to have to figure out the whole work-life balance aspect here, but their assistants and I couldn’t do everything ourselves.

I unlocked the door, and Pip rushed in, going straight to the closet. I waited by the door, scrolling through my phone. “Gen,” Pip called, her voice uncertain. I looked up to see her coming over to me slowly. I knitted my eyebrows. “Isn’t this the thing Remi is supposed to be wearing all the time?”

Pip held out her hand with the broach lying in her palm. “Shit.”

Remi

Calder didn’t give Cullen and me much time to come down from everything when he came in and picked me up out of bed. He carried me out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him. His mouth attacked mine as the door closed, and we were quickly falling onto the couch.

-

I laid on top of Calder’s chest, panting heavily. He was also breathing heavily with a drunken smile on his handsome face. I lifted my head to look at my mark on his shoulder. This feeling of pride swelled in me. Calli was ecstatic. I couldn’t even begin to describe how whole I felt. I ran my fingers along Calder’s side, and he hummed.

We were supposed to be leaving tomorrow morning, and I was a little sad to be leaving such a happy place. There was a slight nagging in the back of mind that things wouldn’t change, and they were about to go right back to burying themselves in work.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Calder asked me, confused.

“I’m worried about going back home,” I told him honestly. His arms snaked around me tightly.

“It won’t be the same. I promise. We learned our lesson,” he comforted.

“Will you let me help you?” I asked. I felt him push his head back to look down at me more.

“What do you mean?”

“Will you let me help you with things? I know there are two of you, but clearly, there was still too much to do. I want to help… Then you won’t be as busy, and we could even spend time together….” I chewed my lip as I looked up into his eyes. He was thinking about something.

“Yes. You are going to be Luna, and there is no reason you can’t help us. I am sure Gentry can help us figure out the best way to include you,” he said smiling. He leaned forward just enough to rub his nose along mine. I closed my eyes; I loved when they did this.

“When will you let us try to have a pup?” he whispered. I opened my eyes. His were serious and pleading. I bit my lip; I wasn’t sure. I was happy now that they had apologized and tried to make it up to me. I was elated by their proposal and getting to mark them finally. But I also needed to know for sure things were going to be better. Calder brought his hands to my cheeks. “The decision is yours. But, baby, I can’t stop thinking about it. Imagining you pregnant with my pup is driving me insane. I’m just asking for a little mercy.”

“I need things to be better, Calder. I don’t think….” I sighed. “I couldn’t survive that again. And I’m not sure I am ready….”

“That’s fair. We can wait until you are ready,” he said quietly.

“Can we celebrate Christmas? Pip and I sort of already planned everything last week, so there wouldn’t be much to do-”

“Absolutely,” he cut me off with a big grin. He kissed me softly before continuing. “Nothing in the Realm would please me more than to do exactly that if it makes you happy.” Cullen emerged from the bedroom, interrupting our small moment.

“Remi, where is the broach the witch gave you?”

-

When we arrived home, everyone was out front to greet us. Cassius and Nicole pulled me into bone-crushing hugs before they greeted their sons. Gentry handed Cullen my broach, and he promptly attached it to my shirt. I hadn’t meant to leave it behind, but it sort of went out of my head after everything surrounding Thanksgiving.

That night, Calder and Cullen wanted to talk about them returning to work. They couldn’t ignore their responsibilities forever, and I didn’t want them to. I assured them I would be okay as long as they weren’t going to fall back into old habits. Gentry had the idea to promote another warrior to help with leading training every day so the twins could be with me more in the mornings.

As we settled back into our normal lives, things were much better. After a week, the twins, Gentry, and Gentry’s father decided to promote Ryker to assist Gentry’s father. The twins told me they would still go training a couple of mornings a week, but I didn’t mind. Pip moved in with Ryker, and they were perfect for each other. Ryker was a gentleman, and I never saw him doing anything but watching her with a smile. A couple of days after we got home, she came to have lunch with Nicole and me, sporting a fresh mating mark.

When Nicole saw the rings on my hand, she asked if her sons had proposed. When I told her about what happened, she stormed off to their offices. I was confused as I followed her worriedly. Lucky for her, they were together in Calder’s office. She promptly berated them for not telling her they wanted to propose to their mate as a human would so she could research how to throw a wedding. They looked at her with stupefied expressions the entire time. I had to hold back a laugh from behind her at the whole situation. Cassius stopped in the doorway, surprised by the scene unfolding in front of him. He was able to pull Nicole away and calm her down.

For the next two weeks, the twins never missed a single meal. We usually ate lunch together in one of their offices. They would inevitably be talking about the merger most days. I happily listened, ecstatic to be privy to the things that consumed their days. One day they were trying to figure out how to meet with three different packs while also not being gone all day. I tried to tell them they weren’t chained to our pack, but they both shot me down. Eventually, I just suggested they have everyone come to them, and it was like I turned on a light in the room.

After that, I got my first official job as an incoming Luna: host the visiting Alpha’s families. Nicole was happy to help, and it turned out great. It had been a little awkward at first, but it turned out that all the Lunas enjoyed baking. I was able to kill two birds with one stone, and we baked 12 different Christmas cookies in a single day.

It was six days before Christmas, and I was lying against Calder in bed reading a book while he was going over some spreadsheets on his tablet. Cullen and Gentry were off somewhere in the packhouse. My phone pinged with a message from Pip saying that we were all set for tomorrow. We were going to set up a “Christmas tree” made of some tree garland and bulbs since we couldn’t exactly cut down and tree and haul it into the packhouse ourselves. It would have been better even to have a fake tree, but this was more than I had in the Ordinary Realm, so I was delighted.

“Is that Pip?” Calder asked.

“Yea, we are talking about our plans for tomorrow,” I told him.

“And what are those?” Calder asked as he set down his tablet. He brought both his arms around me, cuddling closer.

“We are going to put up our Christmas tree!” I gushed.

“Oh? How are you doing that?”

“Since we don’t have an actual tree, we're going to make a fake one, but it will be close enough. We’re roping Carson in for manual labor as well,” I explained.

“Hmmm…” he trailed off. For some reason, the longer we stayed home, the harder it got to feel them. It worried me a bit. After a minute, he continued, “How set are you to have Christmas here?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if Cullen and I took you to the apartment in the Ordinary Realm?” I turned to face him properly. He looked hopeful.

“Just the three of us?” I asked.

“I know you were planning for everyone, but we sort of thought maybe this year we could just celebrate together. We feel awful for missing your Thanksgiving dinner, so we thought we could make Christmas special together.” His hand came up to tuck my loose hair behind my ear. I gave him a gentle smile. My heart warmed; this was thoughtful and sweet. I nodded my head.

“Sure, let’s go to the Ordinary Realm,” I agreed.

-

Two days later, we loaded our bags into the car alongside the box with the Christmas decorations for the apartment and the other supplies. The twins didn’t know about the matching pajamas yet, but Pip demanded photos. I left the other presents in our room, planning to give them to everyone when we returned. Although they both seemed excited, it also felt like something was bugging both my mates the last couple of days.

We said our goodbyes and headed to the Ordinary Realm. Calder and Cullen planned to go into the office tomorrow for a little while; I was going to decorate the apartment while they worked. We planned to spend the evening and the next day around the city together. Ultimately, we would spend Christmas morning together before heading over to the outreach center to help serve Christmas dinner. We planned to end the night with a quiet dinner back at the apartment before heading home the next morning.

When we got to the apartment, the twins impatiently pulled me to the elevator, saying we would collect the bags later. I didn’t understand what the rush was. When we got close to our floor, they made me stand in front of them.

“Close your eyes,” Cullen said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Just do it!” Calder said.

“Okay, okay,” I agreed. I closed my eyes. When the doors open, they gently guided me forward into the apartment. “When can I open my eyes?” I asked as we stopped. We should have been standing at the end of the foyer looking into the living room.

“Now,” Calder said, his voice full of pride. My eyes fluttered open, and my jaw dropped. The entire apartment looked like a Christmas movie. There was a beautiful, fully decorated tree in the corner. It had tons of twinkling lights, shiny bulbs, garland, and a matching star on top of the tree. There was fake snow along the ledge over the fireplace with green and red candles spaced along it. Three stockings hung perfectly spaced along the ledge with the letters C, R, and C embroidered on them. Christmasy throw pillows were adorning the couch and garland with poinsettias running up the railing on the stairs. It was absolute perfection.

I turned around to Calder and Cullen with tears in my eyes. Their expressions went from excitement to terror in an instant.

“What’s wrong?” Calder asked.

“We wanted to surprise you!” Cullen gasped at the same time.

“It’s perfect!” I sobbed, throwing myself at them. They caught me easily. “Thank you so much. This is amazing.” They hugged me tightly.

“We are so glad you like it, love,” Cullen said, relief evident in his voice.

“Wait, why did you think I didn’t?” I asked, pulling away from them.

“You were crying….” Cullen answered.

“But can’t you feel how happy I am?”

“Actually, no, baby. We haven’t been able to feel you properly for a while….” Calder said.