Chapter 36 After The Storm
Malia's POV
Two days have passed since the blood moon, and Mooncrest College is business as usual.
Class resumes on schedule
Professor Keele talk about pack dynamics and the cycles of the moon like it’s not that they were hunted by corrupted wolves – forreal, not fictive, corrupted wolves right two days ago.
Normal chatter fills the cafeteria: gossip about weekend plans, complaints about homework, and laughter that’s a little too forced but enthusiastic.
It’s surreal.
Maya Torres is gone. Disappeared on the Blood Moon, snatched off by something very much like a monster.
The school email had a simple message: Maya Torres had withdrawn because of family circumstances. We wish her all the best of luck.
That's it? No investigation, no recognition of what actually took place.
Another name added to the growing list of “transfers” that everyone knows aren’t transferring at all.
I sit, listening hardly at all to Professor Keene talk about ancient territorial rivalries in Werewolf History, and all I can think about is the last time I heard Maya’s screams in the night.
Did anyone else hear them? Does anyone else care? Or maybe we're just all pretending, because pretending is less painful than knowing?
When class finally dismisses, I stack my books with shaking fingers. July appears beside me immediately, linking her arm through mine.
“You look like you need caffeine and therapy,” she says. “I like them — in that order.”
"I need a lot of things," I murmur.
“So we’re starting with coffee.” She steers me toward the exit. “Freddy’s already at the car. We’re going to that café in town—the one with the good pastries and with Mooncrest students acting like Sane people.”
“I should probably—”
“Nope. No arguments. You made it through a blood moon and a partial shift that almost killed you. Take an afternoon off .”
I’m too tired to argue.
This little café is exactly what I need—tiny, warm, far too redolent of fresh coffee and cinnamon.
We take a corner booth and within a few minutes Freddy has ordered enough food for a small army.
"Stress eating is valid," he says so help me god, eating a croissant. “And especially after the week we've been through."
"Week? Try semester,” July corrects as she stirs sugar into her latte. "The whole semester's been a nightmare."
“But we lived,” says Freddy. “That’s worth celebrating.”
He raises his cup in a toast. July and I tap our cups against his, and for a brief moment, the weight is lifted.
We’re here, we’re alive. We made it through. ‘I’ made it through.
“So,” Freddy says, leaning forward with a mischievous grin. “Can we Talk About the Elephant in the Room?”
“What elephant?” I ask – but I know.
"The fact that you apparently are bonded to three alpha heirs and kissed at least one of them in the infirmary?" He grins wider. “That elephant.”
My face feels hot. "It's somewhat complex."
"We make everything too difficult with you," July comments with a smile. "But for real, Malia. You kissed Aiden Moonfall. The Aiden Moonfall. The very same guy who's been making your life so difficult from the jump."
"He's been... different," I confess. "It’s been the blood moon. Softer."
"Softer?" Freddy snorts. "That was the guy who threatened to kill Lydia’s entire family at the Lunar Gathering like a terminator. He’s as soft as granite.”
"With other people, maybe. But me..." I pause, remembering how he cradled me in the infirmary, the desperation in his voice when he said I can't lose you.
July stretches her arm across the table and rests her hand on mine. "You like him."
There is no question about that.
"I do," I say softly. "While insane and complicated and probably going to end in disaster."
“Most good things are insane and complicated,” Freddy muses. “The question is : what about Rowan? And Cian?”
"I don't know." I fall back into the booth. "I feel connected to each of them. The Bond — it draws me toward them in unique ways. Aiden’s intensity, Rowan’s gentleness, Cian’s understanding. It’s like my wolf gets all three. But now -"
"So you have a wolf harem," Freddy declares.
"Freddy!" July playfully bats at his arm, but she’s laughing.
"What? I’m just saying—three hot alpha heirs all tied to one girl? That’s harem territory."
Well, I laugh too, so let it be said to my account.
It feels good. Normal.
Like maybe after all I can make it through this.
“But seriously,” July says when we’re breathing a little more easily now, what are you going to do? You can’t just keep all three of them on hold forever.”
“I know.” I look down into my cup of coffee. “But deciding between them feels like deciding between the impossible. How the hell am I supposed to pick one when I’m bonded to all three?”
“Or maybe you don’t pick,” Freddy suggests. “Maybe you figure out how to make it work with all of them.”
“Mate bonds don’t work that way—”
“Since when do you follow the rules?” He grins. "You're a hybrid at an elite academy. You're surviving disappearances and blood moons and lydia ashford. You’re literally rewriting the playbook. Why stop now?"
His words settle behind me, radical and terrifying and maybe right.
“You really think that’s doable?” I ask quietly
“Saying,” July says philosophically, “that the bond chose all three of them for a reason. And maybe, instead of fighting it, you should trust it.”
By the time we make our way back to campus, I feel an inch more buoyant.
Still confused, still scared, but less alone. July and Freddy let me off near the academic buildings for my last class—Advanced Pack Dynamics.
"Text us later," July barks as she hugs me fiercely. “And you know: you’re stronger than you think.”
“And hotter than Lydia,” Freddy adds. “Never forget that part.”
I still chuckle as they pull away.
The laughter falters when I see who’s standing outside the lecture room. Aiden.
Leaning against the wall with his arms folded and looking so dangerously handsome, his blue eyes following me as I walk towards him.
The students are swirling around him like water around a stone giving him room, sneaking peeks, whispering.
But his eyes are completely locked on me.
"Hey," I say when I finally get to him, all of my nerves suddenly bubbling into excitement. "What are you doing here? Don’t you have class?"
"I ditched." With that, he pushes off the wall and falls into step beside me. "Wanted to walk you back after."
"You skipped class to walk me back to the suite?"
"Yep."
The response was so simple it makes my heart flutter. We come in, and I am so aware of all the stares in the lecture hall.
Whispers erupt immediately.
“Is that Aiden Moonfall?”
“Are they together now? No way!”
I try to dismiss them and take my usual seat somewhere in the center. Aiden follows and sits right next to me.
In a class he's not even registered in.
"Aiden," I hiss. "You can't just—"
"Watch me." He stretches out, comfortable, completely comfortable in his seat, even with everyone staring at him.
The professor comes in, and does a double-take when she sees Aiden. "Mr. Moonfall. I don’t think you’re enrolled in this class."
"Auditing," he says smoothly. "If that's acceptable."
She looks like she wants to argue, but you don’t tell a Moonfall no at Mooncrest.
“Fine. Just don’t disrupt my class.”
The lecture passes in a blur.
I can't even concentrate with Aiden sitting next to me – his presence too much, too distracting, making my wolf vibrate with satisfaction.
His hand lies on the desk between us.
Halfway through class, his pinky finger hooks around mine. It's so tiny a gesture.
But it feels monumental.
When class finally dismisses, we exit arm-in-arm.
The campus is busy—students hustling between buildings rattling off study ideas for late classes or early dinners.
Everyone notices us, everybody’s staring!
Aiden Moonfall and the hybrid scholarship student, the two of them hand in hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“People are staring,” I murmur.
“Let them.” His grip tightens slightly . “Let them see. Let them talk. I don’t give a shit.”
“But your reputation—”
“I can afford it,” for my reputation. He stops walking and turns to face me completely. “You’re more important than what people think. Than what they say. Than any of it.”
The strength in his voice takes my breath away.
“Aiden—” I drawl.
“I’m done hiding what you mean to me,” he says quietly. “Done pretending you’re just my roommate or a project partner or anything else you want to be.”
"What am I?"
His blue eyes lock with mine, intense and steadfast. “Mine.”
Then his head lowers and hkisses me, slowly, passionately. Right there, in the middle of campus.
Under the eyes of hundreds of students.
It’s not long or inappropriate—it’s just a solid press of lips that seizes and promises and proclaims.
When he retreats my face is on fire.
“Now they really have something to talk about,” he says with the slightest hint of a smile.
Then he takes my hand again and walks on toward the suite as if he hadn’t just obliterated campus social order.
And even though I’m embarrassed, and even though people are staring and whispering, I still can’t stop smiling.
Because at long last, for the first time since I got to Mooncrest, I have a place. Not because of status or because of bloodline or anything that I don’t have.
But because someone powerful picked me.
Publicly, undeniably.
And screw what anyone else thinks.