122

122
Liam's POV

I touch my forehead with the tips of my fingers and sigh, feeling like a right git as realization washes over me about what I just went through. Those few seconds, not even a minute of little Draco, has made me look like an idiot in front of everyone, but that small connection he showed me real love I feel has rooted me here. "After all this time, after all these months of rage and plotting, I never knew what it was that really had me so angry.”

Behind me my pack warriors shuffle, uncertain after all these years of what to do when their Alpha acts this way. My beta, Marcus, hesitates forward, worry creasing his old face. Those blue eyes, a mirror of my own, but accusing me with all the times he watched me blithely stumble into mistakes no one else would be brave enough to point out.

"Alpha, what's happening?" Marcus asks in a voice that can only be heard by our pack. “We are still pressing on for the return of Luna Astella, correct? The warriors are getting ready for war and protocol has been declared. We can't just fucking leave with no conclusion now.”

“Of course not,” I whisper as our eyes meet only a small distance from each other. "We're not challenging anything.” Because she was never my tears to lose at all. I just, I kinda understand finally. Years ago, I was still crying myself to sleep and lying on the sofa bewildered and angry when it hit me all at once: this is how white men have slept for hundreds of years — if not worse.

It feels weird rolling off my tongue — quitting without even trying is against every single Alpha notion I've been taught to believe. However, seeing that moment of connection Draco had shared made me realize something I'd been too proud to admit. Whatever Astella and Thane have is not something that can be won or stolen or claimed by force, old or otherwise. It is feeling safe to chase your dreams and secure in reaching for the potential of making them a reality, it's sharing each others successes while also holding one another through the crushing weight of defeat.

“Liam,” Astella says softly, sounding a little like her old self, before everything got complicated by my expectations and her creeping discontent. “There is no need to feel stupid at the idea. We all grow in our own time and some lessons are more difficult to swallow than others. It doesn't matter as long as you learn something, that you try to be better.”

“Five years," I laugh. “Five years to be a wife, and I wasted it resenting you for not loving me the way I thought you were supposed to. instead of just… loving you how you needed to be loved. I was too busy trying to be the perfect Alpha, trying to be partnered up and linked with a Luna who fit perfectly in my life that I completely forgot that I should also have been working on being a good husband. No wonder you searched somewhere else for the bond I wasn't providing you."

The door opens and Thane steps around it, and I immediately know what is coming - before any of the others can anticipate the righteous fury that a mate displays over his own. My warriors feel the tension and stand to guard, hands begin making their way towards weapons they hope to not draw. Instead Thane's green eyes flicker with something new — a level of understanding interspersed with pity I am not worthy of.

“It's hard,” he says plain and simple, his deep voice resonating with the strength of someone who has done it. “Several things come to mind, but the most important lesson that I have learned is to understand the distinction between loving someone and wanting to own them. Supporting Your Mate vs. It took me a while to find mine too…and not a pleasant process.”

"When?" I inquire, somewhat interested despite the creepiness of this whole experience. “You found the difference when? I mean, I'm standing here feeling like a complete idiot for not getting something that feels so crushingly obvious now.”

His answer is immediate, his arm tightening around the baby in a protective hold whilst steadfastly maintaining eye contact. “That I would let her go if Astella decided to leave tomorrow, Not because I wouldn't fight to keep her, not because I wouldn't do everything in my power to show her how much she means to me, but rather because by holding on so tightly to someone who doesn't appear willing to stay of their own accord at all… It's just prolonging everyone's misery."

The simplicity of this struck me more forcibly than the challenge of the mountain ever could have.

"So what happens now?" Marcus questions his pragmatism slicing through the emotional revelations like anything else and it's one of many examples on why he is worthy to be an exceptional beta. We expected a challenge, we came up ready for the fight. The pack is waiting for a punchline in this scene, some reason to justify why their Alpha spent months orchestrating this moment of collision. They abandoned their families and left all their responsibilities to be our warriors, in what they truly knew was the kindest way possible.

"Liam. "… she begins, and her brown eyes display the sort of empathy that brought me to her in the first place, but I hold up a hand gently, preventing her.

“Let me talk first,” I say, and laugh only to realize it feels less fake than any smile in three or so months. "Because this is the first time in years, most likely the first full blown truth I would say to you, and I wanna do it well. You deserved better than I gave you, You were deserving of love that loved all who you are, not just what I wished you would be. You needed someone who would marvel at your strength and not try to reign it in, someone who would foster your dreams —not try and change them into something that aligned with how he thought things were supposed to be. And I am really glad you found that with Thane.”

“Thank you,” Astella says without further comment, and the response is genuine—I can hear the appreciation in her voice, satisfaction from someone at last allowed some closure over an apology she may have always wanted but could never bring herself to demand. “That means everything to me. It means more than anything,”

“Also, something else…” I glance over to a very awake, older than three month old child in Thane's arms. “Your son… what he revealed to me… There is more to it than just understanding your connection with Thane. It was to see for myself what I have been missing in my advocating of it. I was so busy trying to pretend like what you and I had, what we were once soon meant, that it could still exist if only you wanted it bad enough that I overlooked a possibility of something fresh, something genuine; built on real similarity rather than commitment and lust.”

Yvonne, who has been observing this whole discussion with the eyes of a much older soul in her young body, comes up front—a huge smile will flip out on that little face. “So, you're actually saying date someone instead of pretending they should just automatically be Luna? Well, that would be a first for you Liam. I mean, you've been running the 'arranged marriage' model of dating since we were teenagers.”

"Perhaps," I say, my face flushing as laughter washes through the group.” Although it is doubtful I switch up to 'getting to know someone as a human' any time soon. My track record showed that I could tell people what to do much better than ask them anything, so long as I could assume the answers.”

“Or, you know… We could probably help with that.” Astella says in a tone so friendlike it melted my heart just a little. "If you want. A few of the she-wolves in the visiting delegations could also stand to meet an Alpha who has woken up to himself, realised that Actually This Takes Work, Actually We Should Talk About Our Feelings Sometimes, Actually She Is Capable Of Minding Her Own Business And The Best Relationships Are Ones Where Your Partner Has An Inner Life.”

"You'd do that?" I was quite shocked by her generosity. “All that shit I to you? After the anger of a month, and the protests and challenges, after your choices have been questioned in nastily public ways? Wait a minute, you'd help me find someone else?”

“Friends do that,” she says with a tenderness that reminds me why I loved her to begin with—she was not simply beautiful, or powerful, though she certainly was both of those too; rather, it just seemed like she had the highest and widest heart in all creation. “Real friends are happy when their friend is happy, even if that end goal is different from what they initially expected.”

"Right, my name is Marcus," says Marcus with a sigh of visible relief that the potential violence was finally over. “So that happened and it went better than we thought! I hardly know how to make that sound like we travelled to win back our Luna but what we ended up doing was discussing the love life of our Alpha. That will be a fun conversation.”

I laughed, maybe for the first time in a few months, "Oh come on boys tell them the truth. Let them know their Alpha finally grew the fuck up and figured out that love is not ownership. If anybody wants to contest me for that evolution of leadership, well throw your hat in the ring. Most of them are probably going to be pleased I stopped moping around the territory like some jealous teenager though.”

However, as the stress deflates from the room and talking starts back up between all of us who have been gathered here to talk, even helpless baby Draco lets out a quiet cooing noise at which everyone transitions that negative tension into vibes towards the tiny mischief maker who somehow started it all. When the baby glares back at me with those poignantly knowing green eyes, I could have sworn that they shone that he knew what I had done to protect him, somehow even in retrospect.The lights of his gaze act like warm sun through a blanket, emitted as silent rays of acceptance.

Thane is leaning into the other side of the booth, watching her watch him and says, wryly, "I think he has a crush on you.”

“Good taste in teaching moments, that one," comes my own reply as I reach out to brush a newborn baby's hands with my fingertips and feel his fingers fold around mine — the softness of skin and the strength of grip. “Perhaps he can teach me a thing or two about the 'healthy relationship' I hear so much about that it seems like such an anomaly.”