Chapter 38
May I sit here?”
Kira looks up and nods politely when she sees Ava. The kids haven’t spent as much time around the pack recently, and she thinks it might be that they’re ashamed over their allegiance to Liam, even though Jayden has pressed over and over that he isn’t angry or hurt by it.
Ava is bundled up in a huge puffy coat and with her hood up she hardly recognizes her, except she can sense the presence of her pack wherever they are.
They watch Jayden messing around with Frank, beer in hand.
“I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”
Kira raises her eyebrows. “Sorry? Sorry for what?”
“I already told Jayden but you’re his mate; any wrongdoing committed against him is an offense against you too.”
“We’re not mated!” Kira grimaces with a blush.
“Everyone knows you will be,” she laughs. Her voice is thin and delicate.
“I want you to know that I never, ever thought that Liam would do something like that. I thought he was just talking, you know? We were in the same year at school and I saw how much it destroyed him not becoming the Alpha and I let it make me hate Jayden too, as if it was his fault. I thought Liam just wanted to make some drama, maybe make a fool of him...”
Kira bites her tongue.
“I know it’s awful. He told me to make up this lie about the neighboring pack, hoping it would humiliate Jayden in front of them. I hate myself for playing along with it. But I never thought he was going to challenge him. I never would have been a part of that. Someone could have been killed! God, I’ve been so stupid,” she whispers, leaning forward so that her hair falls out of her hood and covers her face in a thick sheet.
“It’s okay,” Kira says, remembering how she talked when she was going to be a lawyer. She knows how to push her own feelings to the back of her mind and speak with diplomacy.
“There’s no one in the world who hasn’t done any stupid things.”
She brushes a hand across her face, but Kira can’t see if a tear has fallen.
“Please don’t be mad at the kids. It isn’t easy being the youngest in the pack and I think with Liam being closer to them in age, they were less intimidated by him than Jayden. He made them feel like they were his friends.”
“I’m not mad, and nor is Jayden. He’s going to make things right with the whole pack. He doesn’t want anyone to feel excluded.”
“Except Liam,” she says, and this time she definitely wipes her eyes.
“How could he be such a fool? I hate him for this. I wish I could smack some sense back into his empty head!”
“Have you heard from him?” Kira asks.
She turned her face to her then, with a furtive glance in Jayden's direction.
“I - ”
“I’d like to know he’s okay. I’m sure Jayden would like to know he’s okay too.”
“He went to stay with one of his cousins in the city,” she says.
“He called me a few days ago. He was badly hurt, but you’ve seen how we heal. If it means anything, I think he feels like an absolute idiot.”
“Jayden is going to see his father after the full moon. I know he feels like he should’ve gone earlier, but we don’t think it’s a good idea for him to visit when his wolf instincts are heightened, and he’s been resting, mostly on my orders,” Kira adds with a small smile.
“Between you and me, I think he’s going to tell Liam’s father that he can come back one day, if he’s ready to be part of the pack again.”
“You think that?” she whispers.
Kira watches Jayden crumple his can and sprawl back on the bench to expose his leg to the moonlight for healing.
He’s still wearing shorts, even now that winter has closed in.
She remembers Jayden telling her that he’d put her father in the ground for what he did to her, but she hadn’t seen such hatred for Liam in his eyes.
Jayden would obliterate anyone who hurt the people he loves, but when it comes to people who have hurt him, he’s much more forgiving.
“He’s a good person.”
“Once someone is banished ”
“I don’t think Jayden goes in for any of that stuff. It's the twenty-first century. I’m sure we don’t banish people anymore.”
“Liam will never be so stupid again,” she says anxiously.
“He knows how badly he messed up. He even told me that he wants to apologize to Jayden.”
“You should tell Jayden that.”
“Kira!” Jayden shouts, and Kira looks at him with an automatic smile.
She wanders over to the group, relieved to see that Ava is welcomed into a conversation by Chris, Frank and Ezra.
As soon as Kira gets to Jayden, the familiar strong arm wraps around her waist, and she curls into his side.
The two of them fit together like they were made to stand side by side.
Before arriving in Maplewoods, Kira would never have believed in anything mystical, but now she thinks that there’s no reason not to believe that she and Jayden were meant to find each other.
“You look like you’re feeling better,” Kira says, tilting Jayden’s face with her fingers to check the wound on his throat.
“Moonlight does magical things. And I for one think you look most beautiful in the moonlight.”
“Of course you would say that.” She teases
Jayden kisses her to the catcalls of his pack and Kira giggles, burying her face into his neck.
When she first came to town, the thought of being the center of attention made her sick to her stomach.
Now that she’s getting used to it, she thinks that she doesn’t mind if everyone recognizes her as Jayden’s girlfriend.
She has been proud of things before, her academic achievements and making it to the country’s best university, but this is something she feels a different pride; for, deep inside.
Maybe it was growing up in a home like hers.
Kira likes to think she is as self-aware as a person can be.
Maybe a therapist would give her a textbook explanation for the reason she was so good at detaching herself from everything animated in her life.
But for a long time she couldn’t imagine she could love or be loved, not like this.
Now she has someone who would put himself in the way of a bullet for her, maybe lose an ear for her. There’s no scar, she thinks, that Jayden wouldn’t bear.