Chapter 30 WHEN THE ROAD TURNS DEADLY
Celestia's POV
What came next for me was one of the most arduous journeys of my life.
Spent so many hours behind the wheel, I forgot we were even heading anywhere at all and became one with the car seat.
Lucian occasionally checked up on me, hardly with words and mostly with glances that tore through whatever mask I was wearing at the time, prying where he shouldn't.
My camp members would arrive after me, he had already made transport arrangements for them. Only a crane would come with me to the Lycan Palace as a personal guard.
"Are you sure you won't regret this?" I brought up the elephant in the room, or in this particular case, the car.
Werewolves and Lycans shared what one would call a relationship built on tolerance, often it didn't cross the line of blatant enmity but most times it got close.
"About us?" He said without me needing to elaborate," If I was going to change my mind I would have not bothered to approach you that night at the banquet. You have everything I'm looking for Celestia,"
A blush threatened to creep up my neck, so I raised my hand awkwardly to shield it away from his eyes.
This was simply a contract arrangement, it was more of a business deal than anything else with give and take and for some unexplained reason, I happened to just have everything he needed.
There wasn't much conversation between us after that. There didn't need to be.
The journey ended and not a second too soon, by that time we had been traveling for 2 days taking regular breaks stopping every once in a while for food and answering the call of nature.
Traveling with the lycan King had its perks, we moved from pack to pack, informing only those who were necessary to know and leaving without being bothersome.
Though there was an air of caution when we threaded into a werewolf pack, faces woven with distrust buried behind the basic common sense that they could not go against the Lycan alpha King.
"We'll be arriving in about 2 hours," he told me as we drove past the border of the last pack, in front of us was a stretch of trees surrounding the asphalt.
"That's a relief," I said with a sigh, then I fished out a half-forgotten sandwich, biting into it and devouring it with relish. He was looking at me again with those eyes that seemed as if they wanted to unfold every secret about me.
"Is there something on my face?" I asked.
He didn't answer, just leaned forward, and my heart began to race with panic.
Was he going to kiss me? Of course, I was no naive pup. I knew that we would have to do so much more than just this to make a pup.
But I didn't think he would come at me so unexpectedly.
It wasn't as if he was not attractive, actually far from that. Sometimes when I looked at him he seemed more like a statue that had become animated over time rather than a regular person. He had looks that could put any top model to shame, if it were based on Attraction healing I would be all over him.
The only man who had touched me freely in the past 5 years was Crane, and that was because we both saw each other platonically. He'd had relationships before, but other than the intimacy nothing else really clicked between him and those women.
Eventually, after the second one he just quit because he considered he might have had a mate already, he was devastated weeks after finding out that he was possibly unknowingly cheating on his mate.
"There," his hand felt slightly cold as he brushed it against my cheek, falling off as a crumb of bread.
The blush that I was hiding came up to my cheeks without fail. I felt like such a pig.
I was about to put the sandwich in when he raised an eyebrow and asked if I wasn't going to keep eating.
"No, I think I'm full already," and just because I couldn't win ever my stomach began to growl loudly.
Suddenly I wish I could be sucked into a hole where I could hide all of my embarrassments and myself.
He pushed the sandwich into my hand, "enjoy" he told me and his eyes were back on the road again.
His reaction seemed so strange to me, if it had been Raphael on that car seat he would have without fail still called me a pig.
As a rogue, I was not exposed to the same kind of food that I easily had within hand reach when I was a Luna. As we were traveling through parks I was able to eat the food that I had missed so much, I shared a look between him and the sandwich, and eventually, as my stomach growled again I went into it biting through the bread and all the juiciness within, particularly guilt-free.
It was such a simple thing that he did just now and yet I could feel my heart beginning to thump. I quickly shut that down.
After eating my sandwich I felt sleepy so I just wanted to sleep as I had many times while he was driving.
I didn't even have to ask him, I just allowed myself to doze off without a worry in the world.
If only I knew what was coming ahead
I was woken up by gentle but firm shakes, by the time I parted my eyes one door had already been thrown open.
"Celestia, there's trouble,"
Instantly I was fully awake, something about surviving in the wild for so long at the thought May to always be prepared for everyday my senses were fully allowed to buy the time he called to my attention that something was wrong and indeed something was wrong I looked her head and I saw it more than it dozen cloaked in black, all of them coming straight for us.