Chapter 137 Ring Box
ADRIANA
Saying yes to Elijah had been something I had imagined so many times that the shape of it was completely familiar to me, the word, the feeling, the moment of it finally being real.
I had played it out in my mind so much that i couldn’t count it on both hands and my toes, so much that it started to feel like a memory of something that already happened.
And now the moment was here, and the word was stuck somewhere between my throat and lips, and it wouldn’t move.
“Adriana?”
He was still on one knee. The ring was still in the box. His expression was doing something careful and controlled that I recognized as Elijah managing the gap between what he felt and what he allowed himself to show.
“I want to marry you,” I said and I saw relief flash through his gaze for a second. “I do. That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is the problem? Tell me.”
I looked at him and tried to find the version of this that didn’t sound like I was taking something away from him.
“We are about to walk into a battle that neither of us can fully predict. The Cult is coming and we don’t know what they’re bringing and we don’t know what it’s going to cost us to stop them. You’re the first wolf and I’m the special wolf and we are going to be at the center of all of it, both of us.” I stopped, swallowed and started again. “I cannot stand in front of you and say yes and put a ring on my finger and become your wife when I don’t know if we’re both coming home from this. I can’t do that to you. I can’t be the person who said yes and then left you with nothing but a ring and a grief you haven’t finished recovering from yet.”
He was very still.
“You’re saying no because you’re afraid of dying.”
“I’m saying wait because I’m afraid of one of us dying.”
“You sound very certain we’re not going to win this.”
“Elijah—”
He stood up. He didn’t slam the box shut or throw anything. He simply stood. His controlled stillness was somehow harder to be in the presence of than anger would have been.
“I see,” he said.
“That’s not—”
“I understand what you’re saying.” His voice was completely even. “You don’t want to commit to something that might not be completable. That’s a logical position.”
“It’s not about logic. It’s about not wanting to break your heart twice if something goes wrong.”
“The fact that you’ve already decided something might go wrong is its own kind of answer.” He set the ring box down on the side table. He didn’t put it away, which I noticed, but he set it down. “I’m not going to try to argue you into something you’re not ready for.”
He went upstairs.
I stood in the hallway with the roses at my feet and the candles burning and the banner still hanging at the bottom of the stairs. And I felt a weight in my chest that I didn't know how to deal with.
I thought I would feel like I did the right thing. This didn’t taste even close to that.
“You handled that about as well as it could have been handled,” Yara said.
“That was not helpful.” I swallowed the lump that had been stuck in my throat.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Almost as though I was on autopilot, I went back outside. Staying in the house felt impossible and the field was the only place where I had something to do with my body other than replay the last ten minutes over and over.
The strange thing was that the distress seemed to have unlocked something in me, because within an hour of returning to the field my stance was right and I began to shift properly and when the full moon cleared the clouds it happened completely, cleanly, the burst of energy coming out of me in a wave that I felt in every direction simultaneously.
I came back to myself in the grass, breathing hard, exhilarated in spite of everything.
Whatever the Cult brought, I was ready for it. I could feel the truth of that now in a way I hadn’t been able to feel it before. The power was real and it was mine and it was ready.
“Alpha.” A guard appeared at the edge of the field. “The people are assembled. They’re ready to hear from you.”
I stood up, brushed the grass from my hands, and became the Alpha.
That was the thing about leadership, I was learning. It didn’t wait for you to finish feeling things. It was just there, requiring you, and you either showed up or you didn’t.
I crossed the field to where my pack had gathered.
“I know this is not what any of you wanted,” I said, looking at them. The faces of people that have slowly begun to recognize me over these past weeks. It had moved from wariness to something closer to trust. “Leaving your homes is not a small thing and I won’t pretend otherwise. But the threat we’re facing is real and it is coming soon, and the most important thing right now is that every one of you is safe. Alpha Elijah’s pack is prepared for you. You will be received, fed, sheltered, and protected. Nothing will reach you there.”
“What about on the road?” Someone in the crowd asked.
“You will have guards the entire way. Nothing will happen on the road. I give you my word.”
I watched them begin to move and felt the full weight of the word I had just given them. My word. My responsibility. My pack.
My mind went briefly back upstairs, and to the ring box sitting on the side table.
After all of this. I made a silent promise to myself. I would say yes so many times he would lose count.
I just needed us both to survive in order to get there.
That was all.