Chapter 111

Ava

Chris was silent for some time. He was silent for so long, in fact, that I was worried he might not speak at all. He sat so still, too, that I began to wonder if he had even turned to stone.

Finally, he moved—but only to gently pull our hands apart and turn back to face the bar. I watched for a few breathless moments as he took several large gulps of his wine, already nearly finishing off the brand new glass.

“Chris,” I finally murmured, my fingers instinctively tightening around the wooden edge of the bar, “say something. Anything.”

He merely shrugged. “I don’t know why you let the Elders get under your skin like that,” he said simply. “You act like their word is law, and—”

“But it is law.” I frowned, leaning closer to grip the fabric of his shirt sleeve in my fist. He had long since removed his tuxedo jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. His tie was loosened and the first couple of buttons of his shirt were undone, giving him that roguishly handsome look that made my heart twist painfully.

“It’s not. I’m the Alpha, and what I say goes,” he growled through his teeth. “I should have told them about us from the beginning. Ripped off the band-aid instead of tiptoeing around them.”

“But ultimately it’s up to the Elders to bless a union between the Alpha and the Luna,” I said, releasing my iron grip on his shirt. I paused for a moment, noticing how I had wrinkled the fabric, and shook my head as I smoothed my hand over it. “If they don’t agree with our union, then they won’t bless it. How will that look to the pack? To the other four packs, too?”

Chris was silent again. I stared at him for a moment as his jaw clenched and unclenched, muscles ticking all over the place beneath his taut skin. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I had ever seen Chris truly angry before now.

“Screw the packs,” he finally said. “Screw them all. I don’t give a shit what they—or anyone else—thinks.”

I let out a deep sigh. “You know that’s not true. You do care. You care about your people—your family. That includes me.”

His green eyes flickered over to me then, and for a moment, they caught the amber light of the chandelier hanging over us. It almost made it look like a fire was burning in their depths.

“So you’re just gonna sit here and tell me that we should end things, then?” he asked. “That after all these years of loving you, I have to let you go because of a bunch of stuck-up religious zealots who can’t let go of tradition?”

My mouth instantly tugged downwards into a frown. “I’m one of those religious ‘zealots’, Chris. I worship the Moon Goddess just as much as the rest of them. We’ve all seen her wrath and her kindness in the flesh.”

Chris opened his mouth to retort, but then shut it again. Despite everything, he didn’t have a response for that—because he knew I was right.

Finally, he sighed and ran a hand through his tousled hair. “I just think there’s a way we can make this work,” he murmured, his face softening. “I can feel it.”

I dipped my head and stared down at the grains of wood in the bar, pensively swirling my red wine around in my glass. “It’s just… There’s so much pressure coming at us from all angles lately,” I whispered. “I can’t help but feel like it’s a sign.”

He remained silent, and I continued. “Olivia, the moonstone, the blight… The Elders, the Moon Goddess… Tradition… Fuck, Chris. Don’t you feel like the universe is against us?”

He scoffed. “Fuck the universe.”

I shook my head and let out a wry laugh. “It doesn’t help any that you’re so… blase about it, you know,” I said. “I know you have intense feelings for me, but you have to be wise. I’m ten years your senior, for starters.”

“That again?” Chris threw up his hands in exasperation, eliciting a sidelong glance from the bartender. Lowering his voice, he leaned closer. “I told you that I don’t care about that, Ava. Most people don’t. And the ones who do care don’t matter.”

Another sigh escaped my lips. “I know, I know. It shouldn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Okay,” I acquiesced. “It doesn’t. But that one tiny detail doesn’t change the fact that we need to be wise about our decisions. You’re the Alpha of Moonstone. I’m the Acting Luna. The good of the pack should always be our main goal, first and foremost.”

“And the good of Moonstone just so happens to involve our own misery,” he muttered.

I didn’t know what to say; he was right, I supposed. But that was the life of an Alpha, wasn’t it? Self-sacrifice in the name of the greater good?

“Look.” I turned toward him again, reaching for his hand but then withdrawing. Finally, I dropped both hands to my lap and wrung my fingers together. “The timing for us never lined up. We were already given a rough start by being born so far apart. And then I got married while you were still basically a kid, and then you had to leave Moonstone, and…”

I paused, looking away as the first prickles of hot tears at the backs of my eyes began.

“Maybe we were just never meant to fall in love at the right time,” I whispered. “Maybe fate just didn’t have it in the cards for us. But that doesn’t mean—”

“So you do love me, then?” he blurted out.

My eyes widened, involuntarily snapping over to Chris. He was turned fully toward me now, leaning forward intensely.

“W-What?”

“You love me,” Chris said. “You’ve never admitted it, not out loud. So tell me now; do you love me?”

For several long moments, it felt as if the world had gone still. My mouth worked uselessly, my tongue like a heavy brick behind my teeth. Normally, the alcohol would have lowered my inhibitions; but right now, I felt more tongue-tied and red in the face than I had ever been in my entire life.

Not even being proposed to by Ethan all those years ago had felt like this.

“Chris, I…”

“You don’t have to say the words,” he insisted, gripping my hands so tightly between his that I thought he might rip them straight off. “Just say yes or no. Now. Don’t think. Just—”

“Yes,” I blurted out.

As soon as the word left my lips, it somehow felt like an immense weight and an immense relief at the same time. I didn’t know whether to kiss him or run, whether to cry or laugh. Maybe all of those things.

Finally, Chris dropped my hands and leaned back again. “See?” he said. “You do love me. So we’ll work it out; no matter what, we’ll work it—”

“Chris.” I stopped him, the first tears fully streaming down my cheeks now before I even had the chance to blink them back. “Stop.”

His eyes snapped up to me with shock as I stood, scraping my chair back on the wooden floor.

“Ava, what are you—”

“We have to be wise,” I said softly, my voice clipped. “We have to… Just… Think clearly.”

Chris scoffed. “You know I can’t think clearly without you by my side,” he said, rising slowly.

“I know you can’t. But you said so yourself that you can’t think clearly with me by your side, either.”

Those green eyes of his went wide, his hand reaching for me but then falling back down to his hip. “So that’s it?” he asked. “You’re ending things? Tonight?”

“I’m… I’m telling you goodnight,” I said, turning. “And to think. Really think, Chris.”

“I don’t want to. I can’t.”

“You have to.”

Before either of us could utter another word—before I could make a decision that would only make things worse—I turned on my heel and left. I walked quickly, tears blurring my vision so much so that I had to practically feel my way down the hall.

But I didn’t stop. I didn’t stop until I was back in my hotel room with my face buried in my pillow and sobs wracking my body.