Chapter 259

Ava

Chris and I stumbled out of the burning Packhouse, coughing and sputtering as we were engulfed by the surging crowd of panicked pack members. The cool night air was a stark contrast to the intense heat we had just escaped, but it offered little relief as smoke continued to billow around us.

I turned around to look at the Packhouse and staggered backwards, my eyes widening in horror as I saw the entire structure engulfed in flames. The building we had only just worked so hard to rebuild was now a raging inferno, orange flames licking at the night sky.

“Ava,” Chris breathed, staggering over to me and pulling me into his arms. “Oh, Ava… Are you okay? Are you hurt?” I simply shook my head, still too stunned to speak.

He cupped my face in his hands, searching me for injury. But there was none, aside from a small trickle of dried blood on my temple from where Olivia’s scar-faced goon had hit me earlier.

“Chris,” I finally managed, my voice hoarse from the smoke, “what happened? How did it go up so fast?”

“That brazier you knocked over caught a set of curtains behind you,” he explained. “It spread faster than anyone could react. And in the chaos, more braziers were knocked over. It was like a domino effect.”

I could only watch in stunned silence as the heart of Moonstone crumbled before our eyes. The crack and pop of burning wood filled the air, punctuated by the shouts and cries of our pack members.

Suddenly, I heard our names being called. We turned to see Leonard and Ophelia limping toward us, their faces streaked with soot and sweat but otherwise unharmed. Relief washed over me, and I rushed to embrace them, Chris right behind me.

“Oh, thank the Goddess you’re both okay,” I said, hugging Ophelia tightly.

Ophelia pulled back, her eyes wide as saucers. “Ava, darling, you were magnificent in there,” she breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I furrowed my brow, confused. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t remember?” Chris asked. When I shook my head, he continued, “You were glowing, a bluish-green light all around you. And there was this... this enormous spectral wolf form dancing around you as you towered over Olivia.”

Leonard nodded in agreement. “Just like on the battlefield earlier. Only… more pronounced this time.”

I blinked, trying to process their words. The whole experience was a blur in my mind by now, like a dream half-remembered. The chaos had sucked away what little clarity I had had during the whole ordeal.

But I did recall one thing: the feeling of the Moon Goddess’s presence, her kindness and power flowing through me.

“I... I felt her,” I said softly. “The Moon Goddess. She was with me, guiding me. I had the power to kill Olivia right there, to kill anyone I wanted. But I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t.”

Suddenly, our moment was interrupted by the approach of the Elders—all except Elise. Their faces were grim, but there was relief in their eyes as they saw us, quickening their pace to rush to us.

“Alpha, Luna,” Elder Fatima breathed, dropping to her knees and bowing so deeply—so reverently—that her forehead touched the ground. “We’re glad to see you safe.”

All four Elders bowed in front of us, their foreheads pressed to the cobblestones. Chris and I exchanged confused glances; they had never bowed like this before. Not for us, anyway. It felt strange, foreign, unnecessary.

“Please,” Chris said, his voice cracked and hoarse, “stand.”

“Is everyone okay?” I asked urgently as the Elders rose to their feet. “The pack—”

Elder Claire nodded. “We managed to evacuate everyone safely. No one from Moonstone was harmed.”

“Everyone is accounted for,” Bradley added.

“Especially the children,” Paul finished.

I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding, and was suddenly grateful for the sensation of a sturdy tree behind me as I felt my knees buckle. “Oh, thank goodness.”

Chris, however, tensed beside me. “And Olivia? Elise?” he asked, his voice tight.

The Elders exchanged nervous glances, their faces falling. Finally, Elder Paul shook his head. “We have searched the crowd for them, but there is no sign of them.”

“If they made it out of the building,” Fatima said quietly, “then they must have escaped before we could catch them.”

I could feel Chris’s frustration and anger through our mate bond, hot and thick. But there was another sensation there, too: the urge to shift and run, to hunt down his traitorous sister and bring her to justice.

But before he could act on it, we heard shouting from the edge of the crowd.

The other Alphas came running toward us, their warriors close behind. “We saw the flames,” Alpha Fabian called out as they approached. “What happened? Are you all right?”

Chris filled them in on what had transpired. Relief that our allies had come, even if it was too late to catch Olivia and Elise, washed over me. Although, I couldn’t help but feel anger over Patrick’s betrayal.

He had been our friend. If he had stayed true to his word and called for backup, then perhaps none of this would have happened.

But he was gone now. And the sight of his lifeless eyes staring up at me, so different from the smiling man who had spent weeks living with me, would be something I would never forget.

When Chris finished explaining, the other Alphas took off to help put out the fire. Chris turned to follow them—or maybe shift and run off instead, if that sensation along our bond was any indication—but I caught his arm.

Chris turned to me, and I reached into my bodice, pulling out the velvet box I had found on the floor earlier. The engagement ring Chris had meant to give me. I pressed it into his hands.

“Don’t run,” I said softly. “Stay with me.”

Chris looked down at the little box, a look of confusion, and then shock, and then relief flickering across his face. Finally, a tiny smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“Are you proposing to me, Ava?”

“What if I am?” I challenged, raising an eyebrow. “What do you say, hm?”

Chris’s smirk bloomed into a full grin. “I’d say that I would be the happiest man on earth to marry a woman like you,” he said. Then, his expression turned sheepish. “You know, I’ve been trying to propose for weeks now. I kept losing my nerve, hiding behind jokes and false starts. I guess I was a bit of a coward.”

I shook my head, cupping his face in my hands. “You’re not a coward. You’re the bravest man I know.”

“Let me prove it, then,” he said.

Taking a deep breath, Chris opened the ring box, his hands trembling slightly as he pulled out the ring. I finally had a chance to really look at it; a tiny, pale green moonstone in the center, surrounded by a ringlet of tiny diamonds in the various shapes of the phases of the moon.

It was beautiful.

“Ava,” he said softly, dropping to one knee, “will you marry me?”

If joy was a physical thing, then I felt it like a punch to the gut in that moment. It nearly knocked me off my feet, overwhelming me, launching me into space. I could hardly breathe as I gasped out one simple word: “Yes.”

Chris slipped the ring onto my finger, the metal cool against the heat of my skin. Then, before I could even marvel at it, he was suddenly lifting me off my feet, spinning me around.

I laughed, bright and loud, a stark contrast to the sound of the screams that had just been filling our village square.