Page 89 of Luna Rising

“I’m not always difficult about everything, you know. Plus, we’ve passed, like, four jewelry stores with shiny baubles in the windows.”

Ewan’s brows drew together. “You want me to buy your forgiveness?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. Don’t be ridiculous. I want you to reward my forgiveness. Oh, and a cellphone of my very own.”

“You want two rewards? Someone is greedy.”

I shrugged. “You say greedy, I say… opportunistic.”

Ewan laughed, a genuine sound from deep in his gut. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you with Walter.”

“Yeah, so, about that….”

I told Ewan about my trip with Walter down memory lane as we wound through town and waited for the stores to open. He wasn’t surprised that Walter and Colleen had played Gaia to call forth Nicasia and agreed they must’ve had a good reason. Our opinions diverged on whether to tell Winter.

“She deserves to know,” I argued.

“This is really a family matter, I think,” Ewan said.

“How would you have liked it if I was all ‘it’s a family matter’ and let you find out from your mother?” I demanded.

“It’s different.”

“No. No, it’s really not. Besides, Walter wouldn’t have told me if he didn’t expect me to tell Winter.”

Ewan frowned. “Walter isn’t that complicated of a man, Zara. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her himself.”

Normally, I would have conceded to that. Walter was devious and liked to manipulate people, but he was also straightforward when he wanted to be. So there was a reason he couldn’t be direct with his daughter.

“No. He wants her to know. It’s someone else who doesn’t. Like Colleen or Essie. Probably Colleen. She’s the only one Walter respects enough to keep his promises,” I said, letting my thoughts pour out unfiltered.

“I get Colleen not wanting Winter to know the truth, but why would Walter want her to?”

I shrugged. “He’s Walter. Who knows why he does anything?”

We were the first customers at the cellphone store when it finally opened and walked out twenty minutes later with shiny new electronics. My number was also new, so I didn’t have a bazillion messages waiting for me like Ewan did. I offered to skip the jewelry store since there were people waiting on our return and all, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

“Thirty more minutes won’t change anything one way or the other. But you do know you can wear any of the Taurus pack jewelry, right? It belongs to you now.”

“Right. And last month that was your mother’s stuff. I want something that’s mine and only ever mine. Is that stupid?”

“No. No. Not at all.”

The saleswoman was very excited to meet Ewan and his credit card. She brought out all sorts of rings and pendants with high price tags. They were fine. Nothing exciting. And while I had sort of been joking about a shiny reward initially, I didn’t want to pick something just because. I wanted something special. So, we left empty-handed.

“We’ll find you something,” Ewan promised as we left the very disappointed saleswoman.

I called Winter with my new phone and had her open a portal. Naively, I didn’t specify where I wanted us to exit, assuming it would be inside my home. Instead, she dropped us outside the Temple of Gaia, where we followed the voices inside. Drake and Penn had gathered the decision makers from every spoke of the alliance but had waited for us to explain the situation.

There was a reason an alliance of this size hadn’t existed in centuries. Too many opinions, and everyone thought theirs was right. The alphas all talked over each other, and Essie was no better. I thought for sure Ewan was going to wolf-out several times, and I wouldn’t have blamed him. There wasn’t even a majority vote on any single issue, yet the Taurus High Fae kept proposing new issues for everyone to vote on.

I wanted to rip out my hair.

Things didn’t improve as the day wore on and tensions grew. Ewan finally called a ceasefire—err, pause—on the conversation until the following day, after everyone had the chance to calm down. Mom and Mrs. Wynn hadn’t been invited to the meeting, so Ewan and I went with Zach and Brooke to the lodge to fill them in. Secretly, both alphas wanted their mothers to tell them what to do, at least that was my take. Personally, I thought the last thing we needed was another opinion.

“I’m not cutout for diplomacy,” I whined when Ewan and I returned home.

“No wolves are. That’s why these alliances aren’t super popular.” He grabbed bottled blood from the fridge and two wine glasses from a cupboard. “Everyone still has their own agenda.”

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