Page 53 of Violet Moon
“No I can’t.We can’t.Not this time.”Sera’s heart sank as she spoke aloud what she’d feared the most.
“Not alone, no.But together you can.”
Sera shook her head.“It’s not about what’s best for me, but what’s best for the pack.I’m not what’s best for the pack anymore.”
“I don’t think a lick of that is true, but I know I can’t change your mind.”
The back door creaked open.Harry stood there with a sheepish look on his face.“Beta Seraphine, there’s a vampire here for you.”
At the front door, Hugh was waiting with two coffees in disposable cups.“Sometimes I know what you need more than you do.”
She took the coffee from his outreached hand.“I don’t deserve this.Or you.”
“You deserve the world,mon lou lou.Now let’s walk and work through this.”
“I’m afraid the more I talk, the more I’ll fall apart.”She glanced over at him as they took their first step away from the house.“How much do you already know?”
Hugh took a long sip of his coffee.“I know that your dear Alpha has been challenged.”
Sera choked on air and whipped her head to the side.
“Don’t be so surprised.It’s big news and word spread quickly once some of your younger members figured it out, too.Though, even before that, I’d guessed from how you spoke about what was happening.I thought, what on earth could she not tell me about?I admit it’s not a topic I know a lot about, but I’ve gathered from her and chats with Clemente about what it was like in the past.”
“I ruined everything.”
“How?”
“Hugh, I —” Sera looked back to see how far away they were from the house.
“If you want to talk around it, that’s fine by me.”
Sera took her first sip of coffee.It tasted of warm vanilla and spicy cinnamon.“I did something that Parisa is rightfully furious with me about.I made her look weak when she is anything but that.”
“Have you two spoken much since?”
“Once and it was terrible.I’m not cut out to be her Beta.”
“But you are.”
“Only because she didn’t wait long enough for better options.”
“Why did you want to be Beta all those years ago?”
Sera didn’t want to dig into the past now, but Hugh looked at her in a way that pulled the words out of her.“I wanted to be there for Parisa as she built the pack she dreamed of, as she grew the bakery from just us in our kitchen to so much more.I was endlessly proud that she asked me, but times were different then.”
“I’ve lived long enough to know that people don’t change all that drastically, no matter what they believe — for better or for worse.If you were her best pick then, those same reasons she chose you are still true now.”
“But what I’ve done is unforgivable.”
Hugh stopped and waited for Sera to look up at him before he spoke.“Isn’t that for Parisa to decide?You need to talk to her.”
“I can’t.”
“Why did you do it?”
Sera pinched her lips together.Admitting this out loud was going to be harder than anything.“I was scared for her.I didn’t act on reason.It was all impulse.”
“Why?”
