Page 136 of Game of Destiny
‘No, my little mate. You are the only one I will ever call my Luna,’ I told her and kissed her.
“Fine, fine,” she grumbled. “But if you take this too far, Sam, I will be talking to Medow.” It seemed to sober Sam up, and he moved an inch or two away. The mood was high in our pack as we ate. The closer we got to one o’clock, the more nervous the mood became. Not just in our pack, but in all packs. This was the time when the next ten years would be decided.
“It’s going up!” someone shouted, and we all looked at the scoreboard. It had started to rapidly fill with lines. Everyone stood up and watched. It was going from the lowest rank and up. Line by line it added the results. There were cries of sorrow and hopelessness from other packs as they saw their name. I had my arms around Amie, keeping her close to me as I watched each line, feeling relieved each time it wasn’t our pack's name. Amie had her arms on top of mine. I could feel she was just as focusedas I was. When Blue shadow pack was written on row forty two, she drew in a sharp breath, but then relaxed. She yelped at row number thirty-one. Ocean shore pack. My brother’s pack had sunk so low they were now a mid-tier pack at best. When the row number was twenty, the fast pace stopped. Apparently, they were now going to drag it out.
“We can do it, we can do it,” Sam muttered to himself. Five rows stood between us and avoiding reunification with my brother’s pack.
‘I love you, no matter what happens,’ Amie mindlinked me.
‘I love you, too. Nothing will change it,’ I linked back. Row nineteen, not our pack. I sighed. Eighteen, not our pack. Amie’s hands tightened on my arms. Seventeen, not our pack.
“Almost there,” Ramses mumbled. Sixteen, not our pack. There was a moment of disbelief and then the pack howled as one. We had done it. We were in the top fifteen packs and therefore we would continue to be a pack. I turned Amie around and kissed her. I got lost in our kiss until Sam cleared his throat next to us.
“We haven’t actually found out what rank we have,” he pointed out.
“Right,” I said and focused back on the scoreboard. I quickly looked it over and could see we weren’t mentioned anywhere between fifteen and eight, either.
“Have they forgotten us?” Jake asked.
“Of course not,” Amie reassured him. But when number five was Amie’s old pack and we still hadn’t shown up. I started to think Jake had the right idea. Had we been disqualified? They needed to tell us if they had, right? Number four wasn’t us either. Amie looked up at me. I shrugged. I looked at the board again. Number three: Blue Mountain pack. Score 89, I read. Again, we howled. Top three! We had done the unthinkable and were nowranked third pack in the world. I didn’t even care who took first and second rank. I kissed Amie until we both ran out of air.
“We are going to have so much to do!” she told me. “Every pack will want an alliance with us. The negotiations alone will take forever.” I laughed, it was just like her to start planning the next step.
“Just enjoy the moment, Red. We will plan the rest later.” She had the biggest grin on her face and nodded. She threw herself at me and kissed me. Packs started coming by to congratulate us and several hinted at wanting to talk about forming alliances. We thanked them but said we were in no place to think about it at the moment. They were welcome to contact us after the Game.
“Congratulations, little sister,” Amie’s brother called out. We both turned around to see him walking up to us with Becky. His eyes darted to both our mate marks. “Luna,” he said and bowed.
“Honestly, Elder. Since when do we use titles in the family? Get your head screwed on right,” Amie told him. Elder looked at me, as if I would go crazy if he didn’t address his sister as Luna.
“I love when people call her Luna as it means they recognise our bond, but she is right. There should be no titles within a family,” I said and kissed her temple.
“Congratulations! We are so happy for the both of you,” Becky said and hugged Amie.
“Thank you. At least I got the second mating right, no rejection this time,” Amie joked and it sent a pang to my heart just thinking of the possibility. She must have felt it too as she turned to me and gave me a quick kiss.
“You are second chance mates? Oh boy, Mom will have a picnic with this. Have you told her?” Elder asked.
“No. I sent both her and Dad a message telling them I had important news and I would call after we were given our rank.”
“I’m guessing we can expect a call then,” Becky told her mate. We stood around talking for a while. Their pack had also donewell. To rank top five was no easy feat. They should have been just as thrilled as our pack was, but there was a notable damper to their excitement. I had a good idea as to why. Amie and I hadn’t talked about what had happened during the rejection. We had other things on our minds yesterday. My guess was that their Alpha hadn’t taken it well. I couldn’t really blame him. Just the thought of being rejected by Amie had both me and my wolf in a panic. If the Alpha was depressed or anxious, the whole pack felt the effect. “I really am very happy for the both of you. You belong together,” Becky told us before they left. We stayed around for a while longer. Our phones both pinged at the same time. It was a message to report to the council first thing tomorrow morning before the closing ceremony.
‘It has to be about the unification of the packs, right?’ Amie mindlinked me. I could feel her worry through the mate bond. I usually had an easy time reading her, but the free flow of emotions between us made it even easier.
‘Yes, they probably just want to make sure we are all aware of what will happen next,’ I reassured her. ‘How about we head back and call your parents?’ She smiled and kissed me.
“Are you feeling brave enough?”
“Yes,” I lied. She giggled and kissed me again. We told everyone they were free to do what they wanted as long as they were ready for the closing ceremony the next day.
Chapter 66
Amie
The cabin was deserted when we got back. The rest of our pack was out celebrating and it was well deserved. I was looking forward to calling my parents, but I could also feel how nervous Finlay was. Maybe I was being naïve, but I felt like all the stress, worry and the constant feeling of something lurking outside my field of vision, just melted away. Our pack was safe and I had Finlay as my mate. All was good in my world. We opted to sit on the sundeck. Finlay pulled me down on his lap and we took a moment to snuggle.
“Ready?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said. I could see, and feel, he was lying. I gave him a soft kiss.
