Moonlight Kiss

9. Tension and Security [2]

[Jade]

My mother smiled at me and then very gently she got out of bed. Her injury last year had all of us so worried I thought she would not make it but she did.

She was a fighter.

Even when we thought she would never walk again, she proved us wrong by recovering and we were all very happy. Sirius was doing a good job caring for my mom and honestly, I could see her radiating happiness and love.

"Jade, come here hun." Her southern accent still made me envious.

The guards stayed at the door while I walked into my mother's embrace.

"Come and sit down, you never come to visit me anymore." She said but she was smiling.

She pulled me into the inner room and gave me a seat.

"I'm sorry mom, I've been busy with work and it's a lot being Luna." I sighed.

"I can tell, what's wrong hun?" She smiled at me softly, my mother could always tell if something was bothering me.

"The pack is under another attack and this time we fear that it is more dangerous than the last one," I told her.

"Yes, Sirius has been so stressed out about it, is that what is really stressing you out?" She asked squinting her eyes at me.

I had no idea why she was doing that.

"Is there something wrong with your eye?" I asked her.

"No." She laughed. "I saw some of the children doing it to each other yesterday, I thought it was something you young people did." She said.

Speaking of children.

"Mason and I have been intimate." I blurted out nervously.

She stared at me with a weird expression on her face and then she raised her brows.

"Are you pregnant?" She asked.

"Mother!"

"I know how mates work, I have one remember, I would expect the both of you to have already been intimate by now." She said.

"That's the problem, this is all so new and very strange, I didn't think that I would be married at this time of my life," I complained.

"Married?" She asked me amused.

"You know what I mean, mom, I'm serious," I whined.

"Are you having problems with Mason?" She asked me.

"No, mom, I'm not having problems with him, I love him very much, I'm having problems with our situation," I told her.

"Are you seeing your therapist?" She asked me and I sighed.

How could I forget, my mother wouldn't understand.

She was a great mother and she supported me a lot but sometimes I felt like she didn't understand me.

"Yes, I'm seeing Linda and our sessions are going great." I lied and gave her a fake smile.

"That's good my dear, I know that you're getting triggered because there's a new war coming but you have to be strong, that's why you are the Luna, you have to support Mason and you have to believe in him that he's going to win this war and restore peace." She said and I smiled for real this time.

She did have nice words of advice though.

"I'm not pregnant, mom," I told her when she kept staring at my midriff.

"Oh, that's okay, I don't really know how I feel about being a grandmother now." She laughed and smoothed her hair.

I like how she laughed freely now and I wanted her to be that way.

"Any idea when you'll be back to work?" I asked her.

"Yeah, real soon though I can't go back to the hospital, I'll work in the pack hospital." She told me.

"Yeah, that's really nice." I smiled at her, she was adjusting pretty easily to her new life here.

In fact, everyone was adjusting pretty easily, Jay was already working in the financial department of the pack and it just felt like I was the only one having a hard time adjusting.

I wish I really had someone to talk to, someone that would understand, I couldn't talk to Mason because I did want to worry him, I couldn't talk to Liya because she wouldn't understand and I couldn't talk to Jay because, well, I don't know why.

Maybe I would talk to him, we were thicker than thieves and I would hate to keep something away from him.

"I have to go now, mom." I kissed her goodbye and left.

I frowned when I got outside and the two guards kept following me but I said nothing.

"You done yet?" I mind linked the Alpha.

"In a minute, wait for me by the rose bushes." He mind linked me back and I went outside.

The meeting they had was top secret because they didn't have it in his office or the pack hall, they probably had it in the dungeons and it was probably just Mason, Sirius, and Liya.

I walked outside to the rose bushes and I sat down on a bench, the guards gave me some privacy but if I looked up I would still see them.

I thought about my life now and how I wanted my life to me and I couldn't help but feel a bit sad.

I chanted a few spells and began to work on some kind of rejuvenation, I plucked one rose flower from the bushes and it was the object of my experiments.

I had gotten really good at casting spells that I did not need to try for a long time before the flower shriveled up and died in my hands.

"What has the poor flower done to deserve such a mean fate?" Mason asked behind me and I laughed.

"It has volunteered to be my lab rat," I told him and I restored the flower back to life then I replanted it in the bushes.

"Absolutely beautiful." He commented and came around to sit beside me. "I know that this must be very scary for you but I want you to be brave." He told me holding my hands.

"I am not scared." I lied and snatched my hands away from his angrily. "I can take care of myself, you have to get those two guards to lay off my back," I told him and for context, I destroyed one of the garden swings.

"I know that you can take care of yourself." He ignored the small explosion and continued talking. "I'll just feel much better if they're around to take care of you when I'm gone." He said.

"Gone?" I asked him in shock.

"Yes, I'm going to seek the audience of the witches council and some of the other covens." He told me.

"I'm going with you." I deadpanned.

"No, you cannot, it's—"

"Too dangerous right." I cut him off. "Then you're not going, I'll go alone."

"You can't." He stood up angrily.

"Why I'm the witch, why can't I seek the counsel of the witches myself or at least with you," I argued.

"You're the last of a powerful line of witches, I need to know that I can trust the coven first before I introduce them to you, you can work on the circle, I trust them and they adore you but I'm not letting you near the others until I'm sure that they mean no harm."

He was right, Jee had told me not to trust anyone, the witches were not united like the witches and they didn't exactly have any council to fear, they did whatever they wanted and some of them were extremely cruel and power-hungry.

The same witches who had destroyed our entire witch's bloodline were still out there and they were still looking to harvest my bloodline for power.

"Fine, I'll go meet the circle," I told him and he calmed down.

"I can't have you hurt, Jade, promise me you'll be careful and you'll always take the guards with you wherever you go, please." He pleaded with me.

"I promise." The words came out of my mouth before I could stop myself, I couldn't refuse him, not when he was staring at me like this.

"I love you." He said and pulled me into his arms.

"I love you too," I responded and hugged him back.

"When are you leaving?" I asked him.

"Very soon." He said and I nodded.

"I'll write you some potions to bring back for me, I have to work on more protection for the pack," I told him and he agreed with me.

"Whatever you need, I'll bring it back with me." He said and kissed me on the forehead.

"You're going with, Sirius, right?"

"Yes, he's coming with me."

.

.

[Mason]

When Sirius mind linked me at the crack of dawn I knew that something terribly wrong had happened.

I ran down to the dungeon where he was and we mind linked Liya to meet us there.

Damien's body in was missing.

We had kept him in the dungeon so that Jade could examine him and find out what sort of magic was used on him to help us narrow down our search but now his body was missing.

As I stared at the empty cell, I decided I didn't want Jade to be near any of this, it was either the body disappeared by some sort of dark magic which was next level for Jade or they had somehow managed to sneak in and grab the body meaning the pack house security was compromised.

"What do you think happened?" I asked them when Liya joined us.

"I can't tell, I've never seen anything like this before." Sirius' confession unsettled me because somehow I expected him to always have answers to everything.

"We need to up our security and we need to find a way to identify if there are more moles in the pack," Liya said pacing back and forth.

"She's right," Sirius said and I nodded my head.

"Liya, you get started on the security and make sure to give double security to Jade, Jay, and Clarice," I told her.

"I'm on it." She said.

"We can't waste any more time, we have to find out who is responsible for all these." I turned to Sirius. "We leave today, we need to talk to the council and the blackners immediately," I told him.

"Jade can come with us, it'll make everything much more easier." He said.

"No!" I disagreed vehemently.

"Why not?" He frowned at me.

"Some of the witches are still after her because of her bloodline, they can't know about her until we've verified that they can be trusted," I told him.

"Okay, that makes sense, we will start with the blackners and make our way from there." He agreed.

Jade mind linked me and I mind linked her back, Liya left and she was already going about her job, Jade was pissed off about the added security but I wasn't taking any chances.

I knew that she was stronger than most wolves but I still needed her to be extra protected, when she mind linked me again I asked her to wait for me by the rose bushes while I concluded with Sirius.

I started to think about how I would break the news to her without upsetting her, she would want to go with me but I just had to convince her to stay for her own safety.

I headed for the rose bushes when I left the dungeon, I saw her sitting on a bench and I smiled, when I got closer I saw her holding a dead rose.

She was practicing her spells.

It was hard convincing her but once I explained things to her she saw reason and she wrote me a list of potions and weird herbs and ingredients to bring back for her to work on some new potions.

I hugged her closer to me and pecked her on the forehead 

"You're going with, Sirius, right?" She asked me worriedly.

"Yes, he's coming with me," I told her and patted her back. "I'll be back before you know it."