The Forbidden Mate
Chapter Thirty-One – Friends and Family

Katy

I make my way down to the kitchen, hoping to replace Mrs Wilson and Emma there again. When I enter the room, I see them sitting at the table eating breakfast. The kitchen is full of servants, my friends, preparing for work. As soon as I enter, they stop what they are doing, bow their heads and say Luna.

“Thank you, but you don’t need to call me that, I am still Katy, your friend” I tell them.

“No” Mrs Wilson says, “you are our Luna and our queen. We cannot treat you in same way as we did before, it wouldn’t be right.”

I nod. I understand why she is saying this, but I am sad that they feel this way. She seems to understand what I am feeling because she walks forward and grabs my hands.

“We are so proud of you Katy,” she tells me. “You are one of us, raised as an Omega, but here you are about to become our pack’s Luna and queen. Something that none of us expected to see happen in our lifetime.”

I squeeze her hand, to show my gratitude. “You will always be my friends, the people who cared for me when no one knew who I really was. That means more to me than any honours people will bestow on me going forward.”

“Thank you, that means a lot to us” she tells me.

“How has Emma been? I ask, making my way over to my sister.

“Quiet, she has calmed down after yesterday, but she has missed you.” Mrs Wilson tells me.

I pull her into my arms, giving her a big hug.

“I am here now Emmy,” I tell her. “And I will keep you safe.” With Lucius still after me I am not sure if I will be able to keep that promise, but I am going to do everything I can to make sure she never has to go through this terror again.

“And you will never leave me? You promise to never leave me again?” She begs me.

My heart sinks. That isn’t something that I can promise. I know that going forward, being queen, I will have to go places and do things that are dangerous. I won’t put Emma in danger by bringing her with me. But I have to be honest with her.

“I can’t promise you that Emmy. There are places that grown-ups need to go, that aren’t safe for children, and I won’t put you in danger again. But whenever I can, I will keep you close, I promise you. Anyway, I say with a smile “there are places that you will need to go too, that I can’t go with you, like school.”

“I don’t really need to go to school” she says shaking her head.

“Yes, you do. You need to go to school and learn. You need to play with your friends.”

“Playing would be OK” she allows.

“Today we can spend lots of time together. You can come with me when I go to see Katy, and later you can meet my mate, Alex. He is dying to meet you” I tell her.

“The Alpha” she says sounding scared.

“Yes, he is the Alpha but he is also our family now, so there is no need to be scared of him.”

“OK” she says.

………………..

Once we have finished breakfast, I take Emma with me while I look for Lily.

I replace her in the Luna office. Euan and Daniel are with her. Euan is sitting next to her holding her hand.

“Hi, how are you?” I ask her.

“I am OK” she replies, quietly, “more importantly how are you? I am so sorry.”

“Sorry for what” I ask her surprised.

“For my father, for what he did to you, and to the pack.”

“Why would you be sorry Lily, you are not your father, you weren’t responsible for his actions. He hurt you as much as anyone else, he beat you, he killed your mother. Don’t ever feel that you bear any blame in this” I tell her.

“See, like I told you, you are not to blame, you have done nothing wrong. In fact, you helped us stop your father. If you hadn’t passed me information about what he was doing to me, we wouldn’t have been as prepared as we were when he attacked. He might have overpowered this pack and won” Euan tells her.

“Not all the pack will agree with you” she says sadly.

“No, there will always be people who think the worse. Just as there will be some who will not want to accept me as their Luna and queen. I am not going to let their opinion bring me down, just as you shouldn’t. For a long time, you were one of the few people in this pack that treated me as a person, a friend, not just an Omega, and I won’t ever forget that. You are important to me Lily.

Besides you need to help me with this whole Luna thing. I haven’t a clue what I am supposed to do, and we have a mating ceremony to plan” I tell her.

She jumps up and hugs me. “Thank you I can’t wait. I have so many ideas, you will have the best mating ceremony ever”

“And while you are arranging Alex and Katy’s mating ceremony you need to be thinking about ours, because as soon as they are formally mated. We will be too” Euan tells her.

I can see the love between them, and I am surprised that I didn’t guess sooner that they were mates. It is perfect, Alex’s best friend and mine are mates as well.

I turn to Daniel. “How are you Daniel? They beat you up badly. I am so grateful for how you tried to protect us yesterday.”

“I am getting there, werewolf healing” he says with a smile. “I am sorry I couldn’t stop them capturing you. They almost succeeded in taking you to Lucius.”

“There were too many of them for you to have been able to stop them, but you were so brave the way you fought back,” I tell him.

Alex

I am in my office with Joseph, my grandfather and aunt planning what we are going to do next. Now that Katy’s secret has been revealed, it won’t be long before Lucius replaces out and tries to get to her. This is important but I am struggling to concentrate, I am on edge, and my wolf is clawing inside me, desperate to get out, to go to our mate.

I have been apart from Katy for only a few hours as she catches up with Emma and Lily, but it is killing me. I never want to be apart from her again. I know part of this is down to the mate bond. Now that I have marked her it makes me want to be close to her at all times, but it is made worse by the knowledge that I was so close to losing her yesterday.

I feel myself calm down as she walks in with Euan. I go to her and take her in my arms, I lean down to nuzzle her neck, where my mark is proudly on display for everyone to see.

“Congratulations” my grandfather says to both of us “I am so pleased and proud that you are mated. I can think of no greater honour than for my grandson to be mated to our queen.”

I watch my beautiful mate blush, unused to compliments.

She quietly says, “thank you.”

“We have been discussing what we do next” I tell her.

“Lucius will not stop, it won’t be long before he replaces out that his plan to take over this pack has failed, and Carl is dead. He will use all the resources at his disposal to replace and capture you” Joseph says to Katy. “We need to move quickly. We need to transport you to the safety of the Royal Pack where we will be better able to protect you.

“I can’t leave Alex” she starts to protest.

“You won’t have to” I tell her. “I will be coming with you, with a team of our strongest warriors. I need to keep some of them here, to protect the pack, but they will be under the command of Euan. My grandfather and aunt will help Euan to lead the pack in my absence.”

“We will leave after your mating ceremony. This will give me time to arrange for more royal wolves to make their way here, they will be needed to form part of your escort. The journey to the Royal Pack will be dangerous, Lucius is likely to try and ambush us, so we will need as many wolves as possible to ensure your safety” Joseph says.

Katy nods.

I squeeze her hand, I know how new and overwhelming this is for her, and I want her to know that I will be there support her every step of the way.

“I want to learn to fight” she says.

“What no, you don’t need to learn to fight, I will protect you. Joseph and the Royal pack will protect you. There is no need for you to learn to fight” I protest.

“And I am grateful for that, but I need to be able to defend myself” she says stubbornly. If I had been brought up as a member of the royal family or as anyone other than an Omega wolf in this pack I would have been taught to fight. Because I am an Omega, I was never given the opportunity. I was expected to serve, not to fight. If there is going to be a war, if wolves are going to fight over me, die for me, then I need to be able to take part, to defend myself.”

“She is right” Joseph says. “As a royal wolf, our queen should be able to fight. We should start your training as soon as the mating ceremony is complete.”

“Good” she says with a smile. She turns to me and says, “I know that you only want to protect me Alex, but I need to do this for myself.”

I nod, I know I won’t win this argument. “Fine but for now we need to concentrate on arranging our mating ceremony. I don’t want to wait any longer” I tell her.