The Summer Moon
Chapter 93 -

Tyrese

"You mated with Chloe?" The words stumbled out of my mouth as soon as I had Jesse alone with me in my office. He awkwardly swayed in his steps as he walked towards me, sitting on the opposite side of the desk as I leaned over my chair. "Yeah, we met the night of that incident with Chloe and Malia. I sensed my mate nearby but didn't realize it was her until she left and I followed her scent. We wanted to keep it quiet though, until we were certain we'd both accept the bond," Jesse explained and I nodded my hand in understanding. The mate bond was an intimate thing, it would be humiliating to come forwards and say your mate had rejected you so I could understand why they'd want to hide it. Especially since this would make Jesse the next in line to be alpha of Winston's pack.

"I'm happy for you, and I really do wish you and Chloe the best," I said truly meaning it. Jesse deserved to replace his mate, of all of us he had always been the most eager. "So how soon do I have to fill your position?" I asked next. Although it would hurt to lose him as my beta, I was grateful he would be taking over the alpha position in the Dark Moon pack. Working with him over Winston was going to make my life so much easier and we would hopefully be able to start a new alliance between our two packs. All this however, was waged over the fact of whether Winston was really out to attack my pack and myself or not. If he was, Jesse and I were about to replace ourselves in even more trouble than we could handle. The next few days passed in a blur. I was so busy planning with my warriors and trying to organize the packs defences. Attacks were increasing in frequency and in numbers and we had to be prepared for anything. Liam was being a huge help though, organizing extra training classes and helping recruit more wolves to guard the pack boundaries. Plus, he was continuing to help Malia train every morning which I was probably the most grateful for. Knowing Malia was getting stronger and more confident in her abilities eased a lot of the stress I had about anything happening to her.

Jesse had gone to stay with Chloe for a few days and while he was supposedly there to begin his alpha training, truly I had asked him to do some investigating for us. He had secretly taken two of our best warriors along with him, and the three of them would spend the free time they had there searching for clues that there may be a war brewing between our pack and their's. I was anxious to know what they had found out when they returned but for now my focus remained on Malia.

Today was a big day for us, the day we finally moved into our new house. Together we had ordered a few essential pieces of furniture for the house but decided to do the rest of the furnishing together once we were settling in. Today we'd take all of our personal belongings over their, the movers would likely already have the truck unloaded by the time we got there though as Malia and I had been way too distracted this morning between the shower, packing our clothes, and finally our emotional goodbye to my mother.

"Mom you're still going to see us all the time," I groaned as my mother looked up between me and Malia with tears in her eyes. For the third time this morning her lip trembled as tears threatened to spill and she pulled us in together for another hug. "Mom we have to go," I groaned again.

"Fine fine, you two be safe though. Come visit anytime you want to," she leaned in and gave me one final kiss on the cheek then I turned to Malia. Grabbing her hand I pulled her out the door after me, eager to get to our new home. "You know when we first moved in together, I never thought we'd also be moving in with Liam," Malia giggled from across the room as she folded her clothes and organized them into the dresser. I laughed back at her, I had been thinking the exact same thing as I heard Liam come in the front door. We had given him his own key to the house so he could stay in the spare bedroom in the basement for however long he needed it.

Of all my friends to suddenly need a place to stay, I had hardly expected it to be Liam. But with everything going on, it only seemed right to have him here. Even when he was staying with us back at my parents house, you could tell he was really hurting over what was going on with his parents. He only left his room to throw himself into training, for practice with Malia, or to help with the investigation into Winston's pack.

"Alana thinks he's keeping his distance from her too, she hasn't seen him since the night we found out about his parents," Malia mumbled obviously hearing the thoughts rushing through my mind, and I nodded my head towards her. I had been wondering the same thing, but what Liam was going through was obviously taking a huge toll on his wolf and I could only imagine it. Finding out my parents were traitors to the pack would change my whole life, and even if Liam had shown nothing but loyalty towards the pack some people were still doubting him. "Do you think things will work out between them? I mean, I thought since she's his mate he wouldn't be able to stay away from each other?" "They may not have mated yet, so the bond may not be that intense yet. But also Liam's going through a lot right now and his wolf is probably struggling with it all too. The people who he probably trusted more than any of us just betrayed him and now he probably just needs some time to bounce back to his normal self," I explained to her, really hoping that time was all he needed. I had never gone through anything like this, so it was hard to say what he would need to recover from this. I had thought for sure he would be leaning into Alana to get through this, especially after she made that big move after the attack that night but he seemed to be doing the exact opposite.

Suddenly my phone rang interrupting our conversation and I quickly slid it out of my pocket to see Jesse's name flashing across the screen. My heart jumped in my chest as I answered it in a flash, eager to know what or if he had found anything. "Jesse,” I said his name into the phone, skipping over any pleasantries.

"Ty we found something, and you need to see it right now," his voice rang through strong and clear. My heart dropped in my chest, I had been hoping they would replace nothing. I was hoping that our assumptions were wrong and it wasn't another pack targeting us, but replaceing something was never good news.

"What is it?" I asked, desperate to know.

"I think they're attack plans," and my body froze, Lia's eyes coming to lock on mine as she listened in to my thoughts. We both knew what this meant, and it wasn't good. We were going to war.