AVAAfter that delightful history lesson, I really needed to unwind, and fortunately, the perfect opportunity came in the form of Theo.We never got to have time alone before when we marked each other like I did with the others, and that was something I wanted to make up for.That evening, we left Noah, Callum and Oscar to have a few drinks and relax, and we headed out into the meadow with a picnic in tow. Of course we had a full Queen’s Guard with us, so we’d never be truly alone… but at least Jeremiah and the others would be discreet, as far away as possible without compromising my safety, and wouldn’t even consider running around telling everyone what they see me getting up to.Theo spread out a beautiful, fluffy picnic blanket when we reached the clearing, finding another ready to pull over us if we got chilly.It was a clear night, fortunately, because the plan was to watch the stars. A meteor shower was predicted, and watching that would be the perfect date night for Theo and I.
AVAI was still floating on a post-orgasm cloud the next morning to the point that I was practically bouncing as I walked. Theo and I needed that time together last night, and badly.“You’re in a good mood this morning, Theo,” Noah smirked when we all sat down for breakfast in the private dining room in our suite. I’d insisted on a room being set up so the five of us could eat in private if we so desired, and Michael had more than delivered on that.Theo pressed a kiss to my forehead, grinning at Noah. I shook my head at the pair of them, unable to stop the smile spreading across my face, before walking around the table, saying good morning to and giving each of the others a kiss. When I reached Oscar, he wrapped his arms around my waist, tugging me into his lap so I straddled him where he sat. This is why when we chose chairs, the boys all insisted on ones without arms.“Good morning, little one,” he whispered against my ear, his breath sending a shiver do
AVAI did not want to get up the next morning.Saturday had come around too quickly, which meant tonight, the five of us would be paraded around in front of all of Eclipse Mountain, the leaders of every pack and since it was our home pack, most of Blood Moon.I was not looking forward to this, and my nervousness was bleeding through the matelink to my Kings.For once, I agreed to have someone do my hair and makeup for me. Not for appearances, but more because I have a habit of getting a bit… red faced if I’m angry, and there will be a lot of people that will get on my bad side, especially since the fact I stripped Minister Byron of his position and locked him up pending trial.Of course, there was also the concern that my Kings
AVA Just about within the two hour deadline, I was ready, courtesy of my makeup artist. She’d even managed to tame my hair into tidy curls and used a lot of hair pins to keep the curls bunched on the back of my head (excluding a couple she let frame my face), and keep the crown in place too. The boys hadn’t seen me getting ready, I’d been in my dressing room the entire time. When I walked out finally, they all stopped to stare at me, mouths open. I’d picked a dark green dress that had a lace bodice and glitter detail in emerald green to match the crown. It was a floor length Princess-style gown so you couldn’t see the stunning black heels I’d chosen, but I knew they were there. My mum was the first to react, running over and pulling me into a hug, tears in her eyes. “You look so beautiful, Ava,” she wept. “You look every bit the future Queen tonight.” I smiled against her hair, before kissing her forehead. By that point, everyone else had reacted, and both Amy and Izzie had joi
CALLUMI was beyond grateful that I didn’t have to give a speech.Ava didn’t even expect us to stand behind her, she knew the four of us were really uncomfortable with the whole thing. As soon as Michael finished his speech and Ava stepped forwards to give hers, the faces of the crowd were… varied. A lot of people were looking forward to hearing what she had to say, but there were definitely a few that still weren’t best impressed that she would be taking the throne.And those faces that already weren’t happy looked like they’d been slapped when she announced some of the laws she was planning to revoke to better protect young girls who were in similar situations to the one she was in, but didn’t have the chance to get out of it.The younger audience
AVAThat moment I kicked off my heels when we got back to our suite was one of pure elation. I hadn’t realised just how uptight I was until I made it back to our happy place.I made a beeline straight for my dressing room, needing, more than anything, to get out of the dress and crown. They both seemed to have gotten really heavy over the last hour.Noah followed me in, standing behind me, my back against his chest whilst he teased what felt like hundreds of hair pins out of my hair, until finally, it tumbled down my back in much more defined curls than I would normally go for.I let my head fall back against his ch
OSCARWhen I woke up the next morning, the five of us tangled together in a pile of sated limbs, I felt content. Yes, things were a bit crazy, and yes, in five weeks time, someone would be putting a crown on my head… but I was happy. The five of us were happy.Even my dad and Alpha Jacob pulling knowing faces at us over breakfast because of the noise last night couldn’t put a dampener on my mood. I didn’t think anything could.Right up until something did.Ava’s eyes glazed over as someone linked her, her expression moving through various degrees of shock before settling on anger. When she met our eyes again, Artemis was staring back at us.“We were right,” she hissed, voice low. Fortunately we were in our priv
AVAThe next week dragged by in a mess of patrols, problems, and absolutely no solutions for anything at all. No one found anything useful that would point us in remotely the right direction, or even just a direction that wasn’t wrong. We had no idea where Matthew was hiding. No idea where Elijah was hiding. We hadn't even found any of Elijah's rogues in a while, and we had absolutely no idea if Matthew was working on his own or if he had an army behind him.We had nothing.We were trying to make an effort to carry on like normal, at least as much as possible. We had to try because today was Callum and Oscar’s eighteenth birthday.Normally, today would be the day that their wolves would identify their mate for the first time. Of course, we’d known for much longer. Desp