Chapter 8

Johnathan

I don’t usually like it when my schedule and routines are interrupted, but I’m not completely inflexible. Rules and structure are the most important things in life, but rigidity can shatter even the most carefully constructed framework.

Normally, I go up to Gregory's room a few minutes before nine o’clock to tell him a bedtime story, then I tuck him in for the night. At exactly nine, I turn off his light and switch on the nightlight. I then head to the pool where I have a cocktail to unwind before I head up to bed at eleven.

Everything in my life, personal and professional, runs according to a very strict schedule and set of routines. I can set my clock to it.

Tonight, however, I allow Mara to tell Gregory his story while I stand outside his bedroom and shamelessly listen it. It’s a story about a young man who has to go on a series of adventures to save his family from an evil witch.

I smile. The story might be a little too grown up for Gregory to fully understand, but Mara is inexperienced, and Greg is transfixed.

One of her duties will be to be a mother to my son, and frankly I expected an uphill battle. Gregory has hated every nanny I appointed. He has the uncanny ability to send all of them running screaming for the hills in six months or less.

It always starts out well. He starts out by being the nicest, sweetest boy, and then his behaviour becomes progressively worse. None of them have been able to handle him. Nannies are easy to replace though. I can’t replace my Luna if my son decides he's going to hate her.

His current nanny, Susarah, a blown-in from way down South somewhere, has lasted a week longer than the nanny who came before her. Susarah comes from a rough pack and a brutal country where violence reigns supreme in all walks of life. She doesn’t scare easily.

The clock in the hallway softly dings nine times. I push the bedroom door open and step inside. “That’s it,” I say. “Lights out.”

“But Mawa isn’t done with hew stowwy yet,” Gregory protests.

Mara immediately gets to her feet, obeying my order without questions. “It’s a long story,” she says, “our hero’s on a quest. It will take me days and days to tell it. We can go on tomorrow night.”

Without being prompted, and seemingly without a hint of shame, she leans over, kisses Greg's forehead and ruffles his hair. “Sleep tight, little guy.”

It would melt my heart, but I harden myself against the sweet image. I’ve seen nannies treat Gregory the same way, and I’d feel some hope that it would stick, that he'd finally find the motherly love he so desperately craves, but inevitably, he’d end up chasing them away like a bad dream.

I wait until Mara's out of the room before I take a seat on the edge of Gregory's bed and smooth his ruffled hair. “So what do you think, little man? Do you like Mara?”

“Yes,” he says without missing a beat. “Can we keep her?”

I laugh at my son's innocence. “She’s not a toy, but we'll see if she wants to stick around.”

There's no way to explain to a five-year-old that I actually bought his future stepmother at an auction, and that Mara has nowhere to go. She’s stuck here, and even if he starts to hate her or tries to drive her away, she won’t go anywhere.

I talk to my boy a little longer, bending my own rules just slightly, before I call a halt to our conversation and pull the blankets up to his chin. He immediately kicks the blankets off, “It’s too wahm, Daddy.”

It can get cold here at night, but most of the time it’s really fucking hot. “Okay,” I say and flip off the main light. “Sweet dreams. I want to hear all about them in the morning.”

Gregory yawns and turns on his side, away from me. Within seconds, I hear the soft, even breathing of my sleeping child.

Smiling, I close his door and tiptoe across the landing to the flight of stairs that leads to the back of the mansion.

I step out onto the deck and inhale deeply. From here, I can’t see or hear the noise of the town. 

Chad already put out two pitchers of cocktails - enough for two or three drinks - and covered it with a net to keep the bugs out. The quiet, unlit pool glimmers in the moonlight, and a warm breeze floats across the deck, calming my unraveling nerves.

With a sigh, I stretch out on the lounger next to the table and look out over my mountain home. I love this place. I grew up here. It was at once my greatest sorrows and biggest joy to hear that Haven’s Crest went tits up.

Back then, my father and the Alpha of this place, called it Misty Mountain. I changed the name. This place went from my hell to my haven, and it should be that for every rogue who blows in here.

Behind me, I hear the soft and yet unfamiliar footsteps of an approaching she-wolf. “Good evening, Mara,” I say without looking over my shoulder.

“I- I- sorry,” she says. “I- I…” she goes quiet and I can feel the uncertainty radiating from the core of her being.

This is my quiet time, but if I’m going to have a mate, I’ll need to get used to having her around even when her presence annoys me. “Come. Sit with me. Have a drink.”

Her soft footsteps barely make a sound when she steps out on the wooden deck. “If you’d rather be alone…”

“No. Have a drink.”

“I’m not allowed to have alcohol.”

Fuck. This is like pulling teeth. “You are no longer with Lucas. You are with me. Have a fucking cocktail and try to relax.”

I get up, open the lounger on the other side of the table, and pour two drinks from one of the pitchers. When I hand one of the drinks to her, she visibly flinches, lifting her arm up as if to shield herself.

My jaw clenches and I hold on to a frustrated sigh. She reminds me too much of a little boy I once knew - a boy I buried a long time ago.

Without a word, I walk back to my lounger and sit down, clutching my own drink in my hand.

Mara finally sits down. Stiff and silent, her back ruler straight. She's afraid of me, and who can blame her for it? She reminds me so much of... 

I push the thought away. Dwelling, on the past doesn't do anyone any good. “Can you relax?” I ask her. “Or is that too much to expect?”

She just stares at me with those big, terrified eyes. 

I sigh inwardly. I have no idea how to make her feel better.

I’m not great with women. I know how to seduce them and I know how to fuck them, but I don’t know how to build a relationship. 

Gregory is the result of a one night stand with a blow-in. I thought I was in love with her and even planned to marry her, but when she left two days after giving birth, I was relieved. 

I know nothing about love, but I do know you’re not supposed to be relieved when the she-wolf you think you love leaves you alone with a newborn.

When Mara doesn’t say anything, I shake my head, take a sip of my girly drink, as Preston likes to call them, and lie back in my lounger.

The silence is suddenly thick and uncomfortable. “Do you like it here?” I ask.

“It- it’s very busy.”

I laugh. “Yes. We’re outgrowing the town. I need more space.”

She nods but doesn’t offer up potential solutions to the problem. Lunas are supposed to lead alongside the Alpha. They are supposed to advise and solve problems. Mara should know this.

Dante, my wolf, decides that now would be an excellent opportunity to give me advice though. “Give her some time. She’s afraid.”

“Oh,” I answer him. “Now you have something to say. You’ve been quiet all day.”

“Her wolf is hurt.”

That is not what I wanted to hear from him. “How badly?”

“She needs a healer.”

I sigh and throw my hands in the air. “Felicity,” I say aloud. “Are you around?”

“Who are you talking to?” Mara asks.

A vampire drops out of the sky, landing softly on the deck. Her eyes flash crimson in the darkness. “You called?” she asks.