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Claire’s POV
As I brought Leo back to the pack house, I couldn’t contain my own happiness. Finally, I had both of my children under my roof. Even if it was only temporary, they were both here, and they were both healthy and safe. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so content.
I did have the itchy feeling like there was one final piece missing, but I pushed that thought away. This was good. This was almost perfect. Almost perfect was the closest to perfect I had been in a very long time, and I loved it.
I sat with the two children in one of the sitting rooms. Leo and Nova were talking to each other a mile a minute. Even though they had spent most of their young lives apart, they still seemed connected on a level that only twins could really be.
“You know this makes you siblings,” I said, because I wasn’t sure whether they had pieced that together on their own yet. They hadn’t seemed to, because their excitement increased tenfold now. They held each other closely, jumping up and down.
“My sister!” Leo said brightly.
“My brother!” Nova agreed.
Holding hands they ran around in a small, two–person circle until exhaustion overcame them and they collapsed down to the carpet. They were out of breath, huffing in between their loud laughter.
My heart had not felt this full in a very long time.
Maybe that was why I was so unprepared, as Leo turned to look at me, he cocked his head to the side and asked, “Why did you leave?”
I blinked. “When?” I asked.
He frowned, and I hated it. “When I was born. Dad thought you were dead. Why did you leave me and him?”
Nova sat up but stayed quiet, carefully watching me.
The question stole my breath away, and I needed a moment to compose myself before I could answer. How could I possibly tell him everything I went through? He was too young to understand, and I didn’t want to torture him with the full explanation of my past.
Back then, I had been such a brave, if naïve, young woman. I’d been so confident, so sure. I knew with my strong wolf that I could be a good Luna, and I was driven to be the best Luna for Gideon. I had thought that we could build a life together and work together to make a solid, tight–knit pack.
I had been ready to be the kind of Luna that a powerful Alpha would like to have at his side.
But then, everything changed.
I hadn’t been allowed the life I had been hoping for.
I couldn’t tell Leo everything, but neither could I tell him nothing. He had a right to know some of it, if not all of it – someday, when he was older.
For now, I kept things simple. “I wanted to stay, but there were things… people… on the outside of it that didn’t want me to. They kept me and your father apart, and… once those bounds between us were broken, there could be no undoing that.”
Leo listened to what I said, and then tilted his head even further than it had already been tilted. “Someone was keeping your apart?”
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Chapter 147
“Yes.”
“Is that person still there?”
“No.”
“So you and Dad can be together again!” he said excitedly.
“Uh… no, that’s not what I’m saying…” I was starting to have the sinking suspicion that Leo might have been exhibiting a selective kind of listening, only hearing what he wanted to hear.
“Oh, I understand,” he said, but he was still smiling on me like he was in on a secret. “Don’t worry, Mom. I get it.”
He’d called me Mom.
That was enough to short–circuit my brain and make me believe anything he had to say.
“Good…” I said, and started smiling too.
Leo’s POV
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Mom and Dad were as good as back together, I figured. If the person who broke them up wasn’t around anymore, then there wasn’t any reason they couldn’t get back together. Sure, Ivan was a problem. Dad said that Mom and Ivan were together now. But surely if Mom spent some time with Dad, she would realize that they were meant to be.
Maybe they just needed my help to see it. If I could help them remember how much they liked each other, that would solve everything!
I couldn’t say anything in front of Mom though. If she knew what I was planning, she would probably try to go against it just because. Adults were funny that way. She could tell me what to do all day and all night, but if I tried to tell her what to do, I would get in trouble.
No, I had to find a way to get them back together without them knowing I had anything to do with it. It had to seem like it was all their idea.
Nova was smarter than me with this stuff, but I had to wait to talk to her until weren’t around Mom anymore. That took a while, because I liked being around Mom, and she seemed to like being around us.
It wasn’t until much later, when it was almost time for bed when I was finally able to get away enough to talk to Nova without Mom being there.
The moment we were alone, I could barely contain myself. “We have to get Mom and Dad back together. I have so many ideas, but I need your help –”
“Whatever you are thinking, don’t,” Nova said.
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Just let it go,” Nova said. “We shouldn’t try to get them back together.”
“Why?” I asked.
“You don’t understand anything,” she replied and walked away.
I stared after her, incredibly confused. Of course I didn’t understand. That was why I was asking her!
But whatever was bothering her, she didn’t seem like she wanted to tell me.
I tried to accept that, burying my own feelings deep. But I couldn’t vet rid of the hope that lived on in my heart I really.
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Chapter 147
really, really wanted to be a family with Mom and Dad and Nova as my sister.
I guess Ivan was standing in the way of that, being Nova’s Dad though.
I frowned, unsure how to work around that.
The next day, while playing, I was talking to Nova about my birthday. Curious, I asked her about hers.
I blinked when she gave the same date as my birthday. “What about the year?” I asked.
She told me, and again it was a match.
“That can’t be,” I said.
“You asked my birthday. That’s my birthday,” Nova replied.
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“But that’s my birthday too,” I said. “How could we have the same birthday? Unless we have the same… parents…”
Nova’s eyes went wide.
“That’s it!” I told her. I quickly checked behind us to make sure no adults were around, but Mom went to the bathroom and no one else was inside the house except the servants who didn’t seem to pay any attention to us. “Nova, don’t you see? We have to be full siblings! With the same parents!”
AD
