MATED TO THE ALPHA AND HIS BETA - Season 5 Episode 66

The party we’d meant as a small celebration, a welcome home, a token of our appreciation to the pack…yeah, that little shindig had gone on until long past moonrise. Hell, some revelers were still going as the sun rose.

I’d grabbed a few hours of shuteye, but the room here in this mansion felt strangely too small. The biggest bedroom I’d ever had, and the walls had closed in on me while I tossed and turned next to my sleeping mates.

Finally, when the birds chirping outside sounded louder than an alarm going off, I got out of bed and made my way to the kitchen.

Some of the staff were already up, of course. Someone had to make the bread and get the coffee brewing. I startled a pair of chatty women dressed in maids’ uniforms as they replenished their cleaning caddies.

“Good morning, Alpha Mason! We were just…um…ahem, we’re getting to work right away!”

I had to stifle my laughter, but I also felt a little bad that they looked so obviously worried that I was going to scold them. Or worse. I wondered if my brother had been the sort of Alpha to come down hard on the staff, or if that was a throwback from Orion.

Every time I thought I had this Alpha gig down pat, something new cropped up to remind me that wishing and wanting to be something wasn’t the same as training to be something.

“No worries,” I told the maids, who giggled behind their hands.

“Can I serve you some breakfast, Alpha Mason?” A younger man in the house uniform of black trousers and a white button-down approached me hesitantly. I recognized him from the night before, when he’d been dancing wildly with…yep, one of the maids.

Man, I missed the days when I could party all night and still wake up at the crack of dawn looking like I’d slept for twelve hours.

“I’ll just grab some coffee. I can get it myself.” I stopped him from heading into the kitchen on my behalf.

He looked a little taken aback. “It’s just that Cook is kind of…protective. About her kitchen.”

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“I’m the Alpha,” I told him dryly. “Somehow, I think grabbing myself a cup of coffee shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”

“Yes, sir.”

The maids and the young man all left me. In the kitchen, I found the cook hovering over the oven, talking a mile a minute about the sourdough loaves in several pans on the racks inside. I found the coffee pot and helped myself, only to turn around and see who was taking up so much of her attention.

“Stella,” I said happily. “Good morning, little star.”

“Morning, Abba!” she said cheerfully.

Talk about looking fresher than a daisy. I suspected Stella hadn’t slept at all. Did she even have to? I wasn’t sure, but I suspected that she could get along on no sleep for a lot longer than I’d ever been able to.

She hopped off the counter and gave Cook a big, warm hug. The older woman gave me a side eye but didn’t complain about me helping myself to the coffee. She put a couple of fresh blueberry muffins into a handled basket and gave it to Stella with an admonition to come back any time.

“You’re too thin,” Cook scolded.

Stella laughed and hugged her again. She linked her arm through mine and leaned against me. “C’mon, Abba. Let’s go out into the back garden and have our breakfast. Have you been out there yet?”

“I haven’t been much of anywhere yet,” I reminded her.

Either she’d been exploring, or her Celestial talents gave her an unerring sense of direction, because my daughter led me through a maze of hallways and through a double set of doors. Beyond was a high-walled courtyard with a garden in full bloom.

“Kind of like Brightsky, huh?” she whispered as she nudged me with her elbow.

“Kind of.”

We found seats on a curving stone bench in front of some red and white roses in full bloom. Unlike Brightsky, there was no artificial sun here to make them grow, and once more I was reminded that I had no idea what time of year it was. How long we’d been in the enclave. It might’ve been a year, or two, or three months…

Stella cocked her head to stare at me. “Abba? Are you all right?”

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I sipped my hot coffee. It was perfect. Delicious. Fit for an Alpha, as a matter of fact, and I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling under my breath.

“I waited my whole life to be here,” I told her. “And now that I’m here…”

“It feels weird, doesn’t it?” she asked quietly.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Stella tipped her face up toward the sky. “You know, we could run away.”

She had a teasing tone to her voice, but at first, I didn’t answer her.

Running away didn’t actually seem out of the question.

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Chapter 467 Stella

I knew my Abba was feeling out of place here. The huge house. The staff. I’d never spoken at length with him about how he grew up, which was very different from how Dad did. I just felt a strong sense of being out of place coming from him.

I understood exactly how he felt.

For a few minutes we just sat quietly in the bright morning sunshine. He sipped his coffee and broke the blueberry muffin into pieces. I ate a bite of mine and let the flavors explode on my tongue. I was trying hard to appreciate everything for what it is. Simple pleasures.

“We can’t run away, Stella,” Abba said finally.

“I know.” I licked some crumbs off my fingers and then wiped them clean with the cloth napkin Cook stuck into the basket. “But if we did, where would you go?”

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His eyebrows went up fast and came down more slowly. I could tell he was thinking about it. “I don’t even know. Anyway, I’m here now. I’m co-Alpha with your dad. I’m not going to abandon the pack, or you and the twins. Or your mother.”

I nodded. I knew that already, and not from any Celestial superpower senses. I knew it because my Abba was one of the strongest and most loyal men I’d ever met…not that I’d actually met very many men.

My shoulders lifted and fell with my heavy sigh. Abba nudged me with his knee.

“What’s with the long face?”

I shrugged. “I know this is home. I remember being here before, although I was a baby and it’s all fuzzy and distant, the way all my baby memories are. But I feel like a stranger, too. Just like you do. Like I’m a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. ”

Abba shifted on the bench and cleared his throat. “Do you want to talk about it? Anything? I know that being a Celestial means that when you were a baby you were still aware in ways that normal…I mean…usually…ah, shit. I don’t mean to imply that you’re not normal, little star.”

I burst into laughter and leaned my head on his shoulder. Abba put his arm around me. “Oh, Abba. I’m not normal.”

“Hey.” He pushed me away from him to hold my upper arms while he scowled into my face. “You’re a Celestial. It’s normal…for a Celestial. I mean, you’re not…weird.”

“Oh, I’m weird.” I laughed one more time and looked up at the sky with a grin. “But that’s okay. Look at who I have for a father.”

We laughed together, then. Rollicking guffaws that hurt our sides and brought tears to our eyes. I hugged him hard. This time, when I let my head rest on his shoulder, he didn’t push me away.

“It’s hard for me to say what it would’ve been like for me if I wasn’t a Celestial, Abba. It’s all I’ve ever known. In babyhood, I knew I had to let you all think of me as an infant. Then when I got a little older, it was becoming more and more clear to me every time the Moon Goddess offered me a vision. How to behave. What to expect. But she’s gone quiet. I know there’s more for me, but right now, I feel a little lost. I don’t know my purpose.”

“Oh, Stella,” my Abba said sadly. “I hate that for you.”

“It’s part of life, isn’t it? Don’t we all feel that way sometimes?”

“Sweetheart, I understand that being a Celestial is important. That it’s who you are, and there’s no other way you can be. But what I want for you is…shit. A normal life,” he finished finally with a hint of apology in his voice. “It’s okay for you not to have some kind of purpose right now. After everything we went through, and everything you did for us all, you deserve some time to just…be. Time to do more than survive and help the rest of us. I want you to make friends. Have a social life, like other young women your age.”

“Technically, I’m not their age,” I reminded him.

We laughed again at that. More quietly, this time. My father’s love for me shone out of his eyes with such strength, I didn’t have the heart to keep teasing him.

“Abba,” I said with a gentle laugh. “I can’t be worried about all of that. I mean, really, what’s the point? As soon as I learn my purpose and complete it, the Moon Goddess will call me home.”

He made a low growl. “What the hell does that mean? Even if it doesn’t quite feel like it yet, Constantine is your home.”

I was quiet for a moment. I wished there was a better way to say this to him. A softer way. But in the end, I could only tell him the full truth.

“No, Abba,” I told him gently. “I mean that when my purpose is finished here…I’ll die.”