Alpha's Blind Luna



***Ezekiel's POV***

I sat in my office looking down at the paperwork in front of me. The same paper had been in front of me for the last half hour but I couldn't bring myself to comprehend what I was reading. My mind wandered more and more lately. In my dreams, I found myself back at the High Council, roaming the corridors of castle. It was a never ending maze and at every turn I could smell him; fresh baked bread and basil.

Rose had tried to explain to me what it meant to have a mate, what it was like when she met Cory. I didn't understand until now. It was harder though, so much harder. The first day I saw him, stepping forward as the Alpha King Vale, I was shocked. I remember Leo having to get my attention after he spoke. His words flowed over me and I felt myself being carried away. I wanted him. I want to walk into his arms and never leave.

It was only when he backed away, disappeared from my line of sight that it all came crashing down on me. I remember shaking like a leaf and Leo leading me away. We were shown our rooms but all I could smell was him. Vale. Not only was my mate male, but he was the Alpha King. Already, I felt like I was living a lie within my pack.

Rose begged me multiple times to come clean about her and Cory, my Gamma and her fated mate. How could I? The pack expected me to be with my Luna. I was thirty, no pups, no fated mate, and if I told them that their Luna was actually mated to my Gamma they would insist on me choosing another Luna and immediately mating her.

I never wanted to be Alpha. My older brother was the one who was supposed to be Alpha and he was, for five years. He had a mate and a son. He was the leader that everyone wanted. The world is cruel though and when I was thirteen, our pack was attacked. That day we lost two Alpha's. My father and my brother fell protecting the pack. Suddenly, the pack was left with me as Alpha at thirteen or my brother's son who was not even a year old.

Owen was eighteen now and I know the elders have been hounding him to take his place as Alpha. He has been refusing to be Alpha since he was fifteen. I didn't speak to him about it because I knew how mad it made him. Currently, he was head warrior and trained all our warriors. Lately, with the attacks, he was patrolling more of the northern border trying to protect what little peace we had left.

"It's been fucking months!" Leo strode into my office, completely bypassing the fact that my door had been closed and that usually meant I was busy.

"Leo..."

He threw himself in one of the chairs in my office. "No! Don't you Leo me! I swear they are just fucking around! They weren't planning to help us from the start and this is their way of saying it!"

"We can't just expect them to turn up immediately to help, Leo. We have no idea what or who they are sending to help. You can't just ask people to drop everything immediately and fight a battle that isn't theirs to fight. We were lucky enough to have them agree."

"Yeah, thanks to that little twat."

I threw my pen at him, hitting him directly in the forehead. He cried out and rubbed his forehead. "The hell, Zeke?"

"I told you to stop calling him that! He is the Alpha King, whether you like it or not. You don't just become a King over night."

"Yeah yeah. Why you are so sensitive about him, I won't understand.”

Sighing, I opened up one of the drawers and took out another pen. “Is there a reason you are here, Leo?"This belongs © NôvelDra/ma.Org.

"Yeah, my sister is on a rampage again that something is wrong and that means the world is ending. Can't you reign her in? I swear Cory spends more time with her than you do. She's pregnant, shouldn't you be trying to reign her in?"

"If she caught you saying that, you would be six feet under right now. So you better watch yourself."

He laughed and shook his head. His eyes roamed over me and narrowed. "You doing okay?"

I looked back down at my paper, finally able to read that it was a request for a trading caravan to come through for a week. They were coming over from Europe and making their way across the States. Signing off on it, I moved to the next page.

"I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I dunno. You've just been acting weird lately."

Tapping my pen against the desk, I read over the next request. It was an expansion and upgrade of the Gathering Hall in the center of town. They provided some pretty high numbers for the remodel.

"Weird, how?"

I started to go through and mark the things I thought needed to be quoted again. It might be better to request some help from the human city below us. Sometimes, their prices were cheaper even with lugging the materials up the mountain. We might be able to midigate some of that by providing the materials ourselves and getting the work done by them. I pulled out a sticky note and wrote my thoughts down.

"Listless, quiet, reserved. You don't do much outside of working. I know you aren't sleeping as much lately. It's been going on since we got back from the High Council."

Putting the page with my notes in a separate pile, I moved onto the next order of business. "It's called stress, Leo. I'm so glad you aren't plagued by it."

He huffed and shook his head. "You're such an ass." Getting up, he walked up to the desk. "Tomorrow is training. You have to show. If you don't, Owen and I will come hunt you down."

"Sure. Who is Alpha again?" I looked up at him and there was a smile playing on his lips.

Shaking my head, I shooed him out of my office only to be interrupted again by Rose. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her belly prominently showing just how far along she was in her pregnancy.

"I swear, I'm going to kill Cory. Next time he tries to do something for me, tell him to just not do it if he can't do it right."

I chuckled. “Rose, you're scaring people. It's okay that everything isn't perfect."

"It's not! Everything needs to be perfect, Zeke! How am I supposed to function if..."

"Rose, stop. Do you remember when Rachel gave birth?"

She wrinkled her nose. "It was chaos. Absolute chaos."

"It was. She had everything perfect but she never planned for anything to go wrong. Everything went wrong. Suddenly perfect, was nowhere what she needed. So stop worrying about everything being perfect. You need to stop stressing. It's bad for you and for the baby."

Rose sat down in the same chair Leo did and in the same exact way. It brought a smile, knowing they were absolutely siblings even when they were mad at one another. Leo was older than I was and originally had been my brother's Beta. He wanted to know if I wanted to find a new Beta when I first took over but I trusted Leo with my life. He helped me with the transition when I was far too young to understand what it meant to be Alpha. Being paired with his sister made sense to everyone.

"Why is it that you know exactly what to say to calm me down? My own mate can't even do that." She grumbled and I chuckled.

"He's stressing about this too, Rose. Poor guy is doing his best to wrap his head around having a pup. Give him a break. He wants everything perfect for you and this pup too. Men just struggle with the idea because we aren't the ones carrying the pup. Cory loves you and that's what matters."

She started to open up her mouth but I put my hand up. "Don't, Rose. I already got the lecture from Leo five minutes ago. I don't need it again." Chuckling, she got up. "How did you know what I was going to say?"

"Because I know you. You and your brother. While I appreciate the concern, I don't appreciate the lectures."

Shaking her head, Rose came over and kissed my head. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders and my hand came up, holding her arm.

"We are just worried, Zeke. You refuse to talk to anyone and it's showing. If not me or Leo, find someone. Because we need our laughing and sunshiny Alpha back. Especially now when we are dealing with all this."

I nodded and smiled up at her. "I'll do what I can. It will help when the issue with the fucking Darkry pack goes away. I know I'm telling everyone to be patience, but Leo is right. It's been months. I don't know how much longer we can hold out."

“I believe in you and I believe in this new High Council. You are right when you said they can't just hire or request someone to drop everything right away. We will last as long as we need to. These bastards don't know which pack they are fucking with and we will show them."

I chuckled and nodded. "Yes, Luna."

She let me go and headed out the door. Stopping before she stepped out, Rose looked back at me. "Find someone to talk to, Zeke. Seriously."

The door shut behind her and I rubbed my face with my hands. Talking about it wouldn't help. This hole that I felt digging further and further into my soul. I didn't want to eat, sleep was restless and if I did, I would dream of him. Dreaming of his scent but then when I finally would see him, it was the face he made at me on the last day. It nearly brought me to my knees. He was so angry but it was also mixed with pain. The way his eyes looked at me, stared into me, it knew he hated me. My mate hated me and it was the face I saw every time I dreamed of him. I would wake up immediately and the hole in my heart always felt worse.

Sighing, I went back to my paperwork. I flipped through the next few pages and wrote notes or signed off on new projects. We were trying to keep every day life as normal as possible. We did implement a buddy system for the she-wolves. Just making sure no one would be taken again. After we had left for the High Council, the attacks lessened and instead we spotted them more on the edge of the territory but not crossing over.

When I looked up next, I realized it had already gotten dark. I looked at the time and it said 9:45 p.m. Donna was going give me another lecture on missing dinner, again. Reorganizing my desk, I set it out to be ready for tomorrow's drop off and pickup of new paperwork that Cory did for me. It would be easier after training to jump into it if everything was organized.

Getting up, I turned off the light in my office and closed the door behind me. I snuck down to the kitchen and opened the fridge. There was a container in the fridge with a note on it. 'We will talk about this tomorrow. -Donna' and I groaned. She was going to let me have it tomorrow. Taking the container out and throwing it in the microwave, I heated it up for a couple minutes before taking it back to my room.

"Another late night, Alpha?"

I jumped as I looked back, the door ajar and Cory standing in it, his arms crossed over his chest.

"I finished enough paperwork where I won't feel guilty about going to training tomorrow."

He shook his head. "Take better care of yourself. Rose is worried."

"I know. She tells me, constantly. As does Leo. I'll make sure to add you to the list."

I opened up my door and slammed it a little too hard behind me. Sitting on the couch, I ate a few bites of the food but it felt like I was eating ash. Nothing tasted or felt the same. Forcing myself to eat at least half the portion Donna made me, I took a quick shower and flopped into bed. My head felt heavy and I felt myself spinning into a deep sleep.