"Ailia, you can't let it get you down," Piper soothed me.

"How can I not?" I frowned. "I don't feel like I can do anything of this!"

I unconsciously scratched at my skin, avoided eye contact. Piper had arrived earlier this morning, and I was fast to drop my work in the office and drag her to my room. Everything flowed from my chest like a thunderstorm, shaking the very ground we walked upon.

"But you can." Her head cocked. "Fate would not put you in this position if you could not handle it. Think about what happened to you before, and here you are still kicking ass."

I laughed softly, shaking my head. "That's not the point! That may have happened to me, but I didn't want it too! I had no choice but to get over it."

"You could've given up." She quirked an eyebrow, and then her eyes dropped to my arms. "You tried before."

I rarely spoke about the darker times when I wish it would all end, never mentioned how I wanted to take my own life when it became too much. Piper and Mya hinted at it regularly, comparing scars of abuse to ones of masochism. I did not want to ponder on it, quickly changing the conversation.

"How can I when I couldn't read half the fucking words on Asra's document?" I cursed.

Her gaze softened. "That is not your fault. That is just a lack of access to education, courtesy of bloody child abuse."

My lips pursed. "What if I can never learn?"

"You can't know until you try." She smiled. "Now, you said you had trouble with luna stuff. Talk to me about that instead of bringing yourself down."

I sighed, staring at the duvet. "There're loads to figure out."

"Expand?" she mused.

I shot her a look before rattling off a list of my latest job roles. "Inventory orders, budgeting, empathy visits, human and wolf morale, salaries, outgoings, job hours and work roles, keeping on top of decoration, holidays, birthdays-

"Okay, I'm going to stop you there." Piper held up her palm.

I scowled at her fingers, pushing her hand away from my face. "You wanted to know."

"Yeah, I know. But I get it. Everything suddenly is a lot to take on." She nodded. "They trained me all my life to be both alpha and luna because my father never knew what I was going to be."

"So, help me, please!" I begged. "How do I manage everything?"

"Every day is something different." She explained. "One day for face to face, another for inventory and stock, one for checking up on the humans and workers. You can't do it all in one day, Ailia."

"But I work in the kitchen every day." I huffed. "It's half of my day."

"You'll have to drop hours."

"But I enjoy cooking." I grimaced.

"If you had a beta female, half of this workload would be lifted."

"I spoke to Rio the other day." I rolled my eyes. "He said the same."

Piper grinned. "That's because that is the beta females job. The male helps with training and more muscle based stuff, alongside the alpha, but the alpha does the paperwork. It's the same with a female. She would lighten your load, help crunch numbers, and spread the word about things."

"How am I going to get a beta female? Can't I just have you?" I pouted.

Piper grinned. "I have to be home with my dad, as I figured out the Azriel crap."

"What's going on with him, anyway?" I wondered.

She sighed. "He found out about Azriel and is pushing me to mate him."

My nose crinkled. "Why?"

"He sees me being mateless as a burden and thinks the Goddess is blessing us with Azriel."

I snorted a laugh. "She is sure doing something, but I would not say giving blessings out."

"If I reject him, Ailia... I don't know what would happen to me. I don't know if my wolf, my heart, could take another loss. Dickhead or not of a mate."

"It is a rather fucked up situation." I agreed.

"My dad wants me to mate him so we can be the alpha pair. Despite Azriel not having the alpha gene, he knows who his father is."

"History aside, Azriel is still a vampire hybrid."

She pursed her lips. "Dad does not know about that. He was unhappy enough the other was human. Imagine the enemy!"

I grinned, already picturing the day Azriel and Cai meet. I would pay for a front-row seat just to see the old man sweat.

"Remember when you said you hope one day I will have another chance and it will fall into place?" Piper mused.

I cringed. "Maybe..."

Of course, I did. Piper deserved a mate-ship. She did then, and she does now.

"Yeah, well, you jinxed me, didn't you? First second-chance in history, and I'm stuck with him." She groaned. "I wish it never happened, sometimes."

"Everything happens for a reason?" I tried.

The glare she gave me would send a sane person running, but I giggled instead.

"It's true." I admitted. "Fate, and everything about it is weird. I'm learning to accept that it is just that way."

She sighed. "A human mate would've been easier."

"He would be alpha. How would that even work?" I wondered.

"I would've been alpha female instead." She shrugged. "He would've been my companion. But alas, it wasn't meant to be, and now I'm stuck with an arsehole."

I smiled sadly. "What was he like? Your mate?"

She sighed, staring at a spot behind me on the wall. "Small, soft all over. Fair hair and bright eyes."

The complete opposite to Azriel.

"What was his name?"

"Theo." She murmured. "He was beautiful, Ailia. I would've given up everything for him."

"Everything?" My eyes widened. "Even your wolf? Your home?"

"Yes."

I knew her answer anyway, but still the single word from her mouth shocked me. Piper loved her wolf fur, loved her home and her blood. The only thing she despised was her father, who seemed to be losing his marbles.

"Anything, Ailia. It was like the answer to life just revealed itself to me. My every breath, my every heartbeat made for his." Her eyes met mine, sadness covering them in a gentle sheen. "The power of the mate bond is something you can't describe. When he died... My dad pushed me to my limit so I wouldn't succumb to it. I felt like my body was shutting down. It was horrible. I could only imagine the pain if we had mated."

I frowned, staring back down at the blanket. If that was how Piper felt, it must be how the others felt. Asra must feel the same. The heaviness of the situation weighed deep in my chest, and I suddenly felt guilty I did not feel such a power.

"Now, I am stuck with an arrogant beast of two kinds, and I don't know what to do." She groaned.

"Azriel is complicated." I agreed.

"What was he like when you were with him?"

"Besides the psychopathic tendency to suck my blood and experiment with how long I can survive?" I snorted.

Piper rolled her eyes. "Was he that bad the whole time?"

"You spoke to him since?" I wondered.

"I... hovered. I observed. He just stared at me the whole time."

"Azriel was odd." I began. "He would look at me like I was a carnival act, something of amusement. When his more vampire quirks came to light, he scared me."

Her frown deepened at my admission. "So, he's like two different people?"

"Yeah, pretty much." I murmured. "He would watch me like a hawk, but I found I could wind him up a lot. But his vampire side would hurt me, manipulate me, and play on my weaknesses. He would break my bones and take my blood with games of questions and answers."

Her gaze darkened. "He did what?"

I shrugged. "He also healed me."

"Ailia, no. Just, no. Listen, he broke your fucking body and took your blood by force."

"Not just by force. I wanted answers to questions and in return, he had a drink." I shrugged.

"Ailia, please." Piper growled. "That is not right. He down-right abused you and took your vulnerability for granted. You couldn't go anywhere, you couldn't fight, and he knew it. Him nearly killing you was probably a power play."

I scowled, burning an invisible hole in the bed. "I just pissed him off."

"You annoy everyone." She rolled her eyes. "But we don't kill you."

"Hey." I muttered, but she grinned. "He can teleport you now. Has a special crystal."

Her eyes widened. "So, he's friends with witches."

I shrugged. "He took me to the place I was born. That's where I met Jeremy."

"The guy from your dreams, right?"

I snickered at her playful grin. "Yeah, him."

"Crazy how things turn out, isn't it?" She sighed. "The Moon Goddess has mated me to a psychopath."

That's because the Moon Goddess isn't what you think she is. If the diary I read was any consolation, and held any truth, she was only in this for entertainment and power. She wanted to prove to others that she could create a race as great as the humans. But it looks like the mate bond was backfiring, because the moment wolves go to kill the humans, the mate bond surprised everyone.

It made me ponder what her intentions were anymore. Why had nobody seen her in so long? Why did she hide and never show herself?

"Ailia?"

I blinked back to the present to find Piper inches away from my face. My eyebrows furrowed, lips pursing at her with confusion.

"Why are you so close to me?"

"Maybe I just wanted to steal a kiss." She teased.

We laughed lightly, and she leaned back to sit opposite me once more. The conversation turned light, catching each other up on everything else in-between.

When she started teasing me about pregnancy, I snuck a glance at the clock.

"Oh, would you look at that!" I rose from the bed. "It's six! Dinner should be ready!"

Piper laughed. "Nice distraction, Ailia. But next time I get a phone call like that, I will need some more context."

I rolled my eyes, relieving myself in the bathroom. As I washed my hands, Piper appeared behind me. Staring at myself in the mirror, my lips curled into a frown. My hair had turned frizzy from the amount of times I ran my hands through it. Grabbing a hair tie from the vanity drawer, I pulled the unruly mass into a bun. A few smaller waves fell free, and I was quick to tuck them back in.

"What's that?" Piper wondered.

"Huh?" I blinked, looking at her in the reflection.

She focused her brown eyes on a scar on the side of my neck. It was the opposite of Asra's and my eyes dropped to the faded pink teeth marks with a grimace.

"Azriel."

"He marked you?" Her eyes widened.

"No-no, that's from when he tried to kill me." I shook my head.

I knew I said the wrong thing the moment her eyes turned black. Her jaw tightened, fists clutched at her sides as her entire body went stiff. Piper growled low, staring at the two large blotches on my neck. I swallowed, lifting my hand to cover it.

"Uh... Piper." I muttered.

"He tried to kill you?"

"Did I not already tell you before?" I whispered. "That was Azriel's whole thing. He wanted me dead so he could kill Asra. He just got a bit... too angry one day. Just before he locked me in that fucking room for-

"Does Asra know?" She interrupted.

"Maybe?" I frowned. "He knows he would take my blood."

She growled. "I will kill that son of a bitch myself."

My lips parted with alarm, but she was out of the bathroom in a second. I startled at the fast movement before catching my gaze in the mirror. My eyes were wide, cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

"Shit."

***
Hope you've had a fantastic Christmas guys