Novel Palace
Chapter 44
Luna On The Run – I Stole The Alpha’s Sons Chapter 44
Read Luna on The Run – I Stole The Alpha’s Sons Chapter 44 Axton POV
Coming out of my room after showering and dressing, I find Elena putting the last touches on the dining table when the oven alarm.goes off. “I take it Tierney has left?” I ask her looking for the oven mitts.
“Yes, while you were showering,” Elena answers, coming over and nudging me aside with her hip as she reaches to the cupboard above the stove to retrieve the oven mitts. My eyes roam over her as she slips a mitt on her hand, her huge baby bump sticking out, and before I can stop myself, I reach out to touch it. She freezes, her entire body turning tense as I run my hand over the silk fabric of the dress, my hand smoothing over where I could just make out her belly button was popping out.
“I should get the hens out,” she says, making me lift my gaze to hers; I clear my throat.
“Sorry.” she steps away, pulling the oven door open, her hair falling over her shoulder, and she flicks it back as she pokes one of the hens with a skewer pulling it out. She grabs the other mitt tucked under her arm to slip it on when I take it from her.
“I’ll get it out. You’ll ruin your dress,” I tell her, taking them from her.
“I’ll fix the wine then,” she says when there is a knock on the door. Without thinking, she walks over to the door and yanks on it before remembering it is locked. And in return I also did
not think as I was too wrapped in the memory of feeling her giant baby bump. I dig my hand into my pocket and retrieve the keys tossing them at her. “Blue one,” She catches them and I lean down, retrieving the hens out, only to freeze, realizing I just tossed the keys to her. I set them on the counter in panic as I hear the door open. I quickly race over to her.
“Hi, you must be Elena, the Alpha’s-” Stepping behind Elena, 1 place my hand on her side, I notice the way she tenses, yet her face gives nothing away. Picture perfect, and I could tell she was more than
comfortable with these sorts of situations, natural, even though I could feel the tension in her back from me touching her.
“Mate, Luna Doreen-” I tell the woman, rubbing my hand up the side of Elena’s belly, god I wanted her bump to live in my hands. Elena says nothing at my comment, just smiles though I notice the way her eyes darted to me.
“I thought you rejected your mate?” Luna Doreen says as her husband comes in behind her.
“Things change. We are trying to work things out,” I tell her before greeting the Alpha. Elena neither agreed nor denied it. I worried she would call me out, deny it, or even try to run. Yet her social skills were impeccable. She thrived in this sort of environment which she should she has trained her entire life for a Alpha position she would never get because she was a woman.
However, as the other council members arrived, we all sat down and discussed the vampire situation, the expansion of the city borders, and the neighboring towns that the city was looking into the purchase. Elena made little comment on
those matters but always answered flawlessly when a question was directed at her as she spoke with the lunas that lazed about my kitchen sipping wine while she prepared dinner.
“Must have been a kick in the teeth about your father, Elena. He even had me believing you would take over the pack,” Alpha Soyer says, looking in her direction.
“Women aren’t Alphas.” Alpha Thomas laughs. Alpha Soyer shrugs. “Always a first time for everything,” he says, and I see his mate smile softly at his comment.
“Yeah, but what use is she? Women can’t run packs. It’s why we have a hierarchy. And I can’t believe Derrick would be so stupid to start filling women’s heads with such nonsense; Derrick should have known better,” Thomas scoffs. He had been here only an hour and was already blind drunk.This content belongs to Nô/velDra/ma.Org .
“And how do you run things?” Elena challenges; I look at her to find her glaring at the man. He chuckles, “I run things well. You are just here to look pretty, not worry about men’s business, just like the rest of our Luna’s.” Elena scoffs, shaking her head.
“You think you can do better?” he asks. I wanted to step in, but I also wanted to see what she would do. Although, if he steps out of line by insulting her once more, he would be meeting Khan. My sedatives were wearing off, and my proximity to Elena was bringing him forward quicker.
“I know I can do better. Your business is sloppy at the best of times, Alpha. Your pack is living off loans and not all legal, might I add. Does the new council know you deal with the human banks? We are to stick to council and supernatural
banks, not to mention the money you launder through your shady ass businesses. Even with all that, your pack is in the black, and it is only a matter of time before you start liquidating assets.” she says. Thomas’s face turns red, and his hand’s fist on top of the table. Elena, though, keeps her cool as she walks around serving plates out. The other Luna’s helping her.
“Excuse me?” Thomas snaps at her. Elena stops setting my plate in front of me to look at him.
“That is bullshit, all lies. Your father has you brainwashed. Did he tell you such nonsense?” he spat, Elder Mathew watched him, and no doubt there would be investigations to be had now. After the way he sneered at her, I would make sure of it.
“Maybe next time you question my competence, Alpha Thomas, you check who your accountant was,” ah that’s right, Derrick used to manage all pack taxes and accounting within the council, now we handle our own, but when it was Derrick running things, it was supposed to all be run via the councils, a reason his control was never questioned within the city.
“So your father spewed these blatant lies?” Elena laughs, moving to the kitchen and retrieving his plate. Alpha Soyer also laughs at him, before sipping his beer and shaking his head. Thomas’s eyes cut
sideways to glare at him. “Thomas, stop before you embarrass yourself,” he says.
“No, she’s lying through her damn teeth about me,”
“She’s not lying. Elena knows all of our information, taxes, pack-operated businesses, Thomas,”
“That is council information, so if her father has been handing
out such information, he is.”
“My father hasn’t handled his pack in years. I have been running the pack since I was eighteen. He just refused to handle the title over. There is not a person in this room, well, except Alpha Axton, since he was only new to the city whose income, margins, and pack business I don’t know about. I handled all council work and pack business, not my father. I was the one that had you served for evading your taxes and also the person who had your shady ass laundromats investigated. That was me, not my father. He just signed the paperwork. I was the brains behind it all and the one that did all the work. Now that I am gone, I can only imagine the shit storm he has found himself in and how my mother is probably trying to bail him out of it,” Elena says, setting his plate in front of him.
“Now, Alpha, I may be my father’s daughter, but I no longer hold obligations to any pack; I no longer have obligations to this city, seeing as I am technically rogue, so I feel it would be better to drop such subjects unless you want more of your dirty laundry spilled on this table for everyone to see,” she says without some much as a nervous stammer. Alpha Thomas swallows, and his wife nudges him with a clear warning.
Alpha Thomas clears his throat. “Good idea, Elena-”
“Luna Elena,” I correct, and Elena’s eyes go to mine briefly; 1 could see the confusion in them, but she holds her shock, not letting it show.
“Right, Luna Elena, not the sort of dinner talk we are hoping for,” he says, reaching for his wine. “Allow me,” Elena says, plucking the wine glass off the table. She wanders back to the
kitchen to refill his glass. “Elena?” I call out, and she peers over her shoulder at me. I hold up my glass, and she nods once. When she returns, she gives Alpha Thomas his wine and hands me another whiskey, and takes her seat beside me.