Ella’s Pov:
Coffee, that was the first thing I smelled before I opened my eyes. It was still a bit dark outside, and the clock by my dresser blinked 5 a.m. I hate mornings like this because I know she’s awake and already working. Mother Ruby Silvers was the best omega, diligent to a fault and an early riser. But this… 5 a.m.? This was too early even for her. She never started her duties before 7 a.m. I sighed, knowing that something might be wrong. There’s always something wrong. Or maybe the Luna has important guests. I slowly clawed out of my bed and towards that damned smell and opened the door, my eyes hazy with lost sleep.
She was crying. Mum had been crying. Her face was flushed, and she had stood up as soon as she saw me, but the evidence was there: her red eyes, her flushed appearance. And then it hit me. Of course it’s today. How could I forget? Every year this happens. Every year she’d cry constantly, mourning her mate, my father. I was only six when he died. I don’t remember him. I wish I did, but I have few memories of the man. Maybe that’s why I can’t mourn for him the way she does. But he was her mate. She had lost her mate so early in life. I felt the guilt rise inside of me. I’d been so occupied with graduation and finals that I forgot what today was.
I walked towards her and sat next to her, not showing that I know. She doesn’t like me knowing that she’s been crying. “Morning, Mum,” I say as I take an apple, and she begins opening the fridge, taking out her ingredients. I sat there while she hummed and walked about the kitchen. Ruby Silvers loved her job as the Luna’s Personal Omega.
For some in the pack, it might feel like too low of a position, but not to her. No, she loved it. She loved cooking and helping people. She was kind and loved. When Father died, she decided to move back to the Blood Cave Pack, ‘A fresh start,’ she had said. She doesn’t talk about that moment in time. It's almost like it never existed, like we hadn’t lived in another pack before or that my father ever existed. Only once did she dare to remember, and that was because the pain was too much on the day, today, his death, when the ghosts of her past haunt her. I stopped asking a long time ago when she screamed at me to stop. When she held me, tears in her eyes, screaming, “Stop it! Stop it, Ella, he’s dead! Let him go, just let him go!” I was ten, but I knew she wasn’t talking to me. Now I just hold her and make her happy as much as I can.
“So why exactly did the Luna want you up this early?”
“Umm… Well, honey, she just wanted to get a head start on the welcome home party for umm… Adam. You know how the Luna is she always wants the best. There will be so many people attending this time. She invited other packs as well, so lots to do. Honey, I…” She looked at me, and I could see the pity etched into her features, the blue eyes staring at me like I’m a damned woman. "No, no, it’s fine. Mum, I’m fine. It’s fine," I lie. I felt my wolf Astoria pace inside of me. She was restless. She hardly ever talked. She didn’t have to. I felt it, the sadness, anger, self-loathing. I’m grateful to have her, though. They had considered me wolf less until I shifted at 17 years old. It was late, a rare thing, truly.
All wolves at sixteen, some alpha pups when they were 14. There was never a delay ever. But I was the exception. “Listen to me, Ella, don’t ever shift in front of anyone ever. Do you hear me? Please, just listen to me,” my Mum said the day I shifted. “I don’t want to lose you too.” Astoria was white, pure white with the most beautiful blue eyes, so beautiful yet so rare. My mother told me tales of hunters and how some pack members would easily sell me off if they knew the truth, if they knew the truth of what I was. Astoria never complained about being hidden away, despite for grunts and sighs. She was so quiet. But I can’t help but think that she’s truly mad at me, that she was mad that I fell in love with someone who I don’t even know if he’s my mate. Adam was gone. He’d left for Alpha training two years ago.
"Honey… okay, okay, you’re fine. Ella, honey, but you should know that Luna said… she—well, Adam will be taking a Luna when he comes back. that's part of the requirements for taking the Alpha title needs.”
Ruby’s Pov
She thinks I don’t see it but I do, It’s clear to me even if she tries to hide it. The way her body and mood shifts when Adam’s name comes up. It’s like she’s holding her breathe, always tense, like she’s struggling to push it all down. She looks like me when she does it and I hate it, no mother would want that for her child.
But I thought she knew, she had to have known he was coming back. Her eyes, however, told me she didn’t, perhaps she had forgotten or she pushed it so far down that she was running on autopilot, just one step at a time.
Ella loves Adam, Luna and I know this, I can’t forget how when she was just a child she’d always look for him, always follow him around. They were cute together. At first I’d thought it to be a childhood crush that she had, a little girls quest to find her prince charming, and who was more of a prince then the friendly Alpha’s son. But when they grew up and the wonder in her eyes turned to longing I knew then. I knew that it wasn’t just a crush. She was falling.
I should have stopped it then, Luna and I should have kept them away from each other until their first shift but the hope that the two would be true mates- well it was too great. That was my worst mistake.
When Adam left it felt like I lost my daughter. God knows Ella tried to hide it. She tried to be strong,to smile and move on but after a while she smiled less and less, her eyes dulled and she was lost. She’d lock herself in her room, Her appetite dwindled.
A part of me knew I did this. She was following my footsteps, bottling everything in until one day it burst and a year ago it did. I had just come back from a trip with the Luna, I could hear her sobs coming from her bedroom, I’d opened it and there she was. Sitting surrounded with torn up pictured of them, every picture that had Adam, her room was a mess, Clothes everywhere, the lamp was broken and the glass littered the floor.
I held her, and for the first time in a long time she let me. We sat there till nightfall, till her screams became soft sobs until she whispered, “He won’t talk to me mum, he hasn’t texted or called me. I know he’s ignoring me and it hurts do damn much. Did I do something wrong? Why, why won’t he talk to me. Why won’t he love me. Why am I not enough, why am I never enough.”
I wish I would have warned her better, I did tell her to be careful. That she could like whoever she wanted but she never should fall in love, That her mate would come and he would be the one for her, He was the one she should love. I should have been more strict, I never wanted her to feel that.
After a while she changed, she smiled but it wasn’t the same, it was hallow, a smile that held no light. Alice and James helped. That had been the only saving grace at that point. The Gamma’s children had always been close to my daughter. They were the first to welcome us. They were the first friends she had made when we came to the pack. Alice had constantly dragged the three of them into trouble. She was wild yet kind. James on the other hand was the sweetest little boy. He was always so polite, so funny, I see the look in James eyes when he looks at my daughter. I just hope it fades for both their sake.
They care for, that’s the one thing I’m grateful for, Ella needs friends like that, people in her corner. She’ll need it. She’s growing so fast and I don’t think the secret of what she is will remain a secret for long.