The Defiant Luna
Chapter 14

Nathan POV

Nathan woke to find himself alone. Jay- la was not in their bed, he sat up and frowned, it was still completely dark outside, reached over and swiped across the screen on his phone to see what time it was. Just after two in the morning. Sighed heavily and wondered just where she was.

They had actually spent a few hours enjoying each other in this bed. She’d even fallen asleep next to him, sated as far as he could tell. As much as he had been.

But now he did not know where she was right this minute, all he knew was she was not here now, had gotten up and out of their bed, for some unknown reason, hadn’t woken him either to assist with whatever it was, reached out and touch the bed where she should have been, it was cold, had been gone a while as well it seemed.

Got up himself, pulled his pants on and headed out of their bedroom to go and find her, didn’t have to go very far, found her asleep on the lounge in their living area.

He stood there and looked right at her, more than confused about what was going on with her. They’d never had a problem sleeping in the same bed when they were together before. He sighed to himself and walked all the way over to her. Not only was she out here but he could see that she had gotten up and gotten dressed as well. Was wearing pyjamas.

Had done all of this without him even waking up to her moving away from him in the bed, getting out of the bed, finding clothes and getting dressed. He’d slept through it all, likely lulled by her scent into a deep sleep. It seemed she’d not had the same reaction to his scent. That was a concern, sleep would normally come easily with your mate’s scent next to you.

Picked her up, he couldn’t leave her out here for the children to see she’d not stayed with him, that she had slept on the couch. Had no idea what they would make of that. Also knew that if she was with him it would help to grow their bond, make it stronger. Seems that she needed that.

Though there didn’t seem to be anything actually wrong with their Mate Bond, they both felt the pull of it, were drawn to each other when in close proximity to each other. She’d come willingly into his arms when he’d climbed into their bed and had kissed her softly. Like she had in the kitchen earlier, he’d smelled her scent of arousal, so he knew she’d been aroused by him as he was by her.

She’d moved against him and enjoyed being with him.

Yet she’d gotten up and out of their bed afterwards, it wasit normal. They were still drawn to each other and knew they would more than enjoy each other, had done so, had taken his time with her, touched her and kissed her everywhere, heard her m***s and gasps, cries of pleasure.

Knew she had enjoyed it, but perhaps now he thought, it was just that, their Mate Bond, that was the sole reason she was here with him, not because she wanted to be. She’d always been a believer in it. He was her Mate now, perhaps that was all there was to it, for her, on her end. Needed to find a way to sort that out.

He got back in bed and did not feel happy himself about this turn of events. He knew Havoc was happy, but he was a different matter. How could he be happy when his gut was telling him, she was not. He’d felt out of place all afternoon around her in his own Pack. Didn’t even know what to do about it.

That was the biggest problem, he was the Alpha and he should know what to do about it, how to fix it, was it just a matter of time?

Or was it always going to be like this? Would she be here simply because of the Mate Bond and not because she loved him. Didn’t particularly like that thought at all.

He had taken the opportunity to talk to Stephen, while she’d been with Nate, but that had gotten him nowhere in particular, other than the man telling him she was annoyed that was all the information he had, told him he was not a mind reader, could sense out her emotions but not explain them.

If he wanted answers to why she was annoyed, he would have to go up there and talk with her himself. He had even gone and found Ethan down in the library archives to see how the progress was going, on finding any information about Luna powers in reverse.

That man had been buried in a pile of books and all of them had titles to do with Luna’s or second chance mates.

Ethan had told him he had learned a lot, but not what they were looking for specifically, to go away and stop bothering him. Or it was going to take twice as long. He had offered to sit and help Ethan go through some of the books, gotten stared at long and hard and told, to go away he’d get through it much quicker himself.

Knew that Nathan himself was not the biggest fan of researching things, hated it for the most part, found it boring and tiresome. On the bright side his Delta loved it, so was a good reliable man in the area.

Nathan was still lying awake in their bed when it was time to get up for training, down in the gym, showered and got dressed, she didn’t so much as wake up. It was 5am, looked right at Jay-la sleeping in the bed, shook her a little. “Jay-la, it’s time to get up and go to training.” She’d always enjoyed training, was a good fighter. He would see if he could get her to join them this morning.

It would be good to train with her, bond more over it even.

His hand was shoved away from her. “I’m not training, you go do it.” She murmured and rolled over to curl around the pillow to go right back to sleep.

Stood staring at her, “I’m going to training, I have to run it, come on get up for training.”

“It’s too early, go away. The sun’s not even up yet.” She mumbled, didn’t even open her eyes.

Yes, the sun would not get up for almost 2 more hours, but that was normal for winter, its why they trained inside in the gym.

Was not going to win this he realised, shook his head and left her there, couldn’t make her get up, or at least he didn’t think so without making her angry or annoyed with him, and he’d had enough of that yesterday. Headed off to training, all he got from Havoc was that Kora herself was asleep as well.

It seems the pair of them were very different to how they had once been, when growing up here, she’d always been one of the first to get up for training, now it seemed they didn’t care at all about it. He could actually recall her shoving him out of the bed a few times to get up for training. Calling him lazy for sleeping in or wanting to.

Training had to be attended indoors due to the snow, he ran smaller groups in hand to hand combat and the wolfen training was on hold for the moment, not enough room for that inside, and with the training grounds buried under a foot of snow, they focused on the hand to hand instead.

Returned from training to find the triplets up and sitting in the living area watching TV, she wasn’t with them, checked the kitchen not in there making them breakfast. Asked where their mum was, and Nate pointed to their bedroom. “Sleeping.” He was told.

Nathan smiled at him, it was the first time the boy had actively spoken to him of his own free will. Made not just him happy but

Havoc as well.

“Thank you, Nate.” He nodded “Why isn’t she up?” he asked casually as he walked across the room.

“Doesn’t get up till 7.” Then three of them giggled.

He smiled at them all, it was good to see them all happy and laughing, including Nate. That talk she had with him must have helped a lot. He was thankful for that.

Walked into his bedroom and found her pretty much exactly where he’d left her, shook his head, walked over, and sat down, put a hand on her.

“Jay-la it’s time to get up.”

“Go away, I’m sleeping.” She pushed at his hand.

“You need to get up for the day.”

Got growled at a little “I’ll get up and ready for court when it’s 7.” She muttered and buried her face in the pillow.

She didn’t have court today, wasn’t anywhere near her office in L.A. Nathan sighed. She was still half asleep and somewhere inside of her, she was off in the human world still. Perhaps this was the problem. He did know she’d not closed out her human world. Tried again to wake her to get up for breakfast. Got mumbled at to go away it was to bloody early to get up, the sun wasn’t even up.

He looked at the window. It was verging on getting up, was nearly 7 now, got up and showered and dressed for the day, then walked around the suite and yanked all the curtains open. He got growled at, very loudly by her and, from what he could tell by Kora as well, heard Havoc chortle inside his mind, liked his mate’s response, thought it was funny. As they looked at her, saw her eyes flicker from Jay- la’s dark green to Kora’s bright green, and then she pulled the sheet over her head.

“I’ll take the triplets to the dining room for breakfast then, shall I?”

“Go.” She muttered and rolled over away from him.

“Jay-la?” He muttered himself, was a little annoyed by her lack of getting up, they had a pack to run and lots of things to do. She had to attend her Luna training and he was going to try to spend more time with her and the children today.

“What?” she practically yelled at him, and then was pitching some sort of fit in the bed against the sheets in her effort to get up.

Finally, saw her sit up, she looked more than annoyed. “I have an alarm to get me up you know.” She muttered and stalked off to the bathroom and banged the door shut.

Sighed to himself, ‘yes Nathan don’t annoy her today.’ He told himself, he’d been trying to avoid that, now it seemed the start to their day was not going so well. Left the bedroom to find all three of the children looking at him fully amused, and realised why they were all sitting out here. Why they had all giggled, they knew what she was like and that he was going to go in there and try and wake her up, not something that they even did, it seemed. Knew better.

Might have to remember that, take his cue from them on some occasions. If they started giggling about something, perhaps he should take notice and stop and check himself.

“You knew she was going to be grumpy, didn’t you?” He half teased them.

Saw them all laugh again and the girls nodded “Don’t wake mummy, she is grumpy in the mornings.”

“Hmm, might need your help with that huh.” He smiled, “How would you like to go downstairs and have a big breakfast of whatever you want?”

He got to see all three of them look right at him, could tell instantly they were curious, she’d made them breakfast here, cereal and toast yesterday, they’d seen the lunch tables, time for them to see what breakfast looked like here inside the pack.

“What is there?” the girls got up, smiling at him.

“Whatever you can imagine will be down there.” He hunkered down and smiled at them, looked at Nate. “There will be pancakes, lots of different kinds, and syrups too, waffles, bacon, eggs, sausages, fruit salads and yoghurt, whatever you guys want. If it’s not there, I can have it made for vou.”

“Really.” The twins seemed very excited, and though Nate didn’t say anything, he did get up off the lounge, looked like he was willing to go with him. Another good thing.

“Yes, anything at all you like.” He smiled at then all. “How about we let mum come down when she’s ready?”

Saw them all nodded, and smiled at them. Stood up and headed off with his children, all three of them, held the door open for them and walked them to the elevator, to go down to the ground floor for breakfast.

Was more than happy that they would want to do that with him, without their mother with them, that Nate seemed okay with doing this as well. He was walking next to him, the girls were so cute skipping along in front of them. Looked down at his son, and smiled to himself. He was watching his sisters, walking behind them, likely this was how it would always be, even when they grew up.

They were going to want to have Mates of their own inside this pack, for he doubted Nate was going to be willing to be separated from his siblings, not many triplets would get separated, the goddess did seem to favour them. More than most, made him wonder about that. Perhaps their goddess herself was a triplet or had once had triplets herself. Hmm, wondered if there was some tale about her that would see why she favoured them, Ethan would likely know.

He got to watch as girls run about looking at all the food, heard Nate comment it was like being in a hotel for breakfast. Walked along behind them and let them choose whatever they wanted to.

All three of them chose white chocolate pancakes with boysenberry syrup, and they all chose orange and mango juice to go with it.

Walked them back to his table. His whole unit was there, watching him, saw them all smile at him, even knew why, Nate was with him and chatting away to his sisters about how good the breakfast was. No Jay- la here and needed to encourage him to talk today in front of him, clear progress in the bonding process between him and his son.

Though Stephen did ask where she was, he shrugged “Doesn’t like getting up early.”

Saw them all stare at him as though they didn’t believe him they too knew what she was like when here, had always been an earlier riser. Not so much anymore, it seemed. Years of being away from the pack had shown her she didn’t need to get up at 5am to train, so she no longer did.