The Hybrid’s Second Chance
Chapter 60

Alexander's

POV

As I opened my eyes, with the bright light of the sun filling the room, I had no idea what time it was. Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, it told me it was one in the afternoon. Da*n, I did not mean to sleep half the day away. "Alpha, are you busy?" Jason's voice rang out in my head.

"Not at the moment. What's going on?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, especially right now, but your mother is insisting she talk to you. She's being extremely disruptive in the dungeon."

"Fu*k, alright, I'll be right down to see what she wants."

"I'll let her know you're on your way." Julia was still sleeping soundly next to me. I placed a hand on her shoulder and was pleased to discover she was cool to the touch. Her heat did indeed seem to have ended in the middle of the night. Kissing her forehead, she smiled in her sleep. My mom wanted to talk to me, about what I had no idea. Climbing out of bed, I wanted to shower first, she would just have to wait a little while longer. While I was in the shower, I got a mind link from Elijah.

"Alpha, there's a delivery here for you. They have the art supplies you got for Julia."

"Okay, could you have them set it all up in the office next to mine? I'm having that turned into her office as a surprise."

"Of course, consider it done."

"Thanks, Elijah. How'd the tour with Cornelia go?"

"It was good, Hannah thoroughly overwhelmed her like I expected. How's Julia?"

"She's good, sleeping right now. Does everyone know?"

"Pretty much, some people saw you running with her from the pack house, and they could sense the heat, especially a few of the unmated wolves."

"Da*n, well I guess that's to be expected."

"Don't worry, just focus on making those hybrid pups!" Elijah laughed.

"Just get the stuff into her office, alright?"

"Will do. What are you going to do?"

"Jason said my mother is raging in the dungeons and wants to talk to me."

"I wonder why that is."

"I have no idea, but to save everyone's eardrums, I'm gonna go and talk to her."

"Good luck, let me know if you need some backup."

"I'm sure I'll be able to handle it, but thanks." I hoped out of the shower, threw on a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers and went to check on Julia. She was still sleeping, so I wrote her a note for when she woke up letting her know where I had gone. On my way to the dungeon, I tried to prepare myself for what I was sure was going to be my mother's famous guilt and manipulation. One thing was for certain, she was not going to change my mind about anything, no matter how hard she tried. Going into the dark stone corridor, I walked somberly to her cell. She was perched on the edge of her bed, no longer dressed in her fancy designer clothes, but in a black, long sleeve shirt and matching sweatpants. Her hair looked messy and unkempt, and all the makeup had been washed from her face.

"Mother," I said. She turned her head to look at me, standing up and walking to the bars. The chain around her ankle was keeping her from shifting and escaping. "I heard you needed to talk to me."

"Yes, I was hoping after some time you would come to your senses and let me out of here."

"You can't be serious? Did my last conversation with you mean nothing?"

"Look, I know what I did was wrong, trying to break you and Julia up. I admit that. Do you really think this is a matter that needs to be taken to the elders?"

"Yes, yes I do. You broke more laws than I can count. I talked to Elder Stanley, and he agreed with me that they should be the ones to make the decision."

"Okay look, I think we can come to some kind of compromise here. I admit that I was wrong. What we can do is keep Julia for you to have pups with, but you can mark Cecilia and have her as your Queen. You need to have Lycan by your side. A were-witch is not going to be helpful to this pack." I guess it was too dark in the dungeons, so she wasn't able to see Julia's mark already on my neck.

"Mother, it's too late for that. I've already marked Julia and she's marked me. Besides, I don't want Cecilia in any way. Julia is my mate, Queen, and Luna."

"How could you do that!" Suddenly gone was her sweet and innocent demeanor that had just been present. "How could you betray your pack like that!?"

"I have done no such thing! I have marked the person the Moon Goddess selected for me."

"The Moon Goddess made a mistake."

"She never makes mistakes, and you know that."

"This is not what's supposed to happen!" She yelled.

"Calm yourself," I breathed in a threateningly low tone. "This is the last conversation I will have with you about this. The elders will be here tomorrow and that will be the last time we see each other." "How can you say that? I'm your mother."

"Not anymore. A mother would never do what you did to me. A mother would risk her life to see their child happy. They would risk their own life to protect them, like Julia's birth mother, Cornelia. She helped us fight October Moon. She guided me to Julia so I could save her, at the expense of her own life. She was banished from her coven for helping, which she knew could happen. You might have given birth to me, but you're nothing like what a mother should be." I was done with this conversation, so I turned and started walking away from her.

"Alexander! Don't walk away from me!" She really wasn't going to give up convincing me to do what she wanted. I didn't stop, I kept walking and just let her scream her peace.

"Alex, are you still talking with your mom?" Julia asked.

"No, I'm on my way back to the apartment. If you get dressed, I have a surprise for you." "Really? What is it?"

"If I told you now, that ruins the whole surprise aspect. I'll be there in a couple of minutes." "Elijah, is everything set up in the office?"

"It is! The office part isn't ready, but I had them make the other area really nice for her."

"Perfect! Thank you!" I went back to our apartment to find Julia dressed and in the kitchen cleaning up what I didn't have a chance to.

"You don't have to do that," I told her.

"I know, but I wanted to. You were so wonderful to me yesterday and last night, I wanted to do something nice."

"Thank you," I said, coming up and placing a kiss on her exposed shoulder since she was wearing a tank top. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I took in her scent. "Can you take a break from this for your surprise?"

"I think I can take a quick break," she said, putting her dish towel down. She followed me out of our apartment and up the stairs. "Where exactly are we going?"

"To the room next to my office."

"What do you have for me in there?"

"You'll find out in just a second." We reached the door, and I turned to face her. "Close your eyes." She did what I asked, and I opened the door, taking both her hands and leading her across the threshold. I walked her into the middle of the room and faced her towards what I had bought. Elijah had done a nice job making sure everything looked perfect. "Okay, stand right here. Open your eyes." Julia opened her eyes and gasped with excitement. I had gotten her a large drawing table with lights, chair, and places to hold her pencils. An easel with multiple canvases. Shelves that now housed pads of drawing paper, pencils, paint, watercolors, pretty much anything the salesperson said an artist needed.

"Holy sh*t! Alex, did you do this? When did you do this?"

"When we were shopping. Hannah had you going from store to store, and I took Elijah to pick all this out for you. I figured you had some stuff at October Moon, but I felt bad you had to leave it all there."

"This is amazing, thank you so much!" She launched herself into my arms and kissed me.

"I'm glad you like it. This is also going to be your office once we finish with the renovations."

"An office. I get to have my own office?"

"Absolutely, a proper office for a Luna." She let go of me and started going through all the things I had gotten. "I didn't know what type of drawing you like to do, so I got a little of everything."

"No, this is all perfect. It's been a while since I was able to do anything. The last thing I did was draw Sofia on my last day at October Moon, but I didn't manage to take it with me."

"I'd love to see you draw something."

"Like what?"

"Anything, whatever you want." She thought for a second, before picking out a pad of drawing paper and sitting down at her new table. I took a seat in one of the old chairs, and watched in awe as she began creating. For an hour, her pencil danced across the paper, making precise and beautiful lines and shapes.

"What do you think?" she asked, turning in her chair and holding up the pad so I could see. Getting closer, I saw she had drawn her, myself, Hannah, and Elijah all standing outside the pack house. For how quickly she had done it, there was a lot of detail. From the tattoo on my arm, to Elijah's broad face, and Hannah's highlighted blonde hair.

"It's amazing, you're incredibly talented." The smile on her face at my compliment went from ear to ear. "We should frame this and put it in our apartment."

"No, it's not that good," she said.

"Yes, it is, and I'd love to look at it every day." I placed a kiss on the top of her head. "We should probably go back and look over everything for the elders tomorrow. We keep saying we're going to do it and then something stops us."

"I know, we need to make sure we have our story straight." Reluctantly, both of us left her office and made the short walk to the apartment. Spending the next few hours going over every detail of what Logan and my mother did, making certain we didn't miss anything too small.