The Cursed Alpha’s Mate by Moon Flood
Chapter 81 (AYSEL)
Valens wasn’t a talker, I knew that. I knew before I mentioned it that he would be averse to the idea of seeing a therapist as he would have to open up. What I hadn’t expected was for him to try to bury me with work all of a sudden to get me off his tail.
“This contains the history of our kind from the first king to the third. We went through a period when we had no monarch,” the Royal Historian said, picking up a book. “This book covers the history of wolves in the days when we didn’t have a stable rulership.” The book she produced next was the biggest I ever saw in my life.
“Am I really to read all these?” I asked, rubbing my neck. I knew there would be work to be done but these books would take months to read.
“No, you will get to read them but for the work we have to do now, I have a summary.” She produced what looked like a long novel. “This is something my predecessor wrote. It is a bit more concise with only six volumes.” She handed it to me. I took the book with reverence. 3 “It contains everything you need. The plan is for you to read a section in two days and the next evening, we can take a short walk and discuss what you’ve read,’ she said as she set the other books aside.
“What if – what if I forget to do the reading?” I smoothed down my skirt.
I hoped I didn’t sound unserious to her, already talking about shirking my reading as if I had more important things to do.
“Aysel She paused. “Can I call you by your given name, Luna?” I nodded. She gave me a small, fleeting smile. “Aysel, the point of teaching history is for you to know the mistakes we have made in the past so you can avoid them. I know you will dedicate yourself to learning our history but I want you to know that this is not school work.” How had she known what I’d thought of?
“Luna Levana will do a better job in coaching you on the duties and powers of a Luna but I must let you know now that you are the most important person in our world right now.” She reached over and I felt she wanted to give me a pat but she was too far away. I know a bit of your history as I am drawn to history/ she continued. “
I understand you will not always feel it but you must know that you are no longer just omega Aysel. You have been christened Aysel the curse breaker, Luna to Alpha Valens. Remind yourself of who you are every time you start to feel like your old self.”
“I will try,” I promised.
“I know you will and myself and the others will be here to support you and provide our knowledge whenever you need it.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“It is my pleasure to be of service to our curse breaker. We will begin our lessons tomorrow evening.”
After Avalon von Stein, I had to go over some things with Luna Levana. She was really nice and soft-spoken. It was almost impossible to believe she was one of the most powerful Lunas in the world.
“You are pretty chill for someone with so much power,” I blurted out. She laughed at that, her laughter low and pretty.
“You are the more powerful one between the both of us. Besides, power doesn’t have to be showy.”
Her words gave me pause.
“I have compiled a list of your tasks and how you can go about them. Unlike the hard facts the Alpha and his Beta have to deal with, a lot of our work requires much more than knowledge. You need wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and everything in-between.” Her voice enthralled me.
“Your decisions will be heavily influenced by your sense of judgement. The Alpha decides if a person asking for a thousand gets eight hundred or five but you will first have to decide if their purpose is worth funding in the first place.”
I was frightened, I would not lie to myself. I did not know if I had a strong sense of judgement. What if I decided their purpose was worth funding and it turned out to be a loss to the pack at the end of the day?
‘You are no longer just omega Aysel,’ I reminded myself of Avalon’s words. I didn’t need to doubt myself. I was more than I gave myself credit for.
“As the Luna, you are responsible for every gathering the pack organizes, from the date of the event to the financing and the smallest details like the colours of the tablecloth. You are also responsible for the dungeons, who goes in and who comes out.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised that I would have that much power.
“Yes. Along with that comes the responsibility of granting pardons to some criminals on death row, although the death penalty is in the process of being abolished so you may not have to do that.” She handed me a journal.
“Most of these things you will learn on the job but I have asked an accounting professor to prepare a course for you on budgeting. It is tricky,” she wrinkled her nose and I laughed. “I was going to be an accountant,” I shared with her. I regretted it immediately because she perked up. I knew she would ask about what happened to deter my dreams.
“You can still be an accountant. Once you get the hang of this Luna thing, it would be easier than baking a cake. You can enroll next year.”
“I – “ It was something I stopped thinking about a long time ago. I’d lost all hopes of furthering my education but when she mentioned it, I already pictured myself back in school. “I think I will.” It became too appealing to let go of.
“Great. We can even talk to Professor Martins to put you through on the application process.” She beamed at me as if she understood she’d just changed things for me big time. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure.” She smiled again. “The overall welfare of the pack rests on your shoulders,” she added. “I got a portion of what should be your duty from the Alpha. We can work through it together. She pulled up a high stack of paperwork that she’d printed from Valens’ office.
“That must be a full week’s work,” I said with a gasp. She laughed.
“When you have a backlog of work to sort through, this becomes a little pile. These are mostly petitions. In the future, you will have to meet people physically to make some decisions.
We started work then. First, we sorted the pile into two; simple petitions and invites to different occasions, and another pile that I could not sort through because I was missing a lot of context on them.
I ended up declining eighty percent of the invites. I was going to ask Valens if he would want to honour any of them but Luna Levana reminded me that would be pushing my load to him and it was my primary responsibility to do the opposite.
Finally, I scheduled a meet and greet with a neighboring Luna and we called it a day. Levana gathered up the files and told me she would have to find someone to type out the responses I’d given.
“That is why it is best to work digitally.” She smiled at me when she saw the look on my face. “You will also work with your assistant and the elders whose duties it is to support the Luna so you will surely get the hang of things pretty fast.”
It was late evening when she left. I was all alone in the vast mansion after that. I decided to prepare dinner for myself and the six men that now guarded my home. After that, I look a bath, stretched, and tried to relax.
I was waiting for Valens to return from work when I remembered I still had to read up the history of my kind! Uggh! I went out to get the book and started reading.
I checked the time after a while. It was well past nine but Valens still wasn’t back. I checked my phone for a message from him but I didn’t have any. Then I messaged him. I waited for an hour to get a response but got nothing.
I called him. Once, twice, five times. No response. My heart started to race. I called Jabari but he too wasn’t picking up. I hated how I’d cut myself from the pack then. I could not walk out of the pack house and hail a cab to his office.
I started searching for the keys to one of the two cars parked in the garage. Valens never really drove them and I couldn’t drive so they were wasting away. I found the keys and was about handing them to one of the guards to drive me when the gates opened.
I watched apprehensively as the car drove over and Valens got out, then Celeste. She looked absolutely devastated, mascara running down her cheeks and her eyes big and puffy.