MY NEW AND IMPROVED LUNA

29 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, CONTINUED

I had half expected my army to swarm into the scene with a roar of motorbike engines like angry hornets, led by none other than the Death God himself, but of course things in the real world didn't happen so dramatically.

For one thing, it seemed like most of my army had to be left just outside Winderhill - in the rough direction of Henry's Silver Mountain territory. I guess in the real world, you can't just bring an army into any random town or city on a whim. It was lucky our alliance with Henry let us get away with parking an army of wolf warriors in the Gold Packlands as it was.

The real world was full of practical and political considerations like that.

My mindlinks were still blocked, but by now, Mate's anger had over-boiled and was leaking through our mating bond. He was so mad, I started worrying about our rogue attackers - yes, I know they attacked me, and I did send my warriors out to capture them, but if Bell's mood was any indication, those guys were dead meat. Probably worse, they'd be dead meat that would be resurrected to be butchered slowly and properly.

Okay, maybe that would be too sinister, even for Bell. I mean, maybe all Bell wanted was to make sure none of those rogue offenders to escape.

At any rate, Bell's anger was quickly sealed on his side of our mating bond again. Which either meant that he had forgiven the offence, or he had formulated his revenge.

I seriously started hoping the rogue attackers would be quickly rounded up and caught by the party I sent out. I could hear their howling in the distance, the hunt was in full swing.

If I were one of those rogues, I'll just surrender quickly. I mean, better to be caught now and handed over to the local authorities safely, than to be a fugitive tracked by the Death God and his army.

Anyway, I was all prepared for Mate and his men to arrive on a storm cloud of motorbikes, with a furious Mate who would require calming before he chikaboomed, or cursed the entire town, or anything terrible like that.

Okay, Sam. Don't panic. I'm the alpha. With some diplomacy and many even a good douse of acting cute (this was my desperation talking), I might just be able to advert my own Luna's fury and keep the peace.

Let's not start an emergency in yet another Packland. We hadn't even really dealt with the forest fire Bell started in the Red Packlands yet. Was it still burning?. Nor had the black curse over the Black Packlands been cleared... There was some irony that the BLACK Forest Pack in the BLACK Packlands was suffering a BLACK curse. It's just a lot of black.

Who knew my mate carried out such poetic vengeance?

Wait, no. Focus, Sam. I steeled myself to reason with a furious death god, so it took me completely by surprise when Mate did arrive.

Because instead of the plague of death and blue demons roaring over the din of motorbikes, He arrived on our empty street, like Cinderella's appearance at the ball.

There were bikes, but only as security escorts. They didn't even revv their engines as they drove on either side of Mate's white Mercedes convertible - which I imagined to be the modern day equivalent to a white pumpkin coach.

He was followed respectfully by two pickup trucks in muted slate grey colors. These were Night Leaf's trucks. When we first got them, I thought they were matching Dad's town car, but Beta Lucas had proudly declared that we got the best color because the dirt won't show. We were practical like that - utility over aesthetics.

The convoy stopped and the warriors immediately filed in, "Yo, princess!"

I flared a little - wth was happening? But managed to switch to auto mode and waved and then smiled when I recognized some of their faces - all still stained very blue, "Thanks for coming out!"

WTH was I saying? Hahaha, but I didn't know what else to do, so when in doubt I always reverted to what Mum had taught me since I was a small pup.

"Sam, you forgot to say thank you." Mum chided as we were leaving the packhouse kitchen.

"But I was the one helping them!" I argued with my mouth full of chocolate chip muffin, "The lady said they made too much. They should be thanking me."

"No, Sam." Mum corrected quite firmly, "When another wolf does anything for you, you must say thank you."

"I'm the alpha." I stopped to swallow midway, quite ruining the majesty of my declaration, "I don't need anyone to do anything for me!"

"If you're the alpha, you have to thank everyone even more." Mum informed me, "Since the whole pack is yours you'd have to thank every single wolf who makes effort to make this pack wonderful."

I stopped and looked at the muffin in my hand (I had received not one but TWO WHOLE MUFFINS - before dinnertime too!), "So I should thank them for making yummy muffins for everyone?"

Mum nodded and took my free hand because we were about to cross the driveway (which was a road so I wasn't allowed to cross without holding hands with an adult), "That would make the ladies working in the kitchen very happy."

And then Mum said thoughtfully as if to herself, "In fact, I think if you gave them a big smile while saying thanks, it would really make their day..."

"GOT IT! HANG ON MUM!" I pulled my hand out of my Mum's grasp and turned to run back into the packhouse kitchen, "I'LL BE RIGHT BACK!"

I burst through the side door to the kitchen, "THANK YOU FOR MAKING MUFFINS FOR EVERYONE!"

And then I produced my widest smile.

And you know what? Mum was right! At least it seemed so to my five year old self. The women in the kitchen all stopped their work and then Mama Rosa burst out laughing (in happiness, I was sure), "Did you come all the way back to say thank you, dear?"

I nodded and explained, "Yes. Because I'm the alpha! And the muffins are yummy."

The women came over to me and started fussing and patting my head. Someone gave me another muffin. One of them handed me a bright red apple because too many muffins can't be good for a small pup.

"But she's so cute!" The first woman protested.

"I'm not cute!" I got mad immediately, but Mum appeared at the door with more thanks and apologies before dragging me back home.

"Oh Sam!" Mum shook her head, "I thought you went back to say thank you."

"I did!" I stomped on the pavement because I liked the way it sounded, like Dad's heavy boots. Stomp, stomp, stomp. "But they called me cute!"

Mum laughed then, "Oh Sam!"

But she didn't explain what's so funny. She did let me eat the apple though - even though it was before dinner time. In exchange, the newly acquired muffin had to wait till breakfast tomorrow.

After that, I noticed Mum said thank you a lot. She'd say thank you to people who were just doing their jobs. She'd say thank you to people who came over to drink OUR tea and eat MY, I mean, OUR biscuits. She'd even thank people she paid money to. And Mum always smiled when she said thank you. She made a lot of people's day that way.

Growing up, I never quite understood the meaning behind a thank you with a smile. Even now, I only did it on reflex, or when I was put on a spot, but I understood it a little more though. At least when I did it, its to convey the feeling that I was glad for my wolves, that I was grateful to have them.

The convertible door opened, and I was surprised again because it wasn't Mate who got out, it was Ki.

"Ki!" I grinned.

Ki returned my smile with one of his own, the one like a flower to the sun, "I'm glad to see you are well, goddess."

He bowed politely and then walked around the car to open the door on the passenger side.

Eh? What's up? Why couldn't Bell get out of the car on his own? And why wasn't he driving his own car? Did his arm stop working again?!?

My anxiety fled at the sight of him.

{Mate! ~❤️ }

Bell stepped out of the car, like some kind of Lorent prince - I kid you not! He was even dressed like one - a very light grey suit, a matching long coat draped over his shoulders, and not worn like a normal person would wear a coat. His dark curls swept back and his perfectly bow shaped lips in an unnaturally beautiful smile.

His arm in a very white sling. Oh...

My brain felt very confused.

Yeah, it was my Mate alright, but in Lorent Prince mode, and with his arm in a sling, as if time had reversed itself, and we were back to the day I entered his room and found him in bed, dressed in a pressed suit, jacket draped over his shoulder, delicately sipping healing tea.

As mild and gentle as my Mate looked right now, my mind felt all the red flags go up, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what triggered the alarm.

There was this one clear thought that crossed my mind though. Bell in Lorent Prince Mode, in my experience so far, was rarely straightforward. It's not like I could read past his seemingly charming expression, there was no cursed fumes to wave warning, or vehement "lycan poetry", or anything that could signal danger.

Bell in Lorent Prince Mode was like Bell pretending to be Ki, but you know and I know that he was not, and what would lurk beneath that elegant and gentle façade wouldn't be recipes for dinner, more like recipes for disasters.

I had honestly expected him to appear in his death god costume though and was fully prepared to appease the death god, so this Lorent Prince smile really threw me off.

It was also at this moment that it occurred to me how his Death God persona and his Lorent Prince persona were like night and day.

Like none of my thoughts were really adding up at this point.

But whether it be day or night, or whichever form he showed up in, I couldn't stop the smile that seemed to have suddenly sprouted in my heart and then flew out to greet him, "Bell!"

Part of my original plan was to pounce on him so that he would catch me. I had been quite sure that no matter how angry he was, he would still catch me. I was even going to pull up my best puppy dog eyes just in case he had meant to scold me for keeping my mindlink blocked.

But now I wasn't sure what to do. I stopped just in front of him and looked at his arm, but I wasn't a healer, and it was wrapped up so it wasn't like I could tell if anything was really the matter with it.

Because yes, call it a hunch, but I had this really strong suspicion that Bell's arm wasn't hurt at all.

The sling was fake, just like his tight smile, and gentle princely air.

I had a good mind to really pounce and attack him. Let's see how he kept up the pretense. But instead, I found myself grinning, happy, because everything seemed just as it usually was.

I still had no clue what my beautiful Luna was playing at, but who was I to stop him if he were going to play prince charming? In fact, wasn't it much better this way?

At least for me anyway - I was quite quick to realise at this point that Prince Charming would never yell at his princess no matter how p***ed he was, right?

Hahaha! I win!

Bell growled lowly, dropping his face into my hair for a moment, as if breathing it in, and then he pulled away, "Don't ever do that again, princess."

I pulled back too. Did he think I PLANNED to hug a bomb before school today?

"If I didn't do it, Neil would be dead." I told Bell, but the cold hearted prince only shrugged, "Then let him. If he's too weak to protect you, what use is he?"

"Luna Bell was worried to death about you goddess." Ki smiled. Ki seemed to feel it was his job to narrate the story from the delicate Lorent Prince's point of view, "He had summoned as many warriors as possible to rush to your aid the moment he saw you on the news..."

"Wait, what news?" More red flags popped out in my head. I had no idea my head owned so many red flags, but they were coming on in full force today.

"Your parade to school this morning was being reported live on LNC." Ki explained with a veneer of calm I could only covet, "Naturally, the attempted bombing incident and the Alpha Princess' magnificent save was also captured during the live telecast."

"And right now?" I asked carefully, looking about.

"I believe they might be still filming, but the live feed had since been disabled." Ki assured me.

The only thing I felt assured of was that the LyNCh only stopped the live feed to discuss the morning's events in their very public news room in every speculative angle possible.

Oh, man. I hope mum wasn't watching the news today. T.T