HOW MUM FOUND OUT

29 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, CONTINUED

Anyway, Mrs Beta appeared on the Alpha House doorstep within the next minute. She had rushed straight from City Hall, only stopping for a box of Mum's favourite fruit tarts. When she arrived on the doorstep, she was most apologetic about her delay, "I'm so sorry, Luna, but I had to help Lucas submit the documents."

Mum shook her head, "You really didn't have to, Willow. I appreciate everyone's concern but I'm quite over it."

Willow looked completely taken by surprised, "You are, luna?"

"Yes." Mum assured the other woman, but she took out a fresh pot of tea and clean cups. By now, the matching sets were all used, so she had to pour into mugs.

Willow looked suspicious, "Are you really alright, Luna?"

Now it was Mum's turn to wonder, "Why wouldn't I be alright, Willow?"

"Well..." Willow tried to explain it, "Usually, when something like this happens to Sam, you would get upset. And this morning... well, to be honest, I am still quite shaken to my wolf about the news."

At this point, Mum realized that she hadn't had a single moment to sit down and read or watch the news all day. She picked up her phone, "Exactly what has my puppy gotten herself into this time?"

I face palmed. I didn't mean to, particularly because this was a bad point in Mum's narration to draw any attention to myself, but it just happened, and Mum stopped her recount to give me a pointed look.

"What?" I asked, but I was already on the defence. Did Mum just tell me all about her day to confront me about the bomb?

But her news feed by then was flooded with pictures and videos of the Young Alpha Lorent, a prince above all gentlemen, healing the poor innocent casualties at the local hospital of Winderhill.

I could imagine. I mean, I was well aware by now that my Luna was gorgeous, and in his Prince Lorent mode, he would be the picture of elegance and light. Come to think of it, I should screenshot some of those photos.

{Mate ~ ❤️ }

Anyway, back to Mum's day:

Mum and Mrs Beta decided to turn on the TV to watch the news directly from LNC.

Wait... So had Mum seen the bombing or not?

"Willow said your Bell is obviously taking his role as your Luna seriously." Mum informed me, "He certainly made a fine impression on the news today."

Even our wolves were impressed. While Mrs Beta was here, Mum received a string of guests. Dean's Mum Florence came dropped by with a few other mums after dance lesson at the packhouse to check on Mum. They brought an assortment of mini pastries. Delta Simon's wife, Lily also dropped by with chocolate cake.

It was a good thing Mrs Beta was around to co-host. Mum quickly washed the first tea set and remade another round of tea. She also took out the tiered desert tray so that the goodies could be stacked and the coffee table would have space for all the ladies to put down their tea cups if they wanted to.

Then there was Karen, the lady who drove the other Beetle. So we had two Beetles parked on our driveway at the same time. It turned out that Karen was now our insurance agent, at least since the bombing of the Alpha House episode, she had been key in processing the paperwork for our claims. Today, she had come to assure Mum that she had settled the insurance claim for the Porsche. Luna may rest assured, at least in this one tiny thing.

"What happened to the Porsche?" Mum asked, confirming what Willow had suspected - Mum didn't know about the bombing incident.

"Maybe we can discuss the rest another time, Karen." Mrs Beta protectively shielded my mum from finding out through an insurance claim.

She had meant to tell Mum the moment their guests left, but Karen and the other ladies had to finish their tea in a leisurely way, while chatting about how lovely their new Luna seemed. The TV was still on, but muted, so the ladies could admire their new luna in action while drinking tea.

He had quite a checkered past, Karen didn't mean to gossip, but she had clients in the Lorent Pack and she heard quite troubling stories.

Now that she saw what an upstanding and kind man our Luna was for herself, she had learned her lesson. From now on, she would not judge someone on baseless gossip. Instead, she will judge based on facts like the LNC's news reports.

"It doesn't hurt that he's so easy on the eyes." Karen had laughed into her hand. The other ladies agreed.

"Our Sam is really a lucky girl." Lily concluded.

"Mine." I interrupted Mum to declare, "Did you tell her he was mine?"

Mum laughed, "Oh, Sam. Karen's just expressing a compliment."

"I knew that." I decided.

"Me too." Sabre agreed.

And Mum continued her story while I waited at the edge of my seat for when the bomb incident got exposed.

Because Mum would have known about it by now. And I felt quite sure there would be some kind of emotional explosion when we got to it. But on with Mum's story:

Esther and Macy dropped by with cookies straight after Karen and the other ladies left. The sofa was probably still warm.

The cookies were for me and Ki though, not Bell, because they saw Bell and Ki healing on TV and remembered what Ki and I had done for their mates not too long ago...

"That was like ages ago, Mum!" I protested, "They could just forget about it."

But they didn't, and they wanted to bring something yummy for us, just to say thank you. And because they were sure Ki would be exhausted and thought the sweet treat would be a nice pick me up.

"And after such a harrowing experience, I'm sure Sam could do with cookies too." Esther had smiled.

I nodded and helped myself to a cookie. How did Alpha Gunter put it? "So true." I could do with a cookie.

Mum had only put out a few on the dessert tray though. She kept the rest in a cookie jar for the overworked Ki.

Anyway, Mum thanked the two ladies for their thoughtfulness, and Mrs Beta quickly ushered the two ladies out before Mum could invite them for tea.

"She wanted to tell me herself." Mum said appreciatively, "Willow has always been protective like that."

Because you're the Luna, Mum. All our wolves would be instinctively extra protective of you. Why did you think you had so many visitors?

Anyway, after all that, Mrs Beta finally sat mum down and told her.

Mum didn't believe her at first. So Mrs Beta told her again. Mum couldn't believe it, she couldn't even imagine it. And then when Mrs Beta told her again. Mum didn't want to believe it.

"And you say Sam is perfectly fine?" Mum had asked, just to be sure.

"Yes, Luna." Mrs Beta assured her, "Lucas himself got first hand report from Harvey, who was at the scene."

Yes, Harvey was reliable - not baseless gossip, not LyNCh.

"Willow, I need to see it with my own eyes." Mum told her.

"I was afraid you'd say that." Mrs Beta sighed.

So they watched the video clip on Mrs Betas phone.

"Okay, Luna. Brace yourself." Mrs Beta had warned.

But nothing prepared Mum for the sight of... Mum stopped in mid sentence, and just waved her hand vaguely, "I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

Mum gasped and was speechless for a few seconds, and then she burst into tears.

"Why did you cry, mama?" Sabre, the sole reason why Mum was censoring what she saw on the news, asked, "What did Sam do now?"

"I protected Neil. He could have died." I tried to defend myself. Why was it that even my preschooling little sister would feel it had to be my fault?

"You must have done it in the wrong way then." Sabre concluded, "Once I tried to use scissors, but I used it in the wrong way, and my teacher cried too."

Okay... Let me just not open that can of worms right now.

Mum's eyes were teary, but she forced a wobbly smile, "I just want to say... How proud I am of you... And how terrified..."

And Mum was crying, "I don't know what I'll do if anything happened to you!"

"Look Mum, I'm fine." I said softly, "Don't cry."

Because if she kept this up, I would cry too.

"You even continued on at school and did that PR train ride home... Sam, I know you're strong, but it's okay to give yourself a break too." Mum sniffed.

"I..." Wait, what PR train ride?

"Are you really okay?" Mum asked. She touched my forehead, "You feel a bit warm."

"I'm fine, Mum." I said, "Don't fuss."

Mum daintily wiped her nose on a paper napkin, "Sorry, I didn't mean to. But you know you girls mean the world to me, don't you?"

Now Mum put down the crumpled napkins to reached over and squeeze my hand. She gave Sabre a hug with her other arm.

"Don't be sad, Mama." Sabre said, "When I grow up, I'll get strong and protect Sam and Savy."

"Yeah, right." I scoffed, "I'm the Alpha. Protecting everyone is my job."

"Then I'm going to be the Alpha too!" Sabre yelled at me, "I'll protect everyone too!"

Mum froze for a second. The last time Sabre told me she wanted to be the Alpha, Boo had taken it as a threat.

"Sam, she doesn't mean..." Mum started.

"Don't worry, mum." I assured her, "I know, she's just expressing a compliment."

I grinned at the little girl with red curls, "You know what, Sabre? You definitely have a heart of an Alpha."

"Oh, my girls!" Mum pulled us all in for a hug.

Mum's tears were officially over, leaving a warm fuzzy rainbow in my heart.

Then we helped Mum clean up, Sabre bossing me all the way, "Not in that one Sam! This one!"

Well it's not like I've ever cleaned up around the New Alpha House enough to know which dishwasher to put our plates in.

"Why do we need two dishwashers?" I grumbled.

"One is for the cooking pots." Sabre told me.

Unlike me, Sabre knew a lot about how the kitchen worked around here.

"Can we play with Lucky after this?" Sabre looked at me with puppy dog eyes. For a human, she was surprisingly good at it.

"Sure." I agreed offhandedly, "What's that though?"

Sabre gasped, slapping her hand over mouth, "How could you, Sam?"

"What?" I was honestly clueless.

{Your hamster, Sam.} Mum mindlinked, {Please tell me you haven't forgotten to feed it.}

Okay I won't. Of course I didn't say that aloud or through the mindlink. I wasn't stupid!

"Oh, LUCKY!" I exclaimed brightly, "Yeah, sure. I'll even let you feed it."

Mum looked relieved, "Okay, you girls go on up. Your dad's on his way back and I need to talk to him for a bit."

"Okay, Mum." I decided I'd be helpful, "Don't worry, I'll take care of Sabre."

"It's alright, Sam." Mum hastily said, "Just mindlink if anything happens and I'd be right over."

"Don't worry." Sabre took my hand in her little one, "I'll take care of Sam."

To which Mum smiled, "Thank you, baby. You're such a big help."

Mum was lucky I was mature enough to understand that she was just humoring the little human. (She was just humoring Sabre, right?)

"I'll send Savy to join you. She should be back soon too." Mum promised.

But only because Mum wouldn't want Savy to miss out on some sister bonding time right? (And not because she couldn't trust me to watch my own little sister, right?)

"Come on, Sam!" Sabre bossed, "Stop dawdling."

Don't you just love how humans can't seem to remember the hierarchy order? Sabre was lucky that I went to school with lots of bossy human girls.

But then again, her mate was Little Eddy - who would one day grow up to be Alpha Eddy. Maybe learning to boss an alpha around would be a useful skill.

I mean, who was I to deny Sabre of the life experience she'd need to be a strong Luna?

"Lead the way, little human." I grinned.

"Don't call me that!" Sabre scolded.

"Little twerp, little brat, little..." I teased.

Sabre stomped her feet and crossed her eyes in anger, "I'm telling Mum!"

"Little princess!" I compromised, "Little princess!"

"Okay." Sabre nodded. She folded her arms so I'd know she hadn't entirely forgiven me.

Hahaha. {So fun.}

"Little princess, let's see who can spot Lucky first." I challenged the little human. Lucky had been buried in the paper bedding since moving to its new home. I would have thought it died and buried itself, except that its burial site changed everytime I looked.

Of course, if Ki stirred the bedding around to make it look like Lucky was alive, I wouldn't know either.

Guess we'd find out tonight.