His Missing Luna

CHAPTER 5

INVOKING THE PROBABILITY CLAUSE

Nathan pushed himself and Jessica aside just as Saul lunged at him again. Saul staggered forward, almost falling. Nathan grabbed the neck of his suit and hauled him back before wrapping steely fingers around his throat.

“How dare you attack me, pup?” Nathan growled near his face, menacingly.

“Let her go. She’s mine!” Saul struggled, meeting Nathan’s fierce eyes. He tried using his fingers to unwrap the fingers wrapped around his neck.

“Alpha Nathan, let go of my son and his mate!” Kizziah growled beside his son, his eyes glowing gold, claws and canines out.

“I suggest you don’t call her his mate again,” Nathan warned through gritted teeth, releasing his fingers and shoving Saul away.

“How do you even know she’s your mate?”

“Every wolf knows when they see and smell their mate,” Nathan said.

“That still doesn’t mean anything. She was given to my son as his mate.”

“Then bring her parents forward to me. Whatever you promised them, I will double.”

Saul growled in fear and frustration, his eyes darting between Nathan and Jessica who was hiding behind him. “You’re mine!” He squawked, eyes full of fear of losing her and longing that he had nursed for years. His obsession danced in his orbs, darkening them.

Jessica trembled behind Nathan’s back, her heart beating fast. She had prayed for a miracle, yet afraid of raising her hopes up. And yet, her miracle had come through.

“Tell your men to stand down. You’re still in my pack!” Kizziah threatened, looking at the fighting going on in the hall.

“Look around you before you make empty threats,” Nathan sneered at him, shoving Saul away.

Nathan’s men had swung into action the moment Nathan had shoved Saul away. Their swift preparedness helped to staunch any surprises and gave them the upper hand.

Kizziah was shocked to see how Nathan’s men, though few, were able to quickly hold back his men. Before he could come up from the floor where he and Saul had fallen, some of his men were already wounded. The ones that weren’t had their necks encased in the jaws or underneath the paws of Nathan’s shifted wolves.

None of the other alphas or their men had gotten involved in the fight. They wouldn’t dare interfere because of the Thunderstorm Pack’s reputation. Besides, it was a fight for a mate, and the Werewolf Council’s representatives would handle it.

“You can see that my men and I aren’t clearly disturbed by the fact that we are in your pack,” Nathan said. “Nor afraid that any pack will interfere in our affairs with you.” His eyes skimmed over the hall.

The whole hall was covered in silence.

Nathan wrapped one arm round Jessica’s waist and with the other took the bouquet from her and flung it away. He removed her veil totally from her head. He couldn’t help but to touch her hair and sniff her neck, filling his lungs with her sweet scent. “My flower.”

Saul growled.

“This is madness, alpha. You can’t just take my future daughter-in-law and claim she is your mate,” Kizziah looked round the faces of the alphas and elders. “Surely, you all can see what this arrogant alpha is doing. He’s stealing my son’s mate.”

Few murmurs rose round them.

“I will refrain from using such words, if I were you, Kizziah,” Nathan warned with a growl as his eyes scanned the hall once again in a silent dare.

Kizziah turned to the elders. “Do something.”

“What do you want us to do?” One of them said. “We can only ask him to tell us how he knows she’s his.”

“Surely there is something you can do.” Kizziah wasn’t going to back down. He had taken her in for this purpose. He looked at Jessica. “Do you feel anything for him?”

“Stop asking my mate such a stupid question? Where are her parents, by the way?!” Nathan barked, searching the hall again. He was damn sure she was his mate. "Right?" He asked Declan.

“100 percent!” Declan hissed.

“They are dead,” Kizziah spat out instantly, his eyes on Jessica.

Jessica whipped her head towards him, shocked at this revelation, but quickly looked down when she read the warning in his eyes. Nathan noticed but kept quiet.

“Did you feel sparks when he touched you?” Kizziah asked still holding her eyes with his.

“No,” Jessica said in a tiny voice, raising her head to Nathan’s, asking if that was okay.

“You may not feel it now, but you will, flower,” he rubbed her cheek with a thumb. “How old is she?” Throwing Kizziah a glare before looking at the crowd.

“We all know that one of the ways to know your mate is for both parties to feel the tingles, sparks…” Kizziah ignored Nathan.

“Unless she’s underage. Also, we all can perceive the scent of our mate and feel the throbbing of the mate bond. Not forgetting our wolf saying mate or mine.” Nathan said, fighting to take his mate home with him.

More murmurs rose up again. Several alphas nodded their heads.

“I smelled her on him yesterday when I arrived,” he pointed at Saul, murdering him with a glare. Hoping he hadn’t done anything with her. “When I went jogging round the pack this morning, I perceived her scent from one of the windows at the pack of the mansion. Again, as he walked to the altar, I smelled it again on him. And when she entered, it flooded my lungs. And my wolf identified her as our mate.” Nathan finished off.

“No!” Saul cried, his face contorted in pain. Pain of him losing her.

The elders looked at Kizziah.

“You heard him. He’s been perceiving her and his wolf said the word,” one of them said.

“Yet, he still can’t just take her away like this,” Kizziah argued on.

“And how do you want him to do that? You know our custom. We don’t stop mates from being with each other.” The other elder said.

“But she’s my son’s mate. His Luna to be,” he ran his eyes round the room, looking for some support. “My fellow alphas what would you do if you were in my position?”

“Alpha Kizziah!” The elder warned. “Do not create more troubles.”

“More troubles? This man here…” Pointing at Nathan and in a broken voice. “Came as a guest to my son’s mating ceremony and is now claiming she is his. What would you do if you were in my shoes? If your son is in my son’s shoes. Look at him.” Quickly sending a mindlink to Saul to act broken at the loss.

Saul sniffed, willing tears down from his eyes and looking at Jessica. “She’s my mate. I love her.”

Jessica stiffened and cowered, sinking her face deeper into Nathan’s chest. Her fingers grabbed the front of his jacket. She tilted her head up to him, met his green eyes and shook her head.

Nathan noticed the change in her body and how she sank into his chest. When his eyes met hers and she shook her head, he knew there was no way he was going to leave here without her. The fear in her eyes made his resolve stronger.

Alex and Tyler scoffed and rolled their eyes at the drama being acted out by Kizziah and Saul.

“Bloody actors,” Tyler hissed, still holding the neck of the wolf under him.

“Quit the father and son drama. I am leaving with her,” Nathan declared with confidence.

“Alpha, permit me to ask a question,” an alpha asked Kizziah. “How old is she?”

“She’s twenty,” Kizziah replied, knowing that Jessica could only feel the mate pull when she turned eighteen and shifted. That was why he wanted Saul to mate and mark her, to stop her from ever finding her fated mate. “If she’s Alpha Nathan’s mate she will know. She’s past the age when wolves discover their mates.”

“Liar!” Jessica spat out, surprising not only herself but every other person in the hall, drawing everyone into silence.

Kizziah licked his lips and ran a palm over his face, looking at his son and wife.

“Shut up!” Luna Emilia spat out also, trying to cover up their secret. “How dare you call him that. After all we have done for you.”

“Do not speak to our Luna like that,” Tyler snarled at her.

“What do you mean, flower?” Nathan asked Jessica softly. “Talk to me.” He saw the fear in her eyes but knew that for her to have called Kizziah a liar, she knew something. “You have to help me take you home with me.”

“She is twenty and going to be twenty-one in two months’ time,” Kizziah shouted, doing all he could to stop Nathan from taking her.

Jessica closed her eyes and took a deep breath, loving the sound of his voice saying home. Though afraid of Kizziah and his family, she knew that she didn’t want to be mated to Saul and remain in their family.

“Tell me what you know, my flower.” Nathan’s voice and eyes pleaded with her. His fingers rubbing circles on her back.

She nodded, giving him a small smile. He encouraged her with a big smile.

“He…the alpha…he told me my eighteenth birthday is in two months’ time,” Jessica managed out in her small voice.

“Liar!” Kizziah and Saul chorused, while Luna Emilia gasped.

“Then I invoke the Probability Clause!” Nathan roared out immediately, grasping Jessica tight in his arms. The soothing sparks of the mate bond calming his raging wolf.

“So be it, then.” The elders said in unison, clearly tired of this back and forth business going on.

“You can’t agree to this!” Kizziah’s eyes almost fell out of their sockets at the elders’ words.

“Why not? He has until two months from now to see if she’s his mate and until then she’ll remain with him. As stipulated in the Probability Clause.” finished the elder.