A Luna's Duty

Chapter Three

-Zack’s P.O.V.-

“Are you sure you don’t want to come here first?”

Eliza stares at me through the screen, letting silence extend for longer than needed. “No.”

Ok, can’t blame a guy for trying.

“Why do you ask?” She inspects me, worry starting to appear on the edges of her face. “You were fine with it a week ago. Did something change?”

I miss you. I need you. The pack is falling apart. Of course, I couldn’t tell her exactly what was happening, since I was a coward who bailed on telling her the truth last minute before she went away. I didn’t trust her to come back if I did. Claire would have my head if she were here.

“No, I just wanted to see you, that’s all.”

Her face softens a bit before she grins at me as if I were being silly. “You are such a sap. I’ll be there after visiting Claire. Won’t be long.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The door to the room opens. I look up from the computer screen. It’s Regan, one of the pack members that’s been helping me out around the pack for the past few days. He notices my computer open before me and stops at the door.

Eliza looks down at her phone. “I have to go to buy some of the last trip preparations. I love you, see you soon.”

“I love you too, “I reply, ignoring the way Regan looks away awkwardly. “Call me when you get back home.”

“Alright, bye!”

She hangs up. I look at the black screen for a moment before turning to Regan. “What?”

“Sorry about that,” he says, lifting his phone up to show me the screen. “Jake texted me. He wants me to go pick him up at the bar, told me not to tell you.”

I sigh. “Did he now?”

I pick up my jacket and keys from my bed. “I’ll go pick him up. Don’t tell anyone where we went. If they ask, tell them it’s funeral arrangements.”

Regan nods. I hold his gaze for a while, allowing my wolf to surface to make my point clearer. People were doubting Jake too much these days, saying he’s too young to handle the pack on his own. If I was being honest, judging from the way he is acting, they wouldn’t be exactly wrong. Thing is, they could be too hard on him. Jake was still stunned, still grieving, he needed time. The war had people panicking, though, and they needed someone to lean on. But if that someone was Jake, who could Jake lean on after losing both of his parents?

Regan looks away first. “Ok.”

I turn my back on him and walk out the door. When I finally get to my car, I sit on the driver’s seat for a while, just hearing myself breathe. “f**k,” I mutter to fill the silence. “f**k. f**k. Fuck.”

After a minute or two of just venting out anger, I begin driving.

-----

Jake turns the minute I walk through the door. When he notices it’s me, he curses, “Fuck.”

I smile sardonically at him. “Thanks, I also missed your face.” I walk towards him, standing at the side of his stool. “Especially when it’s all drunk looking like this.”

“I told Regan not to tell you,” he says, hiding his face in his arm. “He was supposed to pick me up.”

“Well, luckily, Regan has the common sense that his alpha lacks.”

Jake flinches by the end of my sentence. “Don’t call me that.”

“What, Alpha?” Jake growls. “It’s what you are, Jake, like it or not.”

“It’s what my father was.” He tips the bottle he is holding. I snatch it out of his hands. Jake’s eyes flash black. “Leave.”

“I can’t,” I growl out, frustrated. I show him my phone, at the notifications flashing across the screen. “Not without you. People are wondering where you are. They are restless without a leader.”

“Well, I am not much of one, if you haven’t noticed.” He gestures towards his glass, the bartender tries to fill it up, I shoo him away. “You are really getting on my nerves now.”

“Imagine how I feel.” I sigh. “Jake, man, I know how you feel, but we can’t let the pack self-destruct. You need to let them see you.” He gives me a pointed look, eyes still red from intoxication. I cringe. “Not like this, obviously. They need to see you have a plan against the rogues. Otherwise, they’ll think people will keep dying.”

“They will keep dying, Zack.” Jake smiles at me. “This is war.”

“Maybe,” I agree, “but we will all die if we don’t start doing something now. We are the pack’s leaders.”

Jake laughs humorlessly. “Isn’t the pack lucky to have us?”

“Extremely.” I look down at my phone, checking for any updates on the funeral arrangements. “Did you call Claire?”

Jake tenses up immediately. “Yes.”

“So?”  I urge. “What did she say?”

“Not much.”

I narrow my eyes at him. Jake told me not to tell Claire before he had a chance to. I thought the suggestion was sensible enough. Now, I wasn’t so sure. “Did you tell her what happened?”

“Mhm.”

“Is she coming to the funeral?”

“No, she is busy.”

I inhale sharply. “Oh.”

As selfish as it was, I had wanted Claire to come to visit for a few days. Her presence might calm Jake a little during the funeral, even if it was for a short time. Jake had been down since she left a year ago, and the smile after she called him always lasted for an entire week.

 Also, I missed my sister terribly. The death of Jake’s parents reminded me of the death of our own, and how little we got along after it. We usually called a lot, but it wasn’t the same. Having her here would be…nice.

A minute passes before I think about how Jake had looked away when he told me Claire wasn’t coming. “Did you, tell her, Jake?”

“I told you I did,” he snaps. He looks up at me, realizing that I wasn’t looking away. “Alright, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“She sounded so carefree when she answered the call.” He plays with his glass. “Whenever she called me throughout the year, she always sounded happy. She was never that happy here.” He sighs. “I couldn’t bear to tell her; I have taken way too many smiles from her in the past. I just couldn’t this time.”

I sit down on the stool next to him. “Yeah, I get it.” I press Claire’s contact number on my phone, feeling like the worst person in the world for doing it. “But she has to know.”

Jake perks up at the ringing of the phone. “Zack, don’t.”

I stand up, speed walking out of the bar with a drunk alpha running after me. He stumbles a lot, which is part of the reason why he doesn’t catch up before I hear Claire’s voice at the other end of the line. “Jake?”

I can hear the concern in her tone. Damn i***t, he probably hung up on her without explaining anything. “Not exactly.”

“Zack.” I smile at the way she says my name. Maybe, she had missed me too. “How are you?”

Undecided. “I am good.”

“Is everything alright over there? Jake called me earlier. Is he okay?”

Jake finally manages to stumble out of the bar and into the street. He looks furious when his eyes finally find me. I hold up a hand and gesture towards the phone to indicate I am in a call. That seems to piss him off more. I turn back to the phone. “Claire, you need to come back.”

“What? Why? What happened? Is Jake okay?”

Jake crashes into me. I can barely keep my breath in. Even drunk, he is still incredibly strong. “He really isn’t.” Jake reaches for the phone; I roll out of the way. “The alpha and the luna of the pack, Jake’s parents,” I look down at Jake, at the remnants of intoxication on his face and his desperate reaching for the phone that’s still in my hand, “they are dead.”

Just like that, Jake deflates, seeming to give up. “What?”

I begin to help Jake up. “I rather not discuss much over the phone. Please come home, they are holding the funeral in two days.”

Jake is glaring at me when I look at him. I whisper ‘sorry’ to him.

“I hope you can make it. I know you don’t owe it to either of us, but we need you here, if only for a little while.”

“Zack, what happened?”

Jake begins throwing up on the side of the curb. I wish for a moment I wasn’t a werewolf and didn’t have a wolf nose to smell that. “I can’t talk right now, there is someone I need to deal with. I’ll call later.”

I hang up, handing Jake a handkerchief to wipe his face. He wipes at the edge of his mouth roughly. “I hate you.”

“Yeah, me too.” I drape his arm over my shoulder. “Try to be sober by the time we get home.”

------------------------

When the day of the funeral arrives, Jake is still very much a mess, but he hides it better. Regan sneaks alcohol into his room at night instead of asking him to pick him up from the bar. He can lead some pack meetings with me by his side, yet I can see some of the oldest pack members still doubt him. We all know there is going to be a fight in that room soon enough, it’s just a matter of when and who.

Jake is looking out the passenger seat window as we drive to our destination. “Did Claire say anything to you?”

I shake my head, still looking at the road ahead of me. “She didn’t call again and I didn’t call her. If she comes, I guess we’ll have that conversation in person.”

“If she comes,” Jake repeats.

“Yeah,” I say, “if she comes.”

Every pack member is there to pay their respects as Jake emerges from the car. They tell Jake how sorry they are and tell him about how great his parents were. It reminds me of my own parent’s funeral and how much I wanted everyone to shut up. By the tight-lipped smile that Jake is giving them, I can tell he is thinking of something along the lines of that.

Jake subtly searches the room with his eyes. I follow his gaze. No Claire. His smile becomes tighter.

“She might be late,” I suggest.

Jake nods, though he seems unconvinced. “Yeah, later than us.”

We hadn’t arrived that late, I think. The pack elder gives both of us a disapproving look as we sit down. Ok, so maybe we were. Jake wanted to bring a bottle and it took some serious convincing to get him to leave it.

The elder gives Jake a questioning look. Jake waves him off. The elder nods before beginning.  “We are all gathered here in memory of a great pair of alpha leaders who dedicated their lives to sustaining this pack. They were part of us, an essential piece that can never be replaced. Not only were they great leaders, but they were also family. I am certain all of us here have some sort of story with either the Alpha or the Luna, or-“

The door bursts open, cutting the elder mid-speech. We all turn at the same time. Claire is standing there, wearing a black dress, hairs coming out of her ponytail as if she had fixed it up in a hurry. She pales when she notices everyone looking at her. “Oh no, did the ceremony start already?” She looks at the elder standing at the front of the room and cringes. “I guess it did. Sorry.” She looks at her phone. “Oh wow, I really am late.”

Whispers can be heard across the room. I wonder if it’s in disapproval of Claire’s appearance until I look beside me. Without my notice, Jake had stood up from his seat and walked across the room to Claire. He seemed to be looking only at her. Claire stares back, her eyes softening. “I am sorry for not coming earlier. Allison had to look for a place that suited her needs and we all had to follow after her and then I overslept and almost got lost on the way here and-“

She stops as Jake wraps his arms around her, pulling her into a hug. Claire seems stunned for a minute, freezing up almost instantly. For a moment, I think she is going to pull away from him. But then, she wraps her own arms around him, letting him bury his face into her neck. The next set of words come out in a whisper I wouldn’t have been able to hear if I hadn’t been straining my ears, “I am sorry for your loss, Jake.”