Alpha's Blind Luna novel Chapter 53

He took the phone from my hand but I didn’t let it go. My eyes locked with his as he looked up at me, confused as to why I wouldn’t let go.

“I know you’re upset. This might make it worse. You need to understand that you aren’t the only one in pain. You aren’t the only one who loves him. He may be your mate, but he is also a friend, a son, a member of the pack and family. It’s not just you in pain.”

He growled and pulled the phone out my my hands. I watched as Vale phoned Auri. It was understandable how upset and angry he was but this was bigger than him as well. The fact that he still couldn’t feel anything through the bond seemed to be a good sign.

Auri proved that she could be far away but still made Logan feel her pain of her dying. The death of a mate could be felt anywhere. No matter how far away you were. We continued to find that out the hard way. Bryan was in Europe when Denise died. He said he felt every bit of it. Not the pain beforehand but her death for sure.

Bryan picked up Auri’s phone. His usual smirk nowhere on his face. The lines and the dark circles meant they were most likely running on fumes at this point.

“Hec…ah…Vale, what can I…”

“Get me my mother, Bryan.”

He sighed. “Vale, she’s not speaking to anyone but Pipsqueak. Not mindlink. Not signing. Nothing. She’s…” His eyes turned to me and his mouth dropped further into a frown.

“I don’t care what the fuck she’s doing. She’s going to talk to me. He’s my mate, Bryan!”

Bryan sighed again and walked the phone out of the house. He held it up and the camera flipped to look out over the ocean. Auri was sitting on the rocks, smoking with an entire cigarette pack shoved in the straps of her top. She wasn’t paying attention to anything but the waves.

“Mom!” Vale nearly screamed at her and I leaned away from him.

She looked at Bryan, shook her head, and turned away.

“See. She won’t speak…”

“Pass her the fucking phone, damn it! If she doesn’t want to talk, fine. But she sure as hell is going to listen.” Vale was getting more and more hysterical despite me trying to calm him down.

Bryan walked closer and turned the camera around before holding out the phone. “Auri…you need to talk to him.”

There was no movement or reply that we could see. Vale was getting angrier by the second.

“Mother, tell me what the fuck you are doing! Tell me why you’re just sitting there when my mate is gone! On your watch! Your fucking pack member and you’re sitting there smoking like a fucking lazy…”

Suddenly, the phone moved. Auri’s face came into view but she whipped her middle finger up at the phone. My eyes widened as I took in her face. The lines in her face were deeper, the frown plastered on her face. Dark circles seemed to dig deep canals under her eyes but it was her eyes themselves that caught my attention. Her face disappeared moments later, as the phone was being lobbed through the air. It spun and you could see Bryan grab it before it fell onto the grass.

“Damn it, Auri. This would be the third fucking phone.” Bryan growled, pulling the camera back up to him. “I’m sorry, Vale. We are doing what we can, I promise. It’s useless for us to just trek around the globe for him. We are relying on Pipsqueak to follow the trail but it’s not easy. We are trying to narrow down a final destination.”

I swallowed, hard. “Bryan, she’s…”

He nodded, rubbing his eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. I don’t know where she got them. But I think that’s the only thing getting her through all this. It’s too much. Too many memories…of situations repeating. She pulled her sole focus to this and for that she…”

“You’re talking about her eyes, right? What was that?”

“Nova, Vale. The original Nova. One of the side effects of it was that it gave you eyes that looked like the Milky Way. It looks different on your mom because she is blind. It’s much more prominent.” I answered him.

Vale only got angrier, his ears turning red. “She’s taking the same shit my dad did? That everyone we are dealing with…”

“No, Vale. Right now, it’s 2.0 going around. She has 1.0, the eyes prove that. The new drug got rid of that side effect. It’s different enough to not have the lasting side effects that the new one has. I mean, your mom took it for years. She…knows what she’s doing.” I looked at Bryan, who didn’t seem convinced.

He turned the phone’s camera around again, discretely this time. Holding it at a downward angle, Auri came into view. She was putting the box of cigarettes down on the table. Taking the one she currently had between her lips, Auri put it out. I turned, hand over my mouth to not make a sound, as she put the cigarette out on her arm. There were so many marks littering her arm and I started to shake. The door slammed shut to the house and the phone flipped back.

“She’s been doing that every day she hasn’t found him. Since we found his car.”

Vale growled. “So what? She can’t feel pain. It just makes a mark.”