The Luna Choosing Game

Chapter 0593

The next morning was the final of our time on the island, so I made sure to set a personal alarm to wake me up just before dawn. When it finally went off, I grumbled a minute, before remembering my plan and forcing myself out of bed.

I turned toward Elva and shook her gently, rousing her.

"Mommy?" she asked, peeking open one eye.

"Would you like to watch the sunrise, honey?"

That woke her up right away. "Yeah!"

I shushed her gently. "Let's not wake Nicholas," I said.

"I'm already awake," he said from his air mattress on the ground.

I had tried to tell him late last night, after we had very diligently cleaned up after ourselves and finally came upstairs to sleep, that he didn't have to guard us now, with Ronan in jail and Bridget under supervision.

But Nicholas would not be talked out of it.

And now, thusly, he had been woken up before dawn.

I rolled over on the bed to peer down at him with an apologetic glance. "Sorry," I said.

He rubbed his eye with his forefinger. He huffed a small exhale as he shook his head. "I wouldn't want to have missed this," he said. "I'm glad I was here."

We all rolled out of bed. Since it was so early, we didn't bother changing out of our pajamas as we descended the staircase and made our way out onto the deck. We had to come around the house to face east.

Already the sky was lighting up in warm oranges, the sun near the horizon.

To my surprise, Veronica was already there, reading the book she had borrowed from the merfolk. She had a tiny book light clipped onto the top of the book. I marveled for a minute at how it could do so without bending the pages.

when I asked her. I had no idea if she was serious

blinding white stretch out across the entire horizon.

cresting above the waves,

closer to Elva and Nicholas, coming to stand between them. I placed my hand on Elva's shoulder.

"It's beautiful," I whispered.

"Not as beautiful as you,"

Smooth talker.

gave him a soft smile. He returned it just

to damage our eyes. By now, some of the others had

of dismantling it, but... we didn't want to traumatize Elva any more

to her. "Let's make our

I told Elva, to encourage her. She hadn't shown as much interest in

Julian's hand and they went closer to the water to recover the wet sand needed

decided me rather quickly when Veronica added, "I want

didn't seem

book, then stood from the beach towel she had stretched out for herself. As I was closer now, I could see that she had made extreme progress on the book since the last time we'd talked about it. It seemed as

be able to remove Elva's curse," Veronica said. I wanted to celebrate. That should have been good news, but her dire expression kept me from expressing my joy. "But she won't

does that mean?" I asked. "Do we

she said. "And perhaps

cryptic with me about this, Veronica," I said. Usually I wouldn't have minded. I liked the unique way

this, or keep it from you." He inhaled deeply. "The curse itself is tied and bound with life force, so it will take a considerable amount of life force to

asked. "What are talking about? Like

yes," she said. "Or health, near the end. Or quality of life. And the more life force that is needed the more

to volunteer. Well, he could get in line. Elva was my daughter. If anyone had to sacrifice anything

only

curse, but not the means,"

at once,

Nicholas said. "I'll do it. I'm an Alpha. It's the least I