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

stretch out across the

the brightness of the sun cresting above the waves, as the light painted the

between them. I placed my hand

"It's beautiful," I whispered.

close to my ear. "Not as beautiful as

Smooth talker.

gave him a soft smile. He returned it just

not wanting to damage our eyes. By now, some of the others had awakened.

for her. We'd thought of dismantling it, but... we didn't want to traumatize Elva

Julian said to her. "Let's

could be fun," I told Elva, to encourage her. She hadn't shown as much interest

as she said, "Okay." She took Julian's hand and they went closer to the water to recover the wet sand needed for such an

torn about whether to follow Elva or me, but he decided me rather

both moved closer to her. Veronica didn't seem troubled that

I could see that she had made extreme progress on the book since the

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.

"Do we need to find

said. "And

Veronica," I said. Usually I wouldn't have minded. I liked the unique way Veronica's mind seemed to work. But this time,

or keep it from you." He inhaled deeply. "The curse itself is

talking about? Like years off our

of life. And the more life force that is needed the

in line. Elva was my daughter. If anyone had to sacrifice anything

could only

remove the curse, but not the means," Veronica confirmed. "She will need

once, before Nicholas had a

"I'll do it. I'm an Alpha. It's the least I can do for my pack. It's