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.

Veronica said when I asked her. I had no

look!" I turned my head just in time to see a line of blinding white stretch out across the entire horizon. Then the top of the sun brought all of the sunshine

above the waves, as the light painted the sky with a rainbow of

and Nicholas, coming to stand between them. I

"It's beautiful," I whispered.

ear. "Not

Smooth talker.

smile. He

eyes. By now, some of the

sandcastle Bridget had made for her. We'd thought of dismantling it, but... we didn't want to traumatize Elva any more

to her. "Let's

encourage her. She hadn't shown as much interest in

and they went closer to the water to recover the wet sand needed

to follow Elva or me, but he decided me rather quickly when Veronica added, "I

closer to her. Veronica didn't seem troubled that Nicholas 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

Veronica said. I wanted to celebrate. That should have been good news,

does that mean?" I asked. "Do we need

she said. "And perhaps

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

said and cleared her throat. "I did not mean to undermine the importance of this, or keep it from you." He inhaled deeply. "The

"What are talking about? Like years off

said. "Or health, near the end. Or quality of life. And the more life force that is needed the more painful it would be for... the

Well, he could get in line. Elva was my daughter.

only

remove the curse, but not the means," Veronica confirmed.

at once, before

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