CH 1

Nora The years passed one by one and her life had moved on as she had wanted it to. It had now been 19 years since the rejection of her mate bond, and she was now a completely different person to who she had once been. She was still strong and unyielding, determined to continue to achieve greater things, and Rosa was happy and settled, and she'd never again left her even once, just as she’d promised to. Proved herself to be as unyielding as Nora herself was. Nora had not only attained her two degrees in engineering and architecture, but she was also a well-accomplished fighter and had trained with some of the best there was out there now. She could not only hold her own in a fight, but put many down as well. She trained and practiced every single day; with the warriors of the pack. She would never allow herself to not be able to defend herself against any enemy, whether it be from within or outside of her pack. She was still growing her companies and she had more than just her desired architecture company with an engineering department, which she was the CEO of. She’d also taken a page out of the Triple Moon Pack’s book. She’d found Alpha Scott was a good Alpha, and she had met him through university choices for internships. Something that connected his pack to many universities out there in the human world as well as the wolfen world, which gave him and his pack a way to scout new and upcoming talent, in the fields they themselves worked in. She’d been there in the Triple Moon, visiting not long after his son Garret’s ascension, when he’d been handed the pack and Owen’s Construction, to sort out a new pack alliance with Garrett. It was pretty much the same as the one with Scott, his father; so, there was no need to change it. She’d left the Silken Moon officially right after she’d finished university, and she’d pledged her loyalty to Alpha Scott and the Triple Moon and then worked within Owen’s Construction. Until she had built up her own career path and was able to have her own company. The Silken Moon and Triple Moon were already affiliated. She’d learned that when Alpha Scott and Alpha Clayton had negotiated her first internship, where she’d seen, they’d already been friends. Not only had she found being in Owen’s Construction beneficial to her, but she’d also made lots of friends; human and wolfen alike in their human world company and their pack. She’d interned for Owens Construction every year of her architecture degree, and having the pack back right onto their human world head office, she’d never really had to go out into the human world for anything while attending internships. Which, for her, was a good thing because it wasn’t that far from the Dark Wilderness pack, only about six hours. Although those two packs weren’t affiliated with each other, but what had surprised her about Scott and Clayton, more than anything, when meeting Alpha Scott, wasn’t that her and his pack were already affiliated. It was when she met him he’d smiled right at her and stated, “I’m glad to see you're doing well after all these years, Luna Nora.” She’d frowned at him, and he’d chuckled and told her he’d been one of the allied Alphas who Clayton had called upon to help make sure she’d been able to leave the Dark Wilderness Pack. He and many of his warriors had been lined up ready to defend her, along the roadside. That had come as a complete shock to her. She’d asked him not to call her Luna she didn’t like or want the rank, was happy being just a warrior rank, and he’d agreed to do so, but had then asked her why she didn’t scent of Luna Rank anymore, and she’d shrugged at him as if to say what does it matter. Everything in her life had seemed to just move on, as if she was blessed by Selena herself, over those very first few years after she’d rejected her Alpha Mate. And even now, all these years later, things still went smoothly for her. She now lived within a pack called the Black Rose Pack, and it was situated up in Colorado. Not so far from the Triple Moon, she’d designed and built a nightclub for the pack, just like Garrett had for his own. He’d chuckled at her just after meeting Harmony. “Maybe Nora, you’ll meet your future in that nightclub of yours, just like I did Harm.” She’d smiled at him, “Well, if I do, you’ll be the first to know Garrett.” Both Garrett and Scott had told her that meeting her and having her as a pack member was a good thing for their pack. That being affiliated was a no-brainer. They were both, she thought, the epitome of what a good Alpha was. Her sister Nita was the manager of the nightclub, and the dance company that was attached to it. Her whole family had moved here now to the Black Rose Pack, and she loved having them with her all the time. They still let their wolves out every week to run about and play as a family. They were still very closely bonded to each other. Though her pack was only in the next state over from where Jace’s was, that couldn’t be helped. Because how she’d come to be tied to the pack, it was unusual, to say the least, and it had shocked everyone she knew. But it was good for her, and so she’d simply accepted it, and she was even happier now than she ever thought she would be. The Black Rose Pack was her true home, and she’d never leave it. Her architecture firm was growing at a rapid rate now. It was the main business of the Black Rose Packs human world company. She wasn’t particularly concerned about Jace finding her and just turning up out-of-the-blue even though she was now even closer to his pack than she’d been when inside the Triple Moon. She had managed to avoid coming into contact with Jace all these years. She knew he was still the Alpha to that pack, though she’d heard he’d lost half a dozen allied packs over what he’d done to her with Gloria. But he still reigned out there in Kansas. She also knew the Skylark pack, who was now about to become affiliated with the Black Rose pack, would no longer affiliate with him. Jace had been an affiliated pack once, long ago, before Alpha Oliver and Luna Patrice had taken over. Oliver had cut ties with it within just a few months of him and King’s Eyes Luna Patrice, reigning. She’d heard they’d gone through all the pack alliances and Patrice had all those packs leadership checked for traitorous tendencies and, well, Jace himself and his unit just hadn’t made the cut, they’d been deemed by a seer, she’d heard, as betraying his own mate bond and Patrice had severed ties with the Dark Wilderness Pack and tossed him out on his ass. She only knew this because a few of the Silken Moon wolves she knew had been mated into Skylark before it was Skylark and had told Clayton, and he'd relayed it to her thinking she'd think it was amusing. Because he was still reaping what he sowed, those five months of him still loving Gloria and using her, had come back to bite him in the ass, in one of the harshest of ways. Although it didn’t concern her at all, it was good to have wolves in other packs that occasionally passed on bits of information on what he was up to. She actually knew quite a bit about him and all the fallout of what he’d done. She herself was about to start working for Skylark now, and she'd heard from Gretta it might grant her ties to the Kingdom. Her tie to Skylark came by way of Alpha Gretta. It had been an odd request but one she wasn’t about to turn down either. No one with a brain would turn down a request to actually work with the Wolfen Council. Despite being so close to the Dark Wilderness Pack, not once had that pack or any of its members been to the Black Rose Pack. Not even when he passed through the area; he'd never been inside her nightclub either. Something she and Nita had discussed at length to come up with a way they could all be there and not be recognized by anyone, visiting any parts of the nightclub. They’d named the club Neon Masquerade, and it was registered to the pack, but in her sister’s name. If Jace ever looked up her sister, he'd still not know it was Nita's because she’d taken on her Mate’s last name, and so it was registered under that. Though it was, of course, registered to the pack, only if he looked up the club page to source the owner would he come across her photo with her name under it. He would recognize Nita; she'd not changed much over the years. Her family didn’t need to hide themselves from him, and she didn’t ask them too. Though right now, Nita couldn’t be there working at the club, because she was home inside the pack, pregnant to her Mate and due to give birth any day now. This club only had one section available to the human world and that was the Ballet Theater, known as The Black Rose House of Ballet. It was a beautiful and grand design like all her other buildings. It was a ballet theater three weeks a month, and the fourth week it was closed to the human world and only open to those of the otherworldly realm on the weekend, where it ran an otherworldly burlesque show up there on that stage. That weekend was seen by humans as only the super wealthy elites of society could enter the theater, and it was strictly invitation only. Though in reality, that just meant if you were human, you couldn’t buy tickets or walk in the door. The nightclub itself was on the back side of the same block of land, and no humans could ever enter it. There was a lineup every Friday and Saturday night when the club was open, all standing there as if waiting to get in. What they saw were men and women entering the club in formal cocktail wear. It was considered a high-end club for the elite of society. There was often a lot of yelling about why those people got in and didn’t have to line up. Some had taken to trying to dress the part and just walk in like they’d seen the wolfen folk do, not realizing, of course, they didn’t have access because they weren’t otherworldly. It ticked quite a few of the humans off, but none of them would ever get past the wolfen security standing at the door. Though photos of the clubbing atmosphere were seen in the press every few months, though only in zone one and two of the club itself, zone three images were never sent out. Zone one was a full neon-lit dance club, with a DJ from one pack or another, whoever was the latest go-to DJ in their world, that was out there for hire. That DJ was advertised as playing at the club, up on their electronic signage at the front of the club and in the local papers and online news. It was part of the promotion deal for them, because those DJs not only played gigs in otherworldly clubs all over the US, but some of them were also out there in the human world and were very well known. This was what brought the humans to want to come and dance to them in Neon Masquerade. Nita was going to introduce one weekend a month when the humans could come in and dance and drink away. By the end of the year, it was a slow process, because that place was filled with wolfen-loaded alcohol, and so that one weekend everything had to be swapped out, the security of the other zones had to be tight, anyone causing any trouble would be tossed out on their ass and black-listed for life. That was the main rule so far.