352 The Choice To Love
When Lucien opened his eyes again, he was steeping inside a wooden bathtub full of warm bathwater. His mate, the sex maniac Ronan Silverback, was conscientiously cleaning him from head to toe.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Ronan greeted his mate with a kiss.
“...”
Morning?
What morning?
Lucien looked up in confusion.
Above his head, the sky was colored with red, orange, and golden streaks as the sun slowly disappeared beneath the horizon.
It was clearly in the evening!
Lucien winced from pain when he shifted his weight around.
.....
“Don’t move too much,” Ronan pulled him back to his original position on his legs.
“Ronan, you beast,” Lucien scolded his mate fiercely. “Look at what you did to me!”
While he lay on his back and endured Ronan’s relentless attack, his lower half went numb.
Lucien thought that he was going to die today.
On his birthday, to boot!
Ronan gave his Luna a roguish smile without a shred of guilt.
“I can’t help it. But Lulu, you were also at fault. Why must you talk about getting pregnant? You deliberately turn me on.”
Ronan leaned in for a kiss, but Lucien splashed his face full of water instead.
“Get away from me,” Lucien grumbled. “Our wedding is in three weeks! If you keep fucking me night after night, I won’t have the face to wear white at the Holy Temple of The Moon Goddess!”
Disappointment spread on Ronan’s face.
“But Lulu, what about me? I can’t survive three weeks without sex!”
“You better do,” Lucien said. “Otherwise it will be three months without!”
“...”
And because Lucien was angry, Ronan’s first course of action was to coax him with food.
Refreshed from the bath and the generally cool air in the evening, Lucien gladly joined Ronan at the fire pit in front of the tent.
The three young women had prepared all the ingredients that Ronan asked for, and more. A wonderful testament to an extraordinary service beyond customer requirements.
There were all kinds of fresh fish inside the water bucket, along with various vegetables and mushrooms that were often cooked over fire.
A pack of marshmallows was also available, along with a pack of graham crackers and a huge pack of chocolates.
Ronan who hated sweets only knew to skewer marshmallows and grill them, but Lucien knew how to enjoy campfire s’mores.
The item that attracted Ronan’s attention the most was the two bottles of cooled wine inside an ice bucket and the two glasses next to it.
The dinner looked promising.
Ronan took a wine bottle from the bucket and waved it in front of Lucien.
“Wine?”
Lucien eyed the bottle that Ronan waved in front of him.
“Sure.”
They filled their glasses and Ronan proposed a toast.
“To our children.”
“To our babies.”
Lucien sipped at the wine and wrinkled his forehead almost immediately.
It was too strong for his taste.
Laughing, Ronan took the glass from his mate’s hand.
“We should not get drunk before eating something. Should we start cooking?”
Lucien tilted his head to the side and squinted at Ronan.
“Have you learned how to cook?”
“Of course not,” the Alpha replied cheerfully. “But I am at your disposal, Chef Lucien.”
Lucien rolled with his eyes. If he were a chef, he would choose to hire an experienced kitchen helper and not a pampered Alpha from the Infinite Eclipse Pack.
Intent on punishing the Alpha, Lucien grabbed a cutting board and a knife, which he then handed over to Ronan with a smile.
“Get rid of the scales and gut the trouts for me, then.”
Ronan’s face crumpled in distress.
“I don’t want to. They are disgusting!” he wailed in a childish voice.
Lucien broke into laughter.
“This reminds me of the Alpha Camp.”
Ronan’s lips were pulled into a naughty grin.
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“What a coincidence. Today is Sunday.”
Ah.
Lucien’s gaze softened.
Sunday.
The day when they sneaked around the woods and went on secret dates. In the end, it was not that secret anymore. Even the instructors knew that they were in a relationship.
In the end, Lucien agreed to work together with Ronan.
In his words, he only agreed to help because Ronan’s handiwork was horrible and Lucien was in the mood to eat some grilled trout.
“Say, Ronan,” Lucien spoke up while they were grilling the fishes over the fire. “Do you think that we will end up together if we were not fated mates?”
“No,” Ronan answered right away.
“Oh.”
Lucien bit into his lower lip.
Yeah, of course they would not end up together.
They would each go their separate ways, and if they were lucky, they might just greet each other as fellow Alphas, nothing more.
Ronan watched how Lucien’s face gradually grew darker and darker with much delight. He then put his arms around Lucien from behind and bit into the latter’s neck playfully.
“That’s why I am forever grateful to the Moon Goddess for establishing the fated mate connection between us. Otherwise, I would have missed out on my lovely Lulu.”
Lucien looked away, but the tip of his ears already turned red, resembling the petals of a blooming pink rose.
“Lulu, I love you,” Ronan whispered. “What should I do so that you never doubt the sincerity of my feelings toward you?”
Lucien turned his head to look at the man who professed his love again and again without any kind of prohibition.
“If we were not fated mates, maybe you won’t even love me,” he pointed out.
A chuckle escaped Ronan’s lips.
“Oh, Lulu...”
The Alpha dragged Lucien into his arms and tilted his chin up so that they were looking deep into each other’s eyes.
“I am attracted to you because we are fated to be together. I am in love with you despite it.”
The Moon Goddess bestowed her blessings on select werewolves, allowing them to meet their fated person.
In the end, the fated mates did not necessarily end up together.
The love between fated mates did not hail from the Moon Goddess. It was a conscious decision to cherish and respect each other deeply, to stay together no matter what, to link their hands and stand against the blistering sandstorms and stormy hurricanes that came one by one to rip them apart.
Ronan and Lucien exchanged smiles.
They went through a lot, but as long as life persisted, there would be more challenges waiting ahead of them.
One thing for sure was that whatever lay ahead, they would face the obstacles together, as bonded mates, as the Alpha and the Luna of the Infinite Eclipse Pack.
.....
After that night, Lucien never questioned Ronan’s love for him anymore.