The Runt novel Chapter 37

The pack is planning a party for me – a big celebration of the fact that I'm going to turn eighty next month. Apparently, it is an achievement to make it to this age – not sure what the big deal is when it is simple biology that keeps your heart ticking. Eighty years on this planet, plus we'll mark what should have been fifty years of Arya's rule as Luna, were she still alive.

I lost my Luna three months ago – cancer. Being a shifter can fix a lot of things, help heal you faster and prevent a lot of diseases, but it doesn't fix everything, and it doesn't fix the big one. I had a lot of great years with my chosen but watching her slowly disintegrate into nothing but pain and bones was excruciating.

I would have done anything to trade places with her.

In the end, all I could do was let her rest her hand in mine – I couldn't hold hers because it hurt her too much but at least this way we were touching as I watched her slip away.

Now I must plaster on a smile and pretend I'm happy to be here, happy to be at a party alone when it's the last thing I want to be doing. I don't even have AJ – he left shortly after my true mate did... shit, after Phoenix did. The only reason Phoenix returned in any form at all is because of the beauties my mate and I created together... our pups. All of them look like their mother – thankfully, and their existence is the reason I get up in the morning.

Samantha came first – the heir to the Midnight Pack, a female – unless we could have a son. Samantha's training began almost as soon as she started walking but I wanted to try again – part of me was insistent on a son to carry on as Alpha for the pack, as stupidly archaic as that makes me sound. Blair, our second daughter came sixteen months after Sam, and smart as a whip Bailey came third. With three daughters, Arya was content to call our family complete, but I still wanted a son, so we tried again – and shortly thereafter we had our fourth daughter whom we named Drew.

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