His Redemption (Complete His Series)

Azalea

I woke the next morning wrapped in very warm arms. I did not want to move at first, loving the feeling of being surrounded by Liam. Every time we slept together, I slept soundly; his scent and warmth enveloped me, relaxing my entire body into an easy slumber.

After a few minutes, I realized my bladder had other plans for me. I carefully freed myself of Liam’s grip and rolled out of bed. I quietly snuck across the room to the bathroom. After taking care of business, I went to the sink. My face was no longer puffy or red from last night. I quickly brushed my teeth while I was standing there.

Exiting the bathroom, I looked over to the bed where Liam was still softly snoring. I didn’t want to wake him and felt a little more secure after last night, so I decided to go down and make us some breakfast. I exited the bedroom and made my way down to the kitchen, realizing I never actually found out where anything in the house was. I could ask Liam for a tour later.

I entered the kitchen and went to the pantry to see what was in there. After a quick inspection of the fridge, I gathered the ingredients for some apple cinnamon pancakes as well as some bacon and sausage. I know wolves eat more than ordinary people, and we only ate cereal for dinner last night, so Liam was bound to be starving when he woke up.

I busied myself cooking, distracting my brain from any worries about last night or our current predicament. After about 30 minutes, I had a good stack of apple pancakes with whipped cinnamon butter, sausages, bacon, and coffee ready to go. I was looking for the plates when I heard Liam coming down the stairs.

“Mmhm. Thanks. Talk later,” he said into his phone as he entered the kitchen. I gave him a sweet smile as he hung up. “Good morning, beautiful,” he said. Inhaling deeply, he asked, “Did you already make us breakfast? That smells fantastic!”

I giggled. “Yea, just looking for some plates,” I said. He walked over to me, opening a cabinet above my head.

“Up here,” he said, pulling down a couple of plates and smiling at me.

“Probably would not have ever found those,” I said jokingly. “I guess it’s a good thing I have a nice tall wolf around to reach things for me.”

He laughed at me. “It is my pleasure to reach the tall shelves,” he said with a slight bow. I rolled my eyes at him, grabbing the plates.

“Sit, I’ll make the plates,” I said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, sitting at the breakfast bar. I plated him a large stack of pancakes and a large amount of sausage and bacon, then a smaller portion for myself. I brought our plates over and set them down. Grabbing the coffee and a couple of mugs, I sat down beside Liam, who was looking anxiously at his plate.

I smiled at him. “You can eat. You don’t have to wait for me,” I said. He leaned over, giving me a quick k**s.

“Thank you for breakfast, baby,” he said before digging in. He ate hungrily for a few minutes before pausing to say, “Wow, these are amazing, Azalea. What are these?”

“Apple pancakes with cinnamon butter. Nothing special, really,” I said, shrugging.

“I am definitely going to have to keep you around if you cook like this all the time,” he said with a wink. I giggled at him. At least he liked my cooking.

“So, who was that on the phone?” I said, eating my own breakfast.

He didn’t answer for a moment, carefully chewing his food. “My uncle,” he finally said.

“Oh,” I said, not knowing if that was a good or bad thing. Surely, if his uncle had found out anything, Liam would tell me? He remained quiet for a moment, so I continued, “Did he find anything?”

“Sort of, but he wanted to talk to another doctor he knows before telling me anything,” he replied.

“Okay,” I said, a little sad. I was hoping his uncle would be able to tell us how to make my wolf come back.

“Don’t worry, Azalea,” he said, turning to me. “We will get answers, baby.”

“Hopefully,” I said, trying to sound optimistic. We had no idea what those answers would be. If I could not ever get my wolf back, Liam couldn’t have me as his mate. Human mates are targets for wolves, especially Alphas. If there was a way, we don’t know that it would work.

“Hey,” he said, grabbing my hand. “Azalea, I want you to know I do not care whether you have a wolf or not. It does not change who you are or how I feel about you.”

I gave him a tight smile, trying not to show him how scared I was for that to change. The closer we get, the more I fear I made the wrong choice in opening my heart to him. I decided to change the subject.

“So, what do we do today?” I asked.

“Well, I have a bit of work to attend to this morning. Maybe you could unpack while I do that? After lunch, we could go out to the lake.”

“Okay,” I said cheerfully. A quiet morning sounded nice after all the excitement of the last couple of days. I hopped up to grab our plates and clean up. Liam helped to gather the serving dishes and bring them to the sink.

“Would you like some help, baby?” he asked.

“No, I got it,” I said with a smile. He kissed my head.

“Okay. I’ll be in the office if you need me. Should only need an hour or two,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “But, Liam, uh, where is that?” I said, realizing I had only been in the kitchen and bedroom so far.

His face paled. “Oh, I never showed you around,” he said like he was in trouble.

I giggled. “It’s okay. We were a little distracted….” I said.

“Yea. How about this,” he said, grabbing the dish I was about to wash from my hands. “This can wait a few minutes, and you let me show my girl around our lake house like a proper gentleman?”

Before I could respond, he scooped me up into his arms bridal style and kissed me. He had an adorable grin on his face as he walked out of the kitchen and towards the front.

“Liam, I can walk,” I said as he carried me.

“I know,” he said with a smirk.

–

Liam showed me around the house, eventually letting me walk on my own. It was gorgeous. It had four bedrooms upstairs with attached bathrooms, a living room, lounge, kitchen with an attached dinette, and a small office. A glass sliding door opened to a covered deck off the back of the dinette with a spectacular view of the yard that sloped down to the small dock and lake. There was an adorable wrap-around porch on the front and side of the house, complete with swinging benches.

After the tour was complete, he headed to the little office to do whatever work needed his attention while I made my way back up to the master bedroom. Going into the closet, I changed first as I was still in my pajamas. I put on some leggings with a green and blue flannel. Practical and cute was most of my wardrobe. I quickly braided my long hair into a loose French braid, and I pulled my MP3 player from my bag to listen to music while I unpacked my things. Not long later, I had all my clothes folded in the dresser or hung up next to it. I checked Liam’s bag, but it appeared that all his things were already put away in the other dresser.

I grabbed the book I had brought and placed it on the bedside table in the bedroom. I made the bed and folded the spare blankets while I was in there. Grabbing our cereal bowls from the night before, I decided to finish cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast.

An hour later, I had the kitchen all cleaned up, and I was wrapping up some sandwiches for lunch. I thought I could convince Liam to have a picnic on the dock for lunch today. I put the sandwiches in the fridge and cleaned up the rest of the ingredients. Liam had been working for about an hour and a half now; I wondered how much longer he would be.

I decided to take a look around the house a bit while he was still busy. Wandering down the hall, I looked at all the pictures hung on the walls. Liam’s parents were sure proud of their only son. Towards the end of the hall was a small grouping of pictures that had to be from our senior year of high school. The picture in the center was of Liam and Damien in their graduation attire. It must have been taken after the ceremony because they held diplomas in their hands. Although they both looked happy, Liam’s eyes were almost clouded. He was not as cheerful as Damien appeared.

Liam

“Life wasn’t so fun after I rejected you,” I said as I approached her from behind. She was standing in the hall looking at all the pictures my mom had up, particularly a photo of Damien and me at graduation. She jumped at the sound of my voice, not realizing I was behind her.

“You scared me!” she said, grabbing her chest.

“Sorry,” I said. I didn’t mean to scare her; I forgot she doesn’t have the same senses as I did. “You know I am really sorry,” I continued, my eyes fixed on the picture. I was not able to look her in the eye.

“For what?” she asked with her head tilted.

“For sending you away and rejecting you before you could even graduate. You worked so hard at school; you deserved to at least finish.”

She turned back to the pictures. “I did. Just not right away. I found a correspondence school with the old man’s help.”

“I’m glad,” I told her. I didn’t exactly want to reminisce about her childhood, but I did feel bad about how I left things three years ago.

She turned around and looked at me with a small smile on her face. There was no sadness or remorse in her expression at all. “I don’t blame you, you know. I actually, probably, should thank you. I would have never met Amy, her husband, or Abi. I wouldn’t have a job or home that I love. If you hadn’t rejected me, I probably wouldn’t have survived anyway. Your father surely would have kicked me out of the pack to become a rogue if he found out we were mates. You probably saved my life, Liam. I don’t care about a graduation ceremony or senior prom; I am just happy to be here now and have this time with you.” She turned back to the wall, admiring the photos again.

I was absolutely dumbfounded. How could she not be upset with me about any of that? I cannot even think about all possible outcomes had I not convinced my parents to send her away and secretly rejected her. I stared at the small woman in front of me. She had every reason to hate me and the rest of the world. She had every reason to be bitter and selfish. But she was not in any way. She was kind and gentle; she was thoughtful and generous. She didn’t hold malice towards anyone. She was going to be an extraordinary Luna.

“So, you ready for some lunch?” Her angelic voice broke me from my admiring thoughts.

“I can eat,” I replied.

“I was kind of thinking a picnic on the dock might be nice. I wrapped up some sandwiches already, and they are waiting in the fridge,” she said.

“That sounds perfect, baby,” I told her, grabbing her h**s to pull her into me. “We can do whatever you wish the whole rest of the day. Also, you look beautiful.”

Her sweet smile made my heart race. She wrapped her arms around me and laid her head against my chest. I instinctively wrapped my arms around her and held her tighter to me. “This is enough for me. Just spending time with you,” she said quietly.

“Me too,” I said, kissing the top of her head. After a minute, she pulled away, a smile still on her face.

“We need a picnic basket to pack,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am!” I said. Grabbing her hand, we moved to the kitchen. I dug around in the cabinets looking for the basket while she got the sandwiches she made from the fridge. Finally finding it, I brought the basket over to the island counter so we could pack it.

“It’s a little breezy out today. Do you have a sweater?” I asked her. It was firmly autumn now, and the days were getting much colder.

“Yea, upstairs with my stuff,” she said.

“I’ll grab it for you,” I said. I left the kitchen and bounded up the stairs to our room. In the closet, I found a few sweaters folded right on top of her dresser. I grabbed the one on top of the pile and went to go back downstairs when my phone rang. It was a text message from my uncle.Content from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.

UNCLE DOC

| Got a second to talk?

I wanted to get back down to Azalea but knew this had to be important. I immediately called him back.

“What’s going on?” I asked hurriedly

“I may have some news for you and your mate.”

“Great. Did you find out how to get her wolf back?”

“Maybe. But I’m afraid you won’t like it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you alone? She might not want to hear this.”

“Yea, she’s downstairs. Uncle, what is it?”

“Well, I wanted to be sure before I said anything. Like I told you before, this is rare. Wolves do not generally recede from their person. But from what I can gather, it happened as a form of self-preservation. Azalea could have died if she had shifted when she was young. Her wolf knew her body was fragile and could not survive the shift or shift back. My guess is, as her wolf discovered this, she fought the shift to save Azalea. But she could only fight for so long. Her wolf then receded from her as it could no longer fight for her, having never been fully released with a shift.” He paused for a moment.

“Okay, so this doesn’t tell me how to get it back for her.”

“This is the part you will not like. Now that Azalea is seemingly healthy, her body may be able to support the shift, but she was stunted in growth. She was small and fragile for so long that her wolf could never reemerge. The longer the wolf stays recessed, the less likely it is to come back. Azalea stayed in this stunted growth state for years. It seems she probably did not gain weight until sometime after you left her in the human town, and even then, I don’t believe she ever got much taller than she was. According to my research, the only werewolf to regain their connection with their wolf after an extended period similar to Azalea’s only did so after witnessing their mate die brutally. It is theorized that the physical and emotional pain from the loss triggered the wolf to help their person half survive. But it does not stop there. They never shifted back. According to all written records I could find, they remained a wolf, and their human side receded permanently.”

I sat down on the couch. I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. “So, she’ll never….”

“No. I would guess that she will never shift, and her wolf will not reemerge for her.”

“But I don’t understand; she feels the bond. I know she does. Maybe not as strongly as I do, but she feels something,” I said, desperate for him to change his mind, to tell me she will be able to shift to her wolf.

“Not all things about our kind are explained, Liam. My guess here is that she feels the bond stronger than a human but not as strong as you as she is a full-bred werewolf, but she is missing her wolf half.” I had no response for him. My feelings for her would not change if she couldn’t shift, but I was sure I would be able to fix this for her. This was also going to make her a target for the rest of our lives, and the pack would be less likely to accept her. Our pack has never had a human Luna.

“Liam, go to her. Let her fall in love with you. If you wish, I can explain all this to her once you have had time to come to terms with it. We can keep her in the dark a bit longer; there is no harm in that. You are a great leader and a good man despite your father’s teaching. The pack is learning this. They will accept your mate, whoever she may be.”

“After everything she has gone through, I just wanted to fix this for her….” I said, feeling defeated.

“The Moon Goddess has other plans, it seems. You have your mate now. I’m sure even if she cannot shift, once she is mated and marked, you will still feel the increase in strength and power that comes from the Alpha-Luna bond.”

“Yeah, I just don’t know how she will take this.”

“Just have faith. I think she will surprise you.” With that, he hung up the phone. I sat there with my head hung, thinking about how to tell Azalea. It would be unfair to keep her in the dark for too long, but what if she decides to reject me because she is too afraid to be Luna?

As I sat there trying to figure out what to do, I heard a soft knock at the doorway. I looked up to see Azalea standing there with a worried look on her face.

“Liam, is something wrong?” She asked.

Shaking my head and putting on my best smile to hide the conversation I just had, I said, “no, baby. All good. Ready to go?” She gave me a weak smile and nodded her head. I stood up and followed her downstairs. In the kitchen, I grabbed the basket from the counter.

“Lead the way, beautiful,” I said, trying to push the situation from my mind. Right now, I needed to spend this time with her. I needed her to accept me so we could mate, and I could mark her. I would be able to protect her better with that bond in place.