Fated: The Alpha's Unwanted Luna

Chapter 278: The Water Attack_Part 2

By the time Viola’s things were set in her room the rain had grown stronger and was falling in earnest, drumming steadily against the building and glass. The air turned cool and Viola wrapped her arms around herself as she made her way to the dining area where Zoe had decided they would all eat together since the rain would keep the two men from leaving for a while.

They decided to heat the takeouts for dinner. Matt had taken over the table setting and was attempting to teach Doctor Gilbert, who looked like he had not set a dinner table in a single day of his life, how to do it properly, and Zoe was leaning against the counter laughing at Gilbert’s extreme concentration as she heat up the food.

"This is mostly useful when you know how to do your own thing, Doc. Seeing as you only care about your work, you might never find your mate, so let me teach you how to live a less lonely single life. You set the plate this way for a professional dinner and—"

"I don’t need to learn how to set a professional dinner table, Beta. I won’t be having one if I end up alone like you said. Teach me one for mateless men," Gilbert said, watching what the Beta was doing at the table.

"You really are planning to stay mateless all your life, Doc?" Matt asked, raising a curious brow.

Gilbert shrugged. As the pack’s head physician, he had spent most of his years in the human world learning medicine, and now worked tirelessly to improve werewolf healthcare. He did not think he would ever have time to attend gatherings to find his mate, unless she somehow came from Silver.

Mateless males usually traveled and attended many moon festivals and other lunar gatherings, but he simply did not have the time. Furthermore, it was not something commonly practiced in Silver anymore after the death of the previous Alpha and Luna.

"What a life, Doc. I mean, you and I, not having the time to search. I wish the female would come looking for a change." Matt turned his attention. "Luna, are the plates in good condition for eating now?"

Viola, who stood by the sink rinsing the plants Zoe had not used in a while, leaving them slightly dusty, was already smiling as she listened to their conversation.

"Almost done," she called back to Matt.

She had never been in a group like this before, friends joking and talking so casually, and she was enjoying the atmosphere more than she probably should. That was when she noticed the water from the tap begin to separate itself from the flow, taking on a strange shape. Her heart gave a sudden thud as her eyes narrowed at the water-like creature, forming again.

Before she could fully panic at its appearance and tell it to go away, it subtly gestured upward toward the glass panel.

Her gaze slowly followed to the glass above the sink that overlooked the outside, where rain was pouring heavily and making the view hazy.

Her heart gave a trembling, terrifying slam when she noticed the rainwater beginning to crawl across the glass, forming a slow-moving circle. It spun gently at first, then began to pick up speed.

But it wasn’t the current of the rain. She knew that.

Like someone caught in a spell, she stared as the circle widened, unable to move away. In the middle of it a dark hole began to form, the glass behind it slowly melting as if the heat of whatever was on the other side was dissolving it from the outside in.

Viola’s eyes flashed gold, reflecting the circling water and glass.

She stared at the hole as it grew bigger and in its center, past the dissolving glass, she could see the view of the open ocean stretching endlessly in the dark.

"Serena!" A voice called her name from within the hole and her heart dropped straight to her stomach. "Move away!" The voice said In urgent, but Viola’s body had stopped listening to her. It was like her limbs had gone immobile. She was caught in it completely, her feet rooted to the floor, the plate still in her hands, her eyes fixed on the ocean growing wider inside the glass.

The hole kept growing. The glass began to swell outward, bowing under the pressure of whatever was pushing against it from the other side, and just when it looked like it would burst entirely, the water creature from the running sink beside her gathered itself and moved. It pulled free from the stream and coiled like a rope and wrapped itself around her waist, yanking her backward hard.

The plate in her hands crashed to the floor and shattered, and a split second later the glass window exploded outward with a sound like a crack of thunder splitting the sky, lightning flashing at the exact same moment as if the two things had called each other into being.

The conversation in the dining hall stopped dead at the explosion.

Matt was at the front and reached her first, rushing toward the sink where the Luna was on the floor surrounded by scattered glass pieces. Wind was howling through the broken window now, blowing rain water in sheets across the kitchen floor.

"Luna!"

Viola was slowly coming back to herself, the spell-like stillness leaving her body in pieces as Matt grabbed her shoulders and helped her up from the glass and the water spraying in from outside. There were small cuts on her arms but nothing serious and he moved her carefully away from the debris. The last thing he needed was for something to happen to the Luna on his watch!

Zoe’s hands found her from the other side and pulled her further back while Gilbert and Matt moved forward to assess the damage to the window.

"What happened?" Gilbert asked, turning to look at her with a physician’s trained eye, quickly scanning her for injuries. But noticing there was nothing serious, he did not panic and instead let out a quiet breath of relief.

His gaze shifted to the shattered window, his brows knitting together. What could have caused the solid glass, the kind that had been used throughout Silver for years, to suddenly explode like that?

Could it have been a gunshot from another building? Gilbert wondered, quickly scanning the floor for a bullet, but there was none.

So he turned back to the Luna, waiting for her to explain what had just happened, since none of them had been close enough to witness it clearly.

Viola, who was as shaken as she was confused, could only shake her head. "I...I don’t know. I was rinsing the plates when the glass started cracking and then it exploded..." She murmured, looking between their faces and hoping they believed her because she wasn’t certain she believed herself.

Whose voice had that been? What had just happened? And the water from the tap, the same water she had told not to come back again, had just saved her by pulling her out of the way of what would have been a fatel accident. She shuddered.

Gilbert looked at the broken window and said, "It must have been the thunder. It’s thundering like crazy tonight. You ladies should stay away from the glass panels until the rain stops. Take the Luna to get changed." He looked at Matt. "Let’s see what we can do about this opening before the water ruins the whole kitchen floor."

"We can’t replace the glass tonight but we can cover it until the rain stops and get someone out here first thing tomorrow."

Viola heard them shifting into practical problem-solving as Zoe guided her away from the kitchen. She did not tell them what she had actually seen. She was conflicted to, because they might single her out as an outcast, even though she knew she was a werewolf. And she was not yet certain what she would even say if she tried to explain it.

They would not understand like Sebastian who had witnessed it happened in Nightshade would...

Whatever had to do with water was chasing her, had been chasing her since Nightshade, and now something on the other side of it was calling her by a name that wasn’t the one she had grown up with. And the water that kept saving her, she needed to understand what it was before it decided to introduce itself somewhere she couldn’t explain it away as thunder.

She would tell Sebastian when he came back.

She had to.