The Luna Queen's Rebirth (Ellie and Dominic) novel Chapter 474

Chapter 474

Ellie’s POV

We found my father in his study the next day. Dominic had already sent out the order for the supplies we would need, sending the courier down to the trading post a ways down the mountain pass. We wouldn’t get them for a few days, which gave us just enough time to convince my father to let the expedition happen at all.

Bastian spread the rubbing across the desk, next to a map he’d procured from the library and a handwritten note outlining our plans. My father leaned over the papers, rubbing his chin, studying each one carefully for several long moments while Stephanie stood behind him with her arms folded.

“Where was the cave?” he finally asked, looking up at us.

“No more than fifty feet off the main path, behind a fallen rock,” Bastian said. “The arrow lines up with the summit’s eastern face. The museum owner compared the cup we found to the shard from the basin site. The patterns match.”

My father shook his head slowly. “My grandmother used to tell stories about those cups-she said her great- grandparents drank from them. Apparently, one was passed down to our family, but I never found it. I always assumed she was just making those stories up to keep me occupied as a child.”

“Well, she wasn’t,” Bastian said. He planted a finger on the map, right where the contour lines reached the peak of the mountain. “If the entrance is up there, I’m certain we can find it. We want to leave in three days, before the weather window closes. Dominic’s covering the equipment, so the pack won’t pay a cent-”

“Absolutely not.” Stephanie stepped forward and glared at me. Then at Dominic. Her gaze promptly slid back to me, though. “You want to take the true heir of this pack up a glacier. In the dead of winter. Over a children’s story,”

True heir. The meaning was all too clear. I refused to flinch at it, refused to give her the satisfaction.

“It’s not just a story anymore, Mom,” Bastian said.

“Why, because you found a cup in a hole?” She crossed to the desk and looked down at the rubbing without touching it. “Half of the territories are already laughing at us, thanks to the company we’ve been keeping.” Another withering look at Dominic. “Imagine the headlines when they hear the ‘backwater pack’ sent its own heir up a mountain chasing a fairytale. Imagine them when he doesn’t come back down.”

“I’ve summited twice-”

“In summer. When you weren’t allowed, might I add.” Her eyes cut to me once more and stayed there. “You’ve been filling his head since the day you arrived-”

“Nobody filled my head,” Bastian snapped, shooting to his feet. “I’ve been working on finding the fountain of youth since before Ellie ever arrived, and you know it.”

“You dare speak to your mother like-”

“That’s enough.” My father straightened off the desk. He didn’t raise his voice; he never needed to. “Nobody filled anyone’s head, Stephanie. That fountain has been a part of this pack longer than any of us have been alive. Far longer than you’ve been a member. Unless you’ve forgotten that you don’t originate from here.”

1/3

Chapter 474

+15 Bonus

Stephanie’s jaw tightened.

“So that’s it,” she said. “You’re letting them run off on this little adventure.”

“If Alpha Dominic is funding it, and they’re all equipped to handle the summit, I don’t see why it should be an issue,” Terence replied.

She snorted and looked away. “I could think of a million issues,” she muttered, then turned and stormed out of the room, letting the door slam behind her.

Bastian let out a long breath through his nose once she was gone. My father came around the desk and gripped his shoulder.

“She’ll cool off,” he said. “Now. Conditions. Bastian leads on the ice, and what he says on that mountain goes, no matter whose mate is funding it.” He looked at Dominic with a hint of a smile. “You go up together, you come down together. And if the weather starts to turn, you turn around right with it. The fountain has waited for hundreds of years. It can wait for a clear sky.”

“Deal,” Bastian said.

A floorboard creaked outside the study. My father sighed.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify