"Did you know?" I demanded as soon as I barged into my father's office. I knew both of them would be in there. He usually was at this time of day, and Mom was almost always wherever he was.

After my tears dried and I found the strength to stand up, I had slipped out the other door of the little office we had been in. I figured Skylar would be in the kitchen with her aunt and I didn't want to try to speak to either of them. I darted down the hall and found my father's office without really thinking about where I was going.

"Know what, honey?" Dad glanced up at me from his computer, his fingers stilling on the keyboard. Mom sat up from lounging on the couch and she placed the book she was reading to the side. Both peered at me inquisitively, waiting.

I huffed, placing my hands on my hips. "That Skylar was leaving. Like, this weekend."

Mom's voice was soft, as it always was. "We knew she found her mate."

"We did not know she was moving to his pack so soon." Dad finished.

"Why didn't you tell me!"

Mom stood up and crossed the floor. "Emerald, that isn't the kind of news you share about someone else. She wanted to tell you." Her eyebrow raised, "I'm assuming she did?"

"I. . .I figured it out. Kind of." Sighing, I left my mom standing there and sat next to her book on the couch. Standing suddenly felt way too exhausting.

"Kind of?" Dad pressed.

"Yeah. Well, Aiden blabbed something on the bus home and when I saw Eva in the kitchen, it sort of came together."

After a pause, he responded with, "You guys still ride the bus?"

My fingers found their way up my face and into my hair. I curled them against my scalp, wanting something to cling to, to pull on. I didn't even know how to respond to that.

Mom laughed lightly, like it was hilarious to her that my friends and I still rode the bus to school.

I finally said, "Well, you keep reminding me how terrible of a driver I am. What choice do I have?"

"Eirenae." Dad's eyes settled on Mom.

"What? The bus won't hurt them!"

He only shook his head and smiled, finally focusing back to me. "I'm going to make your day much brighter by letting you know that there is a path in the woods that leads straight from our territory and to the football field next to the high school."

"WHAT?" I leaped to my feet in shock. "And you're telling me now, in my junior year! I could have been using that this entire time?"

Mom chuckled behind a hand that was pressed to her lips. Dad zeroed in on her. "I have a feeling your mother had something to do with that."

Mom squealed, "I didn't do nothing!" Then she darted out of the room and let the door swing shut behind her.

"I'm telling you," Dad said after a few moments. "She's behind that."

I just shook my head and plopped back onto the couch. "What am I supposed to do, Dad? She's my best friend."

"Your mom?"

My eyes tried to light him on fire. "Skylar."

"Oh, that. Right." He quickly shuffled his hands around the desk, putting pens away, shutting down the computer, and placing files back into his desk. Finally, he met my eyes again. "I think it's something you should be extremely happy about."

Grimacing, I folded my hands together and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. "You don't get it."

"Then explain."

"You-" I sighed. "Your friends all stayed right here. They discovered they were matched right at sixteen and no one had to go anywhere. You didn't experience what I'm feeling about my best friend moving away because of her mate."

He blinked, as if I were talking nonsense. "Emerald. Did you forget about Eva?"

A pinch in my stomach at his words. I had disregarded Eva as if she wasn't part of their group growing up. "Well, I, I-" I stuttered. "Eva was younger. You said so yourself, she didn't always join you guys for everything."

He glanced up, tilting his head back, thinking. "I suppose that's true. But we were all still close. And it was a little heartbreaking and disorienting when she left. But we got over it. We moved on. Besides, she comes back and sees us so often it's not even that different." His eyes soften, "I'm sure Skylar will be no different. You two are so inseparable, you're practically twins."

My head sprung up. "Exactly! We're inseparable. But Dad, we're being separated!"

Mom rejoined us then, bursting through the door with three fresh brownies. "Eva and Skylar made them!" She announced, dropping one off into my hands and then bringing the other two to dad's desk. She placed them in front of him and then climbed onto his lap. Dad automatically welcomed her, wrapping an arm around her back and securing her there with a hand on her hip.

I rolled my eyes.

"About Sky, Emerald." Mom started, swallowing a bite of her brownie. "Try to see it in a different light. Try to imagine how Sky feels."

I frowned at the cakey, chocolate square in my palm. "She's probably torn between family and her new pack."

Mom nodded encouragingly, taking another bite. "What else?"

Now I studied the chocolate square, my brow in a concentrated furrow. Suddenly I wished I could do what Mom could and throw my brownie across the room. I mean, I still could. Just not in the same way.

Of course she was trying to use this to teach me something.

"What your mother is asking, is what positives, what advantages, can be present when a beta's daughter moves to a new pack." Dad urged, his brownie already gone.

I didn't even glance up. My frown remained, as if I were mad at the brownie. "I-" I started to say I didn't know, but that wasn't necessarily true. "It continues to strengthen our alliance with their pack. First Eva, now Skylar. And probably others I haven't known very well."

Mom nodded, wiping her fingertips on her napkin that had been holding the brownie. "See? Think of it like an alpha. It always helps with you. If there were any riffs between our two packs. . . It couldn't last because your father would never close the borders from a former pack member."

I finally took a bite and swallowed.

"Why are we making you see it like this?" She asked me.

"I don't know, Mom. Why are you?"

She rolled her eyes a little. "Don't you see, Emerald? Mates can be useful. You seem to be ignoring my other comments on how beautiful finding your mate can be, so maybe I could reach you with logic." She finally climbed off Dad's lap and came to sit by me, placing an arm around my shoulders. "Mates bring packs together. They make friendships and alliances stronger. Keep packs safer."

I hung my head and she drew circles around my shoulder blade. "I know. I see that. But that's what also makes me terrified of having a mate."

"How so?" Dad asked.

"I understand how it can be useful and logical, but I-" I coughed away the sob that threatened it's way to my throat. "I don't want to leave. . .all this. Where I grew up, what has been promised to me, you guys, my bonus parents and siblings." I laughed through the prick in my eyes when I pictured Jaycee, Dexter, Sydney, Cole and all their kids combined. "I don't understand how Skylar could want to."

Bringing her other arm around my front, Mom pulled me into a hug that only issued a few more tears from me. I thought I was done, after that explosion in the other room by myself. But turned out, my body always had more in me.

Dad was shaking his head when I pulled my head up from Mom's neck. "It won't be like that."

I wiped my eyes, pulling all the way away from Mom and leaning back against the couch. "How do you mean?"

"Well, you are the only available heir to the alpha position. You can't leave. Unless you are challenged and lose."

I tilted my head, "but Skylar is the heir to the beta position. Isn't she?"

"Technically," Mom explained, "but she has siblings. Logan is heir now. And, anyway, according to the Information Volumes by the ancient royals, he was always the heir. Simply because he is the firstborn son."

"No one pays attention to that anymore." I argued. "I'm going to be alpha. And Skylar is probably the higher rank in her pairing. Why isn't he coming here?"

"Some packs still follow that." Dad reminded me. "Beau is an enforcer, but they believe the female should be dissolved into the male's pack. We respect their wishes. If Skylar was an only child, the situation might be different."

I thought about that. "Am I only promised the alpha position because I don't have a brother?"

"No!" Mom insisted, patting my shoulder as if comforting me. Then she paused, "Okay, kind of. To be fair, it would depend on your mate's status, but that can't be determined until you meet him."

"Ugh!" Honestly, I wasn't even sure why that made me angry. I was still going to be the alpha. I didn't have any siblings, so the what-if's didn't really matter. I would be alpha and that was that. I only wished Sky would be beta and that was that.

And I knew I shouldn't be upset with my parents when we discussed this topic. It was a sore spot in their hearts.

It wasn't a secret that my parents wanted more kids. When I asked about it, Mom explained to me how the alpha gene worked. The first mating between an alpha pair always resulted in a pup. No matter the fertility status of either of them. It was the goddess' way of making sure her created race lived on, and there would always be a strong wolf amongst them.

But after the first pup, it was left up to human nature, and conceivability was determined by normal human cycles and counts. So, my parents got me right away, but hadn't been able to have more. They didn't tell me everything about their wishes, but noise floats around the pack and from what I understood, they were able to get pregnant again, maybe even several times. But the pups never survived to birth.

Jaycee once told me that she felt guilty, because her four kids had come so easily, and my parents could only have one. And suddenly, I was afraid they had wished me a boy, for the alpha status.

"I'm still going to be alpha, right?" I asked hesitantly. I didn't want to make myself sound greedy, but I had been preparing for the moment I could be given that title since before I shifted. I attended nearly every meeting my dad had and even let him put me to work some days. I was determined to be ready when I turned eighteen.

"Of course!" Dad reassured me. "Don't worry about that."

I released a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding. But I did still worry, because the female was always the luna. The male the alpha. No matter the rank he was before we met, he would become the alpha of this pack when Dad stepped down.

Another reason I feared finding my mate: I would be pushed down a rank, and he would slide into the spot I had been promised since birth. And no one seemed to understand that.

As I left the room, I picked up my mother's worried whisper. "What are we going to do if her mate is an alpha?"

And with a jolt, like lightening entering my blood, a new fear was electrified. What if I would have to leave my home after all? Who would run the Shining Moon Pack then?