As soon as Vanessa was out of his sight and his hypersensitive hearing range, Jake pushed the maid away from him.

"Get out and shut the door behind you." He ordered ignoring her disappointed look.

As soon as his door closed, he stumbled onto his bed like a drunk man and even managed to hit his knee on the wooden edge of his bed because he was so preoccupied with his thoughts.

His true mate was beautiful just like he had always wished she would be but she was blind and delicate. Could he still mate with her even though she was blind? He knew that without doubt their children would be beautiful and handsome pups but would that be enough?

Unfortunately, all his internal questions kept ending with the same answer. Ciara could not be his luna for several reasons.

She was blind, she knew nothing about fighting and since she couldn't even take care of herself, it was hard to imagine her protecting a pack member. She was a liability and her blindness would turn him to a source of laughter among other alphas, his friends and maybe even among the pack members. A weak luna would surely be the weak link that would cause other packs looking to expand their territory to attack the Thurman pack.

There was no way he could risk his reputation, his pack's reputation and the well being of his pack by mating with her when her only good feature was her delicate beauty.

All of a sudden, an urgency spurred by his wolf had him standing up and making his way to the attic where he knew his mother had dumped Ciara to keep her away from visitors. He found her fast asleep, her corkscrew honey-colored hair spread around her on the pillow made her look like a goddess.

If only she could see, then he wouldn't hesitate to abandon his playboy reputation just to mate with her, love her, wake up beside her every morning and have pups with her.

He couldn't resist dropping a kiss on her cheeks and wasn't even aware that his lips had shifted, of their own accord to her lips.

She was kissing him back till she suddenly went really still as if she was just coming back to her senses or rather waking up and started shoving him away from her with all her strength.

He reluctantly released her from the embrace he couldn't remember initiating, stood up and watched her. Her lips were slightly swollen from the pressure of his kisses and her cheeks were an adorable shade of light pink.

She sat up quickly and even though she was already wearing pyjamas, she held her bed sheet to her chest tightly and looked around wildly even though she couldn't see a thing. She was truly innocent and he liked that if he were to mate with her, he would be her first and only.

"Who are you? And what do you want?" She asked anxiously as her body vibrated with obvious fear.

He didn't know what to say or how to introduce himself. Should he introduce himself as her alpha-to-be or as her true mate?

Eventually, he decided not to introduce himself at all and walked out of her room with a gruff order, "Go back to sleep, I'm leaving."

"Who are you?" She yelled desperately as he opened her door to leave.

He looked back at her shivering form and closed the door before going down the staircase to his room.

He had just ended his shower when he heard someone knock his door. He came out of the shower, tied a towel securely around his waist and went to unlock his door only to see his beta-to-be standing at his door. Tyler had the caramel skin typical of black Americans with spiky brown hair, cat brown eyes and a few piercings.

"Where were you? I came earlier but you weren't here." Tyler asked.

"I went for a run." Jake lied.

Jake felt like hitting him when he started laughing as if the thought of Jake running was a huge joke. "You went for a run? At 4am? What's wrong man? I thought I would have to hit you really hard to wake you up, after all, on a normal Saturday morning, you don't wake up till 10 and I noticed that you left the party pretty early last night...without a girl?"

"Nothing is wrong, okay? I just need a little space." Jake turned away and opened his closet and selected a t-shirt and jeans.

"Yeah keep telling yourself that..."

"What do you want anyway?"

"Your dad wants to see you in the conference room asap."

"Why?"

"I don't know why yet but something really hardcore is going on 'cos some of the council elders are panicking."

"That's bad." Jake grunted as he wore his clothes.

"Really bad, my dad says they're supposed to be cool and composed at all times 'cos they have lots of experience." Tyler agreed.

"Let's go." Jake said after tying the laces on his sneakers and running a comb in his hair.

Jake listened as Tyler recalled all that he had missed last night at the mating ceremony after-party he had bailed out on as they walked to the conference room.

When they got there, Jake's parents were engaged in a serious argument that ended when Jake's dad looked up and saw him.

"Jake thank God you're here, we have serious trouble...We need a human sacrifice."

"Is that supposed to be a joke?" Jake asked looking carefully at all the serious and gloomy faces in the pack's biggest conference room.

His father's face was much more depressing than usual as he shook his head, "No son, the vampires are back."

"You mean the ones that own the estate across Tantile woods?"

"Yes."

"What are they doing here?"

"They've returned to their original coven home and they're asking us to give them a token as assurance that we will behave ourselves so we can be allowed to continue staying in their territory." Tyler's dad and the beta of the pack said.

"The token being a human sacrifice? But that's ridiculous, don't they have their blood donors living with them and there are plenty of humans living in town. Besides we've stayed in this place for the past twenty years they've been gone, it's now ours." Jake said.

His dad shook his head with a resigned sigh. "They were here before us so it's their territory and they're too powerful for us to fight with so they must be trying to drive us away by asking us to provide a human sacrifice when they know we can't take any of the humans in town."

"I don't really understand any of this besides, why can't we take the humans in town?" Jake asked.

"Eighteen years ago, a rogue vampire attacked the town and killed at least four people a day for an entire week and we had to send pack warriors to kill him before he blew our cover. Unfortunately all the action was caught on camera and we were forced to sign a treaty with the town mayor never to hurt the towns people." It was a council member who answered Jake's question.

Jake was perplexed now. "Wow...So what do we do?"

"I suggested that we give them the blind human but your father has refused." His mother said.

"Margaret, we can't do that, that girl was entrusted to us to care for, we can't just use her as a human sacrifice...its morally unethical." His father protested.

"Donny, everything is morally unethical to you." MacKenzie sneered.

The idea of giving Ciara as a human sacrifice didn't really appeal to Jake himself but he didn't say a word.

"All right, I think a vote is in order, all in favor of giving the blind girl as a human sacrifice raise your hands please." The chief of the council elders said.

Only Jake's mum and two council elders raised their hands and Jake avoided his mother's gaze because he could see that she was obviously shocked that he hadn't supported her.

"Majority wins the vote then, we are not sacrificing Ciara." Jake's dad said with a triumphant smug smile.

"But what do we do now?" Tyler's dad asked.

"I don't know yet, I suggest that we assemble in the evening and look over our options again. Meeting dismissed." Jake's father said.

"Yes Alpha Donnovan." Everyone chorused bowing their heads submissively to Jake's dad.

Jake was walking out with the others when his dad called him back. "Jake wait a second, I want to talk to you."

Jake was surprised because he and his father hardly ever saw eye to eye probably because his father wasn't as accommodating and supporting as his mother.

His father was always stern, advising him to be disciplined and principled at everything he did in life. When his father saw that all his advice were going through one ear and coming out of the other, he stopped advising his son and just watched him with the usual disappointed look when he did something wrong.

As soon as Jake's mother heard his father, she stopped on her heels and turned back to sit in the conference room with them.

"I didn't ask you to stay too Margaret, I want to talk to my son alone." Jake's dad used his alpha voice to back his order which didn't surprise Jake.

His mother was a dominant just like his father but she was more assertive and knew how to persuade people to do things her way while his father was more quiet and reserved. He had always wondered how his father managed to restrain and keep up with his mother and now he had his answer.

His mother obviously wanted to say something scorning to her husband for the obvious insult in the presence of some of the council elders and others who were still in the room but a look from Jake's dad silenced her and had her stalking out of the conference room in fury.

As soon as the room had cleared out, Jake's dad patted him on his shoulder. "It was a good thing you did just now, Jake. If you had raised your hands, much more council elders would have raised theirs too and I would have been outnumbered."

Jake's dad stopped patting his back and turned to face the beautiful view of the sun rising with his hands in his pocket. "I've always thought that letting you and your mother get as close as you are was my biggest mistake in life and that I had ruined your life but now I can see that there's still hope for you...Keep it up, son."

His father turned to face him, "Don't ever forget that I love you."

Then his father walked away with an approving smile and Jake had never received and he didn't know when a reciprocal grin slipped unto his face because he'd finally had a taste of what he had always secretly desired. His father's approval.

Edited: January 25, 2019