Chapter 22: Her Past Ambition

Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Her Past Ambition

Jonathan had been avoiding Azura’s gaze like she was a tax auditor and he was holding five undeclared luxury handbags. He stared at his pancake as if it held the secrets of the universe—or at least a better conversation topic than whatever was clearly eating him alive.

Finally, he sighed—a long, dramatic, ’I’ve-been-holding-this-in-since-birth’ kind of sigh—and looked up.

"When I mind-linked you yesterday to tell you I was busy with a pack emergency... not long after that... something unexpected happened."

Azura, who had been cutting into her pancake like a surgeon performing a delicate syrup distribution operation, paused. Her ears perked up. Her curiosity meter went from ’mildly interested’ to ’I will not rest until I know.’

"Unexpected how? Like ’unexpectedly found a puppy’ unexpected? Or ’unexpectedly found a dead body’ unexpected? Because those require very different reactions."

Jonathan didn’t react at all.

That was concerning.

Azura took a bite of her pancake, chewing slowly as she studied his face. He looked like a man who had seen things. Bad things. Things that required therapy and possibly a vacation to a beach with no wolves.

"Is it related to what Vincent told me yesterday?" She shoved a forkful of pancake into her mouth. "While he was driving me home, he said you guys were investigating something in the forest near the pack. He was very vague. Which means it’s either super boring or super dangerous."

Jonathan’s eye twitched. He had already suspected that Vincent—dear, sweet, gossipy Vincent—had opened his big mouth. Because of course he had. That man couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it. He’d probably tell a spy his bank password if they asked nicely.

"Vincent has a big mouth," he muttered, shaking his head. "But yes. That’s what I was going to say."

"So? Spill. Was it intruders? Rogues? A group of rogue joggers who got lost? A pack of feral squirrels planning a coup?"

Jonathan picked up his fork and began eating, his movements slow and deliberate, as if he was buying time to figure out how much to say.

"There were unfamiliar scents in the forest near the border," he said carefully. "More than two people. But the trail went cold. They used something to mask their scent—probably a concoction of wolfsbane and other herbs or scent blocker. Don’t worry, though. We’ve tightened patrols and increased enforcers, so the chances of them actually getting into the pack territory are low."

Azura tilted her head, chewing thoughtfully.

"But that’s not the only thing, is it?" She pointed her fork at him like a prosecutor presenting evidence. "You’ve got that look. The ’I know something but I’m too scared to say it’ look."

Jonathan’s fork froze halfway to his mouth.

His face went pale.

His hand trembled slightly.

Then, as if remembering something, he forced himself to calm down. But the nervousness remained. And now there was something else in his eyes.

Pity.

"You’re right," he said quietly. "There’s another matter. But... I can’t tell you. Someone else will talk to you about it later."

Azura’s fork stopped moving.

Her head tilted further, like a confused golden retriever.

"...What?"

She stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate.

He didn’t.

"Jonathan. Jonathan. JONATHAN. You can’t just drop a bombshell like that and then go back to eating your pancake like nothing happened. That’s illegal. That’s a crime against sibling communication. I’m calling the police."

"There are no police here. We’re wolves."

"THEN I’M CALLING THE WOLF COUNCIL. WHAT IS IT? IS IT BAD? IS IT GOOD? IS IT A SURPRISE? IS SOMEONE DYING? IS SOMEONE PREGNANT? IS SOMEONE BOTH DYING AND PREGNANT?"

Jonathan just shook his head, his expression pained.

"I’m sorry, Azura. I really can’t say. Just... wait. You’ll find out soon enough."

And so, throughout the entire duration of breakfast, Jonathan’s ears had been burning. Not from embarrassment—no, from the sheer barrage of questions Azura had unleashed upon him.

She had peppered him with questions like a machine gun that fired curiosity instead of bullets.

"What happened?"

"Is it bad?"

"Is it a ghost? Please tell me it’s a ghost. I’ve always wanted to meet a ghost."

"JONATHAN. ANSWER ME. I WILL HOLD MY BREATH UNTIL YOU DO."

"Okay, I’m not actually holding my breath because that’s stupid, but I WILL STARE AT YOU INTENSELY."

And stare she did. Like a hawk. A very nosy, pancake-scented hawk.

Jonathan survived. Barely.

---

Half an hour later, Jonathan’s car rolled to a stop in front of the pack house. The ride had been silent—not a comfortable silence, but the kind of silence that happens when two people are thinking too hard and don’t trust themselves to speak.

Jonathan was replaying yesterday’s events in his head like a broken record. The thing he couldn’t tell her.

Azura, meanwhile, had a mental browser open with approximately forty-seven tabs, all running at full volume:

- Tab 1: What did Jonathan mean by "someone else will tell you"?

- Tab 2: New strategy to convince Selena that she has had a spiritual awakening and is now a Buddhist monk trapped in a sexy wolf body.

- Tab 3: Wait. How old is this body? Does Azura Williams have a job? Is she in college? Am I supposed to be a student? Am I supposed to be a CEO? Am I supposed to be unemployed and living off my brother’s goodwill like a freeloading cat?

- Tab 4: Why did I only think about this NOW, on day three of being in this body?!

- Tab 5: Should I be concerned about that? Yes. Yes, I should.

As she stepped out of the car, her eyes landed on Jonathan’s outfit. Yesterday: casual. Comfortable. Brother-coded.

Today: full business suit. Tie. Polished shoes. Hair slightly gelled. He looked like he was about to attend a board meeting, a funeral, or a very important job interview where the interviewer was a vampire and being underdressed meant getting your blood drained.

Azura’s brain scrambled to sound casual as she probed for information.

"So..." She tilted her head, feigning nonchalance. "Are you working at... the office... today?"

Jonathan gave her a look. The kind of look that said, "Did you just ask me if water is wet?"

"Of course I’m working at the office. Just because yesterday was a weekend doesn’t mean today is a vacation. That’s not how time works, Azura."

He sighed heavily, already looking exhausted. "Especially if Alpha Adrian isn’t able to work today. Which means I’ll be drowning in paperwork at the company. Luckily, our pack and the human city aren’t too far apart. Otherwise, I’d be coming home so late I’d need a GPS to find my own bed."

Azura filed away the phrase "human city" in her mental archives like a detective finding a crucial clue.

Right. Human city.

That tracked with the werewolf novel she’d read. Packs stayed hidden in forests like forest ninjas, but they still needed to interact with the human world for business, schools, airports, etc. The packs were more like small towns or villages with limited facilities. Schools were usually outside pack territory so all the supernatural teenagers could mingle and form awkward furry friend groups.

But was that the case in this novel? Every author had their own rules. For all she knew, humans could be living on the moon here and werewolves communicated via interpretive dance.

Azura let out a light laugh, trying to dig deeper without looking like she was digging.

"You know, brother..." She smiled sweetly—too sweetly. The kind of sweet that made Jonathan instinctively check his pockets for missing items. "That’s why you should bring me to work with you. That way, you won’t get bored during the long drive!"

Jonathan stopped mid-step.

He turned to look at her.

"Actually, Azura... what’s your plan now?" He crossed his arms, his tone shifting from casual to genuinely curious—and slightly concerned. "I mean, you graduated college early for Alpha Adrian’s sake. You told everyone you didn’t want to work—you wanted to train to become Future Luna instead. You asked Elder Luna for personal lessons. You even prepared a whole training regimen at the training grounds so you could become a strong, combat-ready Luna capable of fighting alongside the Alpha."

He paused, letting the weight of her past ambition crash down on her like a piano in a cartoon.

"But now your wolf is in hibernation, so... what’s the plan? Are you going to train anyway? Get a job? Become a hermit who lives in the woods and talks to squirrels like snow white?"

Azura’s brain short-circuited for a solid three seconds.

Wait. What?

The villainess—the cruel, heartless, I-will-make-your-life-a-living-hell-because-you-exist villainess—actually had responsibilities? She trained? She prepared? She asked for help from Elder Luna like a functioning adult who understood that being a Luna wasn’t just about wearing fancy dresses and looking pretty while sipping tea?

Azura had read countless novels where villainesses relied on schemes, cheating, and daddy’s money to get ahead. She never expected that the rotten-to-the-core character of "Azura Williams" actually had one redeemable quality: the willingness to work hard.

No wonder the pack members respected her. Even if she was a nightmare to Selena, at least she wasn’t a lazy nightmare.

Then the second shoe dropped.

Oh no.

If Azura Williams trained to fight, did that mean she—Azura Luo, professional slacker whose greatest physical achievement was carrying three grocery bags at once—had to train too? Fight? With her fists? Against actual werewolves?

She glanced at her hands.

In my world, I’m a freelance artist who fights only with deadlines and caffeine withdrawal headaches. What am I supposed to do—throw my drawing tablet at my training partner? Beat them to death with a stylus?

But then she remembered: Cora was hibernating. And she had broken up with Adrian yesterday.

Which meant she had the perfect excuse to do absolutely nothing.

She rubbed her nose smugly.

"Hehe, brother. I was just joking about working at your company." She waved a dismissive hand. "Since Cora is hibernating and I’ve broken up with Alpha Adrian, I don’t need to train or do anything Luna-related anymore. And honestly? Working at the same company as my ex? Especially when he’d be my boss? That’s a disaster waiting to happen. I’ve decided to pursue a new career path: Professional Beautiful Jobless Woman. It’s a very demanding position. Requires lots of naps and self-care."

Jonathan opened his mouth to respond, but her words about the breakup triggered a memory.

Yesterday, there had been a rumor circulating through the pack like wildfire: Azura had asked for a breakup. But she had asked the wrong person. Alpha Adrian’s father. Which meant the entire pack had spent the last 24 hours gossiping like a group of aunties at a wedding banquet.

And because of the chaos last night, Jonathan had completely forgotten to ask her about it this morning.

"Azura, about the break—"

A guard appeared before he could finish. The man walked toward the siblings with the kind of brisk, purposeful stride that said "I have important news and I will not be delayed by your sibling drama."

"Beta Jonathan," the guard said, bowing slightly. "Alpha Adrian has called you to his study."

Then the guard turned to Azura.

"And Miss Azura, you are needed in the lounge."