Luna - Beasts of Beauty Series - Book 1

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Evelyn, are you heading to Asher's training session?" 

Connor's voice calling after me stops my in my tracks. I am, in fact, on my way to the training session. Sam is working on finishing up his applications and has a call with Alpha Xavier today. I turn around to wait and respond to Connor, though he has caught up to me.

"Holy shit," I hiss upon seeing Connor's face. Underneath his left eye is, what appears to be a large, dark freckle in the shape of a perfect heart.

"Ugh, right," he groans with a roll of his eyes, "you haven't seen it yet. It's-"

"You guys hadn't kissed yet!?" I exclaim, reaching up and poking Connor's mate mark. I offer him a cheeky grin when he stares at me blankly and I poke the freckle again. Maybe it's been there longer than I think. "Was that there at dinner the other night? How did I miss that?"

"You were incredibly distracted," he comments, referencing how badly I had missed Sam the  day before last. He had my undivided attention for the whole meal, and everyone would not stop teasing me about it. I give Connor a pointed look before continuing my interrogation. 

"Did you know that kissing Penelope meant marking the both of you?"

"Yeah..." he trails off, "well, she did. And apparently so did you. Why didn't you say anything?" He chuckles at me when I poke his mark again.

"Well, the first time I saw you guys after everything, you were already so sweet together, I assumed you had kissed her already," I explain. "I just assumed you didn't get marked because of some weird hybrid thing," I add with a dismissive wave of my hand. "Besides, not my relationship, not my business. I had my own shit to deal with. The world doesn't revolve around you and your cute new freckle." I offer him a teasing smile.

"Well, I-" he starts, but clearly doesn't have a sarcastic retort to fire back. "I see you marked your mate," Connor observes when he can't come up with anything else.

"Yes, and?" I question, raising an eyebrow.

"Just different," he says, "I'm curious. Did he ask you to?" I nod my head but don't offer any more information. When I don't say anything else, he asks, "Why?"

"I really appreciate everything you've done for me, Connor, but for right now, I'm going to leave our relationship as ours," I tell him. "Besides, it was his choice, so these are his details to share. We're solid and that's all anyone needs to know about us for now."

"I'll respect that," he tells me. "I care about the both of you a lot; I'm just so happy everything worked out." He gestures towards the training area then, silently offering to walk with me so I am not late. 

"I am, too," I tell him. "But, this doesn't mean you have to be hush about you and Penelope," I add with a wink, walking with him. He laughs, but doesn't offer any further details regarding their relationship. "That's okay, I'll hear it all from Penelope anyway," I tell him with a cheeky smile. "Maybe this is for the best. I'll get my dirt from Penelope, and you can get yours from Sam."

"Sam?" he asks, furrowing his eyebrows. "Oh, Evander. You call him Sam?"

"Oh, right," I hiss, mentally kicking myself for slipping up again. It's not so much that Sam minds if I don't still reference him as "Evander" to other people; I honestly think he would prefer if I only called him "Sam" now. It's just that I don't like it. "Sam" is ours. 

You're fucking weird, Eliza judges me harshly. I wish I could roll my eyes at her. 

"Yeah, I do," I answer Connor, ignoring Eliza and ruffling my hair. "I never did ask him what the name meant...it always felt like such a delicate topic," I mumble. "I mean, I know Samuel was his grandfather's name, but..."