Chapter 791: MOONSTONE

RUBY’S POV

Early the next morning, I was up.

I turned to my mother’s side of the bed and found that she hadn’t returned.

I frowned to myself.

That was indeed strange.

My mother never stayed away for so long.

I gathered my things to get ready for the new day.

I wondered if I was ever going to tell my mother what had happened with Aston.

Father selling me off for a few pieces of gold.

I couldn’t believe that my own father would do such a thing to me.

I shivered.

What if Aston had gotten away with what he wanted to do?

I closed my eyes and sighed heavily.

No.

I was not going to have bad thoughts.

Aston was gone.

His father, Gamma Lionel, was still here, but as long as Aiden was here, I doubted I would be in trouble.

Well, Aiden wasn’t going to be here forever.

What happened after he left?

After everything he had done.

The mess with Alice, everyone hating me in the pack.

The moment he turned his back on me, they would all gang up against me.

I shivered at the thought of Aston’s body against mine.

I gave a very heavy sigh.

I wanted my life to go back to normal.

I hated the hallucinations and all that they brought.

The strange headaches, the dreams, and all the pointers of people calling me an outsider.

I very gently fingered my emerald necklace as I had always done.

I felt a strange sensation within it.

Even the necklace which I had had for as long as I could remember now felt strange to me.

Foreign.

I sighed heavily and walked over to the window where my flower pot was.

I looked through it to see if anything had begun to sprout.

Nothing.

How strange and bizarre it was to have blue soil.

Who would have known?

I heard a soft knock at my door and instantly jumped up.

Had someone come to finally kill me?

Did they know I had magic?

I looked at the door before looking around.

I found a dried-up candle holder and quietly picked it up.

I slowly walked up to the door, trying my best not to let my footsteps even be heard.

I stood by the side of the door and positioned myself, ready to attack whoever it might be.

Tensed and afraid, I very carefully asked.

"Who is it?"

"It’s me."

Bale’s soft voice came from the other side.

I cocked my brow in surprise and sighed in relief.

I set the candle holder down and opened the door for him.

"Ruby," he said.

I nodded with pressed lips.

"Bale?"

"Sorry I came to check up on you," he stated. "Hope I’m not intruding on anything of the sort."

I closed my eyes and sighed before tilting my head into the room, indicating for him to come inside.

Bale did, and I shut the door behind him.

"I heard what happened to you," he said, turning to face me.

I nodded and set the candle holder on a table before progressing to where the pot was by the window sill.

"I’m alive," I said with a slight shrug.

"You’re luckier than most," Bale remarked. "You’ve been in the most trouble that I have ever seen anyone get in. More than I."

I nodded and resumed examining the blue soil.

"I guess my brother is always there to save the day," Bale said grimly.

I could hear the hint of disapproval in his voice.

I whirled around and faced him.

"I assure you that I want nothing to do with your brother. To be honest, I would prefer it if he were far away from me. The moment he came into my life, it’s been one thing after the other." I grumbled. "He is the real bad luck. Everyone just pretends not to see it due to his massive ego."

Bale laughed, and I smiled before putting a grain of the blue soil in between my fingertips and examining it through the sun.

"What’s that?" Bale asked, suddenly alert as he hurried up to where I was.

"Oh, this?" I shrugged as I tossed the blue soil back into the flower pot. "Just a very boring assignment your brother insisted I handle."

"Can I see?" Bale asked me, his eyes hovering over the blue soil.

I looked him over and nodded, giving way for him to look at it.

He peered down into the pot, and his eyes widened like an excited child.

"Blue soil. Where did you get this from?" Bale asked me.

I gave a light shrug.

"The mines when I went."

"Can I touch?" Bale requested.

I chewed on my bottom lip, unsure.

"I don’t know about that. I really hate to be the party spoiler, but Aiden did say I should avoid exposing it. We don’t know what it is exactly."

"I won’t do anything, I swear it," he promised.

I thought about it for a second and nodded.

"Alright. Just this once."

He set his finger inside the blue soil and looked at it in his palm.

"Fascinating."

I shrugged.

"I assumed we were looking for moonstones. What’s this?" he asked.

"I have no idea and—"

My eyes widened at what he had said.

"Moonstones?!"

I stared at him bewildered.

"Did you say moonstones?"

"You didn’t know that’s what’s supposedly down there?" he asked.

I shook my head in excitement.

"No, I didn’t. Moonstones? In this place of all places? Is there a mistake there? I thought moonstones were literally extinct."

"The irony, isn’t it?" he said. "But you can’t tell a soul."

Bale urged me to keep quiet.

Moonstones, I had heard, were very powerful to us wolves.

If you had moonstones, you had powers stronger than the royal family.

However, they were extinct.

Or so we had assumed.

So that was what Aiden was searching for in the mines.

Moonstones.

Now it all finally made sense.

And then a thought crept through my mind.

If only I could steal some moonstones from the mines for my family.

Perhaps I would be able to save them from the debt.