7
September 28, 2021
D ear Nana,
I must inform you that, sadly, my heat was unsuccessful. I hope we’ll have better luck in December. Dominic has been very relaxed and supportive about it, and it meant a lot. I cried a bit but now I'm looking ahead. No more tears.
In happier news, Grace is most likely pregnant and I couldn’t be happier for her. If I felt this awful after one failed heat, I can’t even imagine how she must have felt during her five years of trying.
She still won’t let us celebrate or acknowledge it because she’s dealt with multiple losses so far, but I have a good feeling, Nana. Please remember her and her pup in your prayers.
Now that classes are over, I’m focusing on my duties as Luna, although Florence and her group of females want me to take an aptitude test – apparently, those help you determine what you should study at University.
Dr. Vera and Prof. Ophelia are adamant that I should continue my education, and Florence insists that she can help with all the Luna work if I choose to do it. I don’t know what to do. What if I have a pup next year, how can I do it then? Florence said that that was what grandmothers were for, and all of them were very encouraging, but they also respected my reluctance.
You were right when you said that a big part of being a good Luna consists of throwing pack parties whenever possible! Last week I organized one to mark the end of the summer, and it was a huge hit. I am sending you some photos that Anthony took (I offered him a part-time job as the pack photographer, and it is working out really well) of the party and the wolves – I included one of me with Dominic, isn’t it a beautiful shot?
And it really was a great photo. If you didn’t know us, you’d think of us as a happy couple. And you’d never guess that my mate left the party shortly after the photo was taken because Heather had another PT appointment. She apologized to me a million times right before the two of them left, wearing that wounded-doe look that seemed to be her trademark expression whenever she was around Dominic.
I felt like I had to be the better wolf since she was basically a sick pack member. If I had to be honest with myself, I wouldn’t have minded if it had been Anthony who’d needed the ride. I didn’t look at anyone too closely for the remaining hour that I stayed at the party. I didn’t want to see the inevitable pity in their eyes.
I’m going to frame it and give it to him as one of his birthday gifts, what do you think? I was thinking he could keep it on his office desk. The other present will be one of the sweaters from my trousseau. I always imagined gifting them to my mate for the holidays, but since he has an October birthday, I’m gonna use the sweater for that and buy something else for Christmas. I still have to figure out what.
Nana would probably wonder why I didn’t know my mate better by now. The sharp blade of shame that I was extremely familiar with sliced through me again. My only consolation was that now Dominic wouldn’t know me either. Dr. Vera hadn’t asked why I was doing this, and I couldn’t have been more thankful for that.
All she’d said was, “In the beginning, your defenses will be weak because you’re still learning how to do it. And whenever you’re sick, tired, or even very emotional, things will slip past them. But the majority of it you’ll be able to contain.”
“ You must think I’m horrible,” I started, but she quickly shook her head and interrupted me.
“ Don’t even finish that sentence. I would never dare presume what goes on between a mated couple or pretend to know someone’s reason for doing things before I had all the information. You asked me for help with this, and I’ll help. We’ll do part of it today and part of it next week.”
And we did. She asked me to imagine a strong wind blowing at me as I walked from our house to the pack offices and to imagine myself wearing a coat with no buttons. I’d have to wrap the coat around myself and hold it tightly to protect myself from the wind – and that was what she wanted me to visualize in my head, around my thoughts.
That whole week, Dominic kept coming home early, kept staring at me whenever we were in the same room, and kept searching my face for something, but he never asked anything directly. I assumed my defenses were still not very good, but that he was starting to notice something was amiss.
If only I could give him food for his birthday, that would be easiest. The male can eat! I even brought him lunch to work one day this month and he loved it. Oh, maybe I’ll make dinner reservations at a nice steak house in town! I bet he’d enjoy that.
The second time I went to see Dr. Vera was right after the lunch debacle. As per the sleepover suggestions, I tried surprising Dominic at work by bringing him some lunch andI thought that maybe we’d eat together and spend some time together outside of the house, maybe we'd talk to each other for a change.
He seemed pleasantly surprised to see me, and his happiness about the food was unmistakable. I could fault him for many things, but he’d always been very enthusiastic about my cooking.
As soon as we sat down, a cloud of lavender floated into his office together with its owner, who apparently just waltzed into her boss’ office whenever she liked.
“ Are you ready for lunch, Dom?” she chirped before she froze. “Luna, hello. I’m sorry for interrupting.”
I opened my mouth but then closed it just as quickly. My wolf was insulted by her casual nickname for our mate. But she could sense how weak Heather’s wolf was, and as Luna, she’d never harm her without good reason.
“ Give us a minute, Heather,” Dominic said and she nodded before turning on her heel and leaving. “We have some spreadsheets to go through and very little time, so it was going to be a working lunch at the pack cafeteria.”
“ Alright, I’ll leave you to it,” I said as I got up.
“ You don’t have to leave. I can reschedule.”
Ah. An enthusiastic invitation if there ever was one. The only thing that would have made it worse would have been tacking on an “if you want” at the end.
I gave him a forced smile while I tightened my mental coat around me.
“ I have to see Dr. Jackson anyway. Enjoy your lunch.”
He lifted his arm as if he was going to grab me but then just let it drop.
“ See you at home.”
I knocked on Dr. Vera’s door and she happily let me in.
“ I wasn’t expecting you today, Luna,” she said as she motioned for me to sit.
“ How would one know if their mate was cheating on them?” I asked her without preamble. She stilled, her hand that had been reaching for the carafe of water suddenly suspended in the air above the table between us.
“ A wolf whose mate is cheating on them experiences such intense physical pain that they usually pass out. There is no confusing it with anything else, and the wolf always knows,” she said, examining my face with concern in her eyes.
Something crossed my mind then, a memory.
“ When I was a young pup, around seven years old, my aunt came to stay with us, my mother’s sister. Mother was already pregnant with Evie then, and I remember my aunt and my Father arguing about how the visit was stressful for Mother,” I looked up to see Vera’s mind working as she carefully listened to my story.
“See, my aunt was sick. She’d have these seizures. We’d all be eating dinner together in peace, and she’d start writhing in pain and screaming before eventually passing out. It happened almost daily.”
Neither of us said anything for a while.
“ What happened to her?” Vera finally asked.
“ She went home with her mate. I don’t think she wanted to. He was all bruised when he came to pick her up. At the time, I assumed she was crying so hard because she was sad to leave her sister. But now I realize that my father probably forced her mate to come get her. Maybe my mother also pressured her to reconcile with him.”
“ And no one ever told you what was happening?”
“ I guess they thought I was too young for that kind of information. And then later that year my mother died, so -” I shrugged helplessly, my shoulders swallowing my neck.
“ I am livid on behalf of your poor aunt. And they did you a great disservice, Penelope, by keeping the truth from you.”
I shook my head to dispel the memory.
Do you know who I was thinking about the other day? Aunt Maureen! I was talking to someone about extended family members, and I realized that I had no contact with anyone on Mother’s side. It’s quite sad that it happened like that. I know they’re all in different packs, but it would have been nice to have more family after she passed. I’d like to contact some of them, so please send me any info and addresses you may have.
◆◆◆
I was sad to read in your letter that Ms. Thompson actually got fired from our school. I always assumed she found her mate and left or something. I was just talking about her the other day when we had our sleepover. Margaret had brought new column questions for us to read and answer together (keep your eyes peeled; there will be some juicy drama in next month’s Lipstick&Claw !), and the topic of doing bad things when we were pups came up.
I cannot betray the females’ confidence by telling you the naughty things they did (someone you’d never suspect actually cheated on a test in school!) but I can tell you mine – after Ms. Thompson left, I missed her a lot, so I went into her classroom and it was all just as she left it. So I stole the book she used for class, the one with pictures of all the paintings in it. It was one of my most prized possessions as I grew up. I kept it under my bed and looked at it every night before going to sleep.
I showed it to the females that night. They had never seen the Ciottolo di Tolentino – and you probably haven’t either, come to think of it. It means “Pebble of Tolentino,” and it is a stone with a prehistoric carving of a woman with the head of a wolf.
The woman is naked, probably in the process of shifting, but the humans who found it, of course, didn’t know that. Ms Thompson said that it was one of the earliest recorded depictions of our kind.
I did not tell the females (or Nana) about the painting that I used to look at the most – Klimt’s Mother and Child. Especially not after Grace pointed out that the teacher who left without saying goodbye had probably been a maternal figure I’d bonded to in my fragile, motherless state.
Instead, I told them about another bad thing I did. Or, was doing up until that point.
“ There’s something else I’d like to tell you. I have a younger sister.”
“ So?” Mira said, unimpressed.
“ She also has an older brother,” Lynn explained, no trace of surprise on her face.
“ You knew?” I said, at the same time as Mira said, “Shut up! You’re from the Blessed Family?”
Looking around, I could see that only Mira and Margaret were surprised. And no one was angry.
“ Rowan vaguely remembered you from a visit he accompanied his father to, and this year he befriended your brother at school and put the pieces together,” Lynn said. “He told me, I told Charlotte.”
“ And I remember seeing you on my visits to your pack as a child,” Grace smiled. “You haven’t changed much.”
“ You never said anything,” I said weakly.
“ You never mentioned your family, so I figured you weren’t keen on talking about it,” Grace shrugged.
“ Anthony is the only one who’d just bring up another wolf’s private business, so we didn’t tell him,” Lynn smiled.
I suddenly felt so light and unburdened.
“ It’s not my favorite topic in the world,” I admitted.
“ You never have to talk about something you don’t want to,” Margaret said with a weird look on her face.
And I believed her.
Then Lynn went and ruined it all by saying, “These sleepovers are the best! I hope you never agree to accompany Alpha Dominic on one of his trips!”
I’d never even considered that he could have invited me to go with him.
◆◆◆
Listen to this. When Dominic was away in Florida last week, I hosted Florence and her friends at the house. I made a smorgasbord-style spread with charcuterie boards, cheeses, pastries, and fruit, as well as tea and coffee. Sonya loved the tea so much that I’d promised to ask Marley about it. I now realize that I’d promised you the same and I completely forgot about it until now.
Anyway, I asked Marley, and she said she had no idea what tea I was talking about. She checked her records and said that she’d bought a normal supermarket brand of green tea the first time she did our shopping, and then it was never put on the list again.
So I asked Dominic about it and he said that he brought me new tea to try every time he went on a trip. It was him all along, can you believe it? How sweet. I had no idea.
It was far from sweet. The way he did it, in secret, not as a direct, open declaration of... affection, made me feel sad. I felt like he hated himself for giving into the bond, or his wolf, who I knew for a fact cared about me. But Dominic made me feel unwanted. Not that he knew that anymore.
“ What’s the point of buying something for a person and not even telling them about it?” I asked.
He shrugged, those intense eyes trained on me like I was a knot to untie, and asked, “Why are you shielding your emotions from me?”
My head jerked back in surprise. He didn’t need the bond to be able to see that.
“ Why are you shielding yours?” I lifted my chin.
His eyes softened and he gave me a little smile, like he was amused by my attempt at defiance.
“ Were you just at the gym?” he asked. I wasn’t able to follow the thread of the conversation.
“ Yes.”
“ Good workout?”
“ Yes.”
“ Want to have another one?”
Darn. I did. But I made sure to wrap my coat around my heart as tightly as I could, even as I fell apart with him thrusting behind me.
Afterward, he stood at the bathroom door as I stepped out of the shower. He looked like he wanted to say something. I spoke instead.
“ Why don’t you ever invite me along to your trips?”
I could tell he didn’t expect that.
“ It’s work. You’d be alone and bored most of the time.”
“ I’m bored and alone most of the time here as well,” I said as I walked by him, went to bed, and turned the lamp off.
◆◆◆
Yesterday I caved and did the aptitude test. It took almost two hours! But it was fun, and I can’t wait to see what the results will tell me. If there ever was someone who needed the test to tell them what they’re good at, it’s me. I’ll keep you posted. Now I gotta run, the Devil is beating his wife and I have some clothes on the line.
Love,
P.