16 - Penelope
TW: mention of suicide attempt.
W aking up this morning felt like suddenly being thrown back into my body after having spent the night floating around somewhere else. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept so deeply. Must have been some time before I’d given birth.
Gabriel.
The thought had me gasping and sitting up in bed. I frantically felt around the unfamiliar bed, looking for his tiny body. The blue walls of the room were also new.
Gloucester. I finally exhaled. We were in Gloucester. This was a hotel. He was probably with D ominic somewhere.
J ust then, the bedroom door opened, and the male himself barged in, our pup ensconced in a w rap on his chest.
“I felt you panic just now. Are you alright?”
“I didn’t know where I was for a moment after I woke up. And I couldn’t find Gabriel, so,” I trailed off.
“We were in the sitting room, giving you a chance to catch up on sleep.”
“What time is it anyway?”
“It’s almost 10.”
“Oh my God, I can’t believe I slept so long. You should have woken me earlier! My breasts are rock hard,” I grabbed them and tried massaging some of the fullness away.
Dominic uttered a muffled curse and I looked up, but he was only struggling with getting Dominic out of the elastic wrap.
“Sorry. Here you go,” he handed me Gabriel, who was already smacking his little lips, causing my milk to start leaking before he was anywhere near the nipple.
“Hello, my love,” I cooed at him as he latched, and I felt a wave of relief as some of the tension started leaving my breast. “What did you do with Daddy this morning?”
Dominic sat down next to us on the huge bed and handed me a shriveled dandelion from his pocket.
“We picked some flowers for Mommy, then we looked at the ocean a bit, and we brought you tea and pastries from a bakery we found.”
“Thanks again, you really should have woken me earlier.”
He waved the objection away with his hand and said, “My dad always took me to get breakfast on the weekends, and we let Mom sleep in. He used to say If you love someone, you let them sleep, ” he smiled wistfully at what must have been bittersweet memories.
A memory entered my head at that moment – him telling me he loved me after I’d given birth to Gabriel. I'd been pretty out of it in that moment, and I must have pushed it into the corner of some drawer deep in my mind because I hadn’t thought about it before now. Had he been honest when he said it, or was it just the overwhelming emotional residue from the birth?
Nana always said that love was seen and not heard, and despite Dominic having told me only once, ever since he came back I could constantly feel love emanating from him, and I could see it in his actions toward me.
Having a window into Dominic’s inner world after a whole year of deprivation was intoxicating. Now that I had these parts of him, I wanted to know everything . I wanted to crack his heart open and pour all the contents out on my table so I could rifle through them in peace.
I couldn’t stop marveling at how composed his face seemed throughout all his inner turmoil. No wonder I’d often been unable to tell what he was thinking about – it was almost impossible to guess by looking at him. Only during rare moments when he was alone with me and Gabriel would he let some of his softness shine through his eyes, and even then there was only a small change in his features. What had made him train his face in the art of stillness when his soul resembled the stormy seas?
He had to inform me every time he’d be having a session with Vera because otherwise, I’d think he'd been given the news of someone's death that day. There was such grief and anguish in his heart, and he was plagued by so much anxiety and remorse; but at the same time, his capacity for love and awe and tenderness was astounding.
I used to think of myself as an emotional she-wolf, but my mate was the truly sensitive one, and that realization went against everything I thought I knew about him. It was hard to reconcile the two Dominics I’d gotten to know.
I’d seen the books on his nightstand and even leafed through one of them. It was about rebuilding trust and romantic relationships, and the fact that he was lying in bed at night, reading up on how to do that, thawed a tiny portion of my heart. Then I got upset again – why hadn’t he behaved like that from the beginning?
I knew reading his letters would reveal a lot about him and those early months, but honestly, I was too chicken to read them. I was pretty sure whatever was in them would soften me completely, and this was so much easier and so much safer.
We were together, in a way, we got along, everything was fine. All the letters would do was stir up more of the pathetic codependent Penelope I used to be, and I’d decided during those lonely three months that I wasn’t going to go back to that.
My wolf had been desperate during that time. She was paranoid that she wouldn’t be able to protect our pup while our mate was away. When I got to the point in pregnancy when I couldn’t shift, she was inconsolable. And she was darn lonely. So was I, but we got through it. Why go back to that if I didn’t have to?
Luckily, giving birth and breastfeeding put a damper on my desire, so it wasn’t so hard being around Dominic without touching him. That would have to end sometime, probably when Gabriel started eating solid food, and then I’d have to decide what to do – but I didn’t want to think about that now.
“Hey!” I reprimanded him for snatching my croissant from my hand. He took a big bite from the side I’d started eating on and handed it back with a smile.
“You stopped biting your nails,” I blinked in surprise as I took the croissant back.
“Yeah,” the smile turned sheepish.
“How did you do it? It’s a tough habit to break.”
“I worked on it in therapy with Vera, coping techniques and stuff. She has me doing squats instead of biting my nails whenever I get the urge. My butt muscles will get butt muscles of their own pretty soon,” he said and shook his head in mock disbelief, and I guffawed with my mouth full.
“You know, I think I preferred it when you talked less,” I deadpanned, and he laughed until his eyes were wet, and I felt myself flush with ridiculous pleasure.
“This is the first time I made you laugh like that,” I blurted out and, when I felt his gut twist, regretted it immediately. His face betrayed nothing, but he wasn’t laughing anymore.
“What should we do for lunch?” I tried changing the topic, knowing I’d replay that laughter in my head in bed before I fell asleep.
◆◆◆
“Are you ready to go home in the morning?” he asked me as he pushed his empty plate away.
I was still working on my risotto, which was insanely good. I didn’t even know I liked seafood. Gabriel was asleep in his stroller. The sea air was doing something to him. He was calmer than I’d ever seen him, and he slept much better, too.
“I can honestly say I’d like to stay longer. I wasn't expecting to like it this much,” I admitted.
“If you want, we can stay. I’ll mind-link Elliot to hold down the fort for one more day.”
“That’s nice of you to offer, but we have the meeting with the contractors tomorrow, and I have to mail my letter and the photos Anthony took of Gabriel, and frankly, I’m tired of the human smells,” I smiled, but he kept analyzing my face as if he was trying to figure out if I was serious or just polite.
“What worries me is you offering to take an extra day off,” I joked.
He nodded, “I’m working less these days, and I’m learning to delegate. I realized I was trying to prove something by working myself to the bone.”
“Like what?”
“Sometimes I think I was trying to convince the pack that what happened didn’t break me.”
I was taken aback by how forthcoming he was being today.
“It sort of feels like what my Father did after my Mother... both with work and with Eden. It felt like he was trying to convince everyone, including himself, that he was still a strong Alpha.”
“That’s exactly what it was for me. There is so much pressure to be strong, to show no weakness. And in my case, the behavior came from a place of shame, which is even unhealthier.”
“I’m glad you’re doing better, Dominic,” I told him, and I meant it.
◆◆◆
“Are you, like, freaking out about having left Gabe for the first time?” Charlotte asked with a teasing smile as we waited for our entrees.
“Hank asked me the same thing on the way here! I’m really not. Maybe it’s because Dominic’s so good with him and takes care of him whenever he’s home. The only thing I worry about is losing track of the time and my breasts getting all blocked up,” I shrugged, and Grace shuddered.
“Don’t even remind me. Those early months are brutal.”
“Does Tyler sleep through the night now?” I asked her.
“I wish. He still wakes up to nurse at least once, depending on how many teeth he has going at the time,” she said, and it was Mira’s turn to shudder.
“Let’s not turn this into a mommy lunch,” she begged. “I veto the pup talk, do it in your free time.”
“You’re right,” I cleared my throat. “It’s Charlotte’s fault!”
The culprit looked at her empty plate, “I just don’t want to talk about my life.”
Lynn nudged her with her leg, “Tell them.”
Charlotte tilted her head up to the ceiling and sighed with her whole body. “Noah keeps pressuring me to do more with him.”
Silence fell over the table. In the background, we heard the clinking of cutlery and the murmured conversations of the other guests in the restaurant, but all of us at the table were weighing our response. Margaret was the first one to speak.
“How far has it gone?” she asked, but her voice came out all guttural and weird.
“We’ve been going out. Dinner, walks, coffee. Stuff like that. He kissed me a few times,” she admitted while nervously playing with her fork. “But now he keeps inviting me to his place to hang out, and he’s really intense about it, and I don’t know,” she finally looked up at us, her gaze begging for someone to tell her what to do.
“Can we go to my place for a bit?” Margaret asked. “It’s nearby, and what I want to talk about isn’t for curious ears. We’ll ask them to just pack the entrees for takeaway.”
Margaret’s place was everything she was – elegant, sophisticated, and a bit cold.
“I love your home,” Mira said as we all made ourselves comfortable on the couch.
“Thanks. I can’t believe I never thought to host you before,” Margaret frowned. “We’ve all just been going to Penelope’s. We should think of a better rotation system.”
My heart soared. I had been wondering what to do about our sleepovers now that Dominic wouldn’t be traveling so much. Not that Gabriel was anywhere near ready to spend the night without me, but we’d figure something out in the next few months.
We ate in silence, and then Margaret brought us coffee and tea and sat down cross-legged on the floor on the other side of the coffee table in front of us.
“I have to tell you all something,” she said in a very serious tone. We exchanged glances and then looked back at her.
“I wanted to tell you this when the whole situation with Olivia happened, the female whose mate murdered her. Do you remember?”
“How could we forget,” Grace said, and I agreed.
I thought about her often.
“Well, I wanted to tell you my story then, but I was too emotional and too ashamed. I still am, but if I can help Charlotte, then it will be worth it, no matter what happens with our friendship afterward. So please just let me get it out, okay?”
All five of us nodded.
“For starters, my name hasn’t always been Margaret Cranch,” she started telling us, her gaze fixed on the wall but her mind a million miles away.
“I was born Tammy Lou Walker in the Black Balsam pack,in North Carolina. My family were dirt-poor Omegas and lived in shacks on the outskirts of the pack, next to the family of one Jackson King.”
Her lips spread into a smile as she said his name, and she seemed to be savoring its taste in her mouth as if it was a rare indulgence for her to say it out loud. A hitherto nonexistent drawl made its way into the name like she could erase her accent when pronouncing all the other words in the English language except for those two.
“Jackson was my very best friend when we were pups, and we’d spend our days playing, fishing, getting into brawls with pups from the other side of the pack, and at night, when our parents slept, we’d camp outside, look at the stars, and talk. We knew our position in the pack, but it didn’t bother us, we had a great childhood.”
“The pack was very old-fashioned and strict. Omegas were the lowest of the low, and females were just a notch above them. The Alpha’s word was law, and violence was the norm. Even when a male found his mate, he’d have to challenge and beat up her male relatives for the right to mark her. It was insane, but it was all we knew.”
“When we hit puberty, I started noticing Jackson in a different way. His easy grin, his mussed, always-too-long hair, his lean but muscular body... but it was also more than that. I loved his passion and conviction, and I loved his sense of humor.
He was always talking about how he was going to make something out of himself. How he’d leave for his aunt’s pack in Pennsylvania as soon as he shifted, how he’d climb the pack ladder there because in our pack there was no upward mobility. Not that us two hicks knew to call it that back then,” she smiled bitterly.
“As the years passed, the words changed from I’ll move to my aunt’s pack , to Let’s move to my aunt’s pack together, Tammy Lou. Sweeter words had never been spoken. We were both convinced we’d be mates. We had to be, right? We were inseparable, held similar status in the pack, and we truly loved each other. I can honestly say that in my 28 years on this Earth, I've never loved anyone as much as I’ve loved Jackson King. And I don’t know that I ever will.”
My stomach started churning with dread because I could guess where this story was going.
“We started sleeping together when we were both 16,” she said in a small voice. “It was the best feeling in the world, being one with him. Our parents didn’t really pay attention to us, working themselves to the bone doing the shittiest jobs in the pack, and we had the time and space to be together as much as we wanted to. We had our future planned out, and we were happy.
The summer when I turned 17, I’d notice the Alpha’s son sometimes staring at me in school or when the pack youth went to Lake Logan, but I figured it was because of my new body and didn’t really pay attention to it. But I should have.”
“I was the first one of us to turn 18 the following July. I shifted right outside of our shack that night, with Jackson by my side, talking me through it. My wolf almost took his arm off when he tried touching her,” she recounted sadly.
“It was more than clear that he was not my mate. Another wolf came from the shadows, and mine happily ran to him. They nuzzled and greeted each other, and her heart was going to burst from her chest, whereas I wanted to die from shock and dread.”
“It was the Alpha’s son,” Lynn gasped, and Margaret nodded sadly.
“It’s like I can smell him now, all juniper and North Carolina sunshine,” she closed her eyes. “We shifted back, and he growled at Jackson to close his eyes until I got dressed. Told me to pack my stuff and that he’d be by in the morning to move me to his house.
I was scared. I knew what his father was like and what his mother’s life was like with that asshole. I didn’t want that for myself. I was an Omega, who would take me seriously as their Luna?” she looked around the room at each and every one of our faces before giving us the full truth.
“But most of all, I didn’t want to leave Jackson. I didn’t want to be without him. He was freaking out already about the Alpha’s heir killing him after he marked me because he’d know how I felt and what we’d done, so we packed up, and we ran to his aunt’s pack that very night. I left a note in my room for my mate, saying that I was sorry but that I loved Jackson and that I didn’t want to be Luna.
I was terrified they’d send a search party to retrieve us or that the PA pack would deny us asylum, but when we got there two weeks later, their Alpha admitted us to the pack without any problems.”
“That’s impossible,” Lynn frowned. “The Black Balsam Alpha would have had to approve your transfer. Why would he do that?”
“Years later, my mate sent me a letter and told me, among other things, that he forged and mailed the transfer papers for us. Back then, I thought that we were just two pups who’d somehow slipped under the radar, or that the universe rewards true love.
My mate had always suspected that I didn’t want to be with him, and he gave me an out. He was a much better male than I’d given him credit for,” Margaret explained, her face dully blank, unlike when she spoke about Jackson.
“What happened then?” Charlotte asked from the edge of her seat.
“We had two peaceful months together. Jackson got a job apprenticing for a carpenter, I got a job in the pack kitchen, and we rented a small cottage on the outskirts of the pack. He still hadn't shifted, and his aunt knew we grew up together, so it was no problem for her.
Jackson was being a little weird and avoided making love to me, but I ascribed it to the new job and all the other changes in our lives. Besides, my wolf was still torturing me mentally.
I, on the other hand, was insanely happy. I was finally living the future we’d always planned for.”
The room was silent for a while. We all really wanted to hear what happened next, but we were also terrified of it.
“The day after his eighteenth birthday, he came home and told me we were done. He’d suspected for a while that his boss’ daughter was his mate, and now that he’d shifted, he knew for sure.
She'd be turning eighteen in only six months, he said,and he didn’t want to risk ruining things with her. Can you imagine? Said he’d never felt anything like the bond,” she laughed bitterly, and I could see Grace wiping her eyes.
“Here I was, asking my doctor about herbs I could take to kickstart a heat even though I was unmarked, and he was planning to leave me all along! After I’d left my mate for him!” she pounded on her chest with her fist, and in that moment, it was young Tammy Lou in front of us, crying like it was only yesterday that Jackson had broken her heart.
“He dumped me like yesterday’s trash. I begged and humiliated myself, and I was on my knees in front of him, asking him over and over again to please not do that to me. Telling him he was my entire life. But the bastard just kept telling me he was sorry and that she was his mate like that explained it all,” Margaret said and blew her nose and dried her eyes a bit with the tissue Mira must have passed her at some point.
I realized I was holding one as well. Everyone in the room was crying for our friend.
“In the end, I stayed in the rented cottage while he moved in with his aunt to save money so he could get a nice place for her. I followed him around, showed up at his aunt’s, went to his job... In the end, the Alpha had to command me to stop,” she admitted as the shame radiated from her clear for all to see.
“Six months later, I saw them together. Marks on their necks. Happy. My Jackson gazing at that bitch like he used to gaze at me when we were naked under the stars together. When he was saying I love you, Tammy Lou, in that deep voice of his,” Margaret’s voice was pure pain at that point, so I knelt down and sat on the floor with her.
Grace followed me and took hold of Margaret’s hand.
“I tried killing myself that night,” Margaret whispered, her head hung.
Someone in the room gasped.
“Someone found me, I don’t even know who. I was admitted to the hospital. I don’t even remember most of it, but I was deemed extremely at risk, and I was sent to a special institution, where they helped me rebuild my life. Vera was working there, and she basically saved me. After that, I went to college, changed my name, moved around a lot, and then settled here.”
“What about Jackson?” Mira asked.
“He’s still happily mated with two pups,” Margaret said, and her mouth twisted in disgust.
I was taken aback by this side of my friend. The events she described happened ten years ago, but her pain was still so fresh.
“What was his name?” Lynn asked quietly.
“Hm?”
“Your mate,” Lynn clarified, her voice hard with disapproval now.
“Oh,” Margaret swallowed. “Dylan.”
“Have you ever spoken to him again?”
“Not directly, no. But he must have kept tabs on me somehow because I received a letter from him four years ago. I’d already become Margaret at that point.”
“What did the letter say?” I asked, not being able to fight the curiosity. “If it’s not too private,” I amended.
“It was heartbreaking to read. My actions really did a number on him, and still, he helped me escape. I’m so ashamed of myself. Do you know that my wolf barely acknowledges me? I don’t even shift regularly anymore,” she admitted sadly, and now that I paid closer attention, her wolf did seem... detached somehow.
“No amount of therapy has helped with that. And you know what the worst part is? I’m still jealous of Jackson’s mate,” she said, a little craziness in her eyes.
“He’s the one I’m still pining after. How sick in the head is that? My life is one big fat lie on all counts,” she stood up and started pacing the length of the room.
“I shouldn’t be giving anyone mating advice. The only advice I should be giving out is the one I’ll be giving you now, Charlotte – never get involved with a male who’s not your mate!” she yelled, and Charlotte flinched.
Message received, I hoped.
◆◆◆
I rolled my eyes when I smelled the lavender. What did she want now? I slowly crept to the staircase to listen.
“It’s Cassie’s birthday, and I thought... She would have wanted to be remembered...”
Those two snippets were enough for me. My wolf was itching for a fight, but she couldn’t go around attacking pack members for wanting to honor their deceased Luna. She didn’t agree with me. Gabriel had just gone down for his nap, and I wouldn’t let her wake him up by brawling.
“I have plans with my family,” Dominic’s deep voice could be heard clearly.
I felt his annoyance, mixed with amusement, so I guessed he figured out I was eavesdropping. I took it as permission to creep closer.
“You can’t just forget about your mate because you have a new family,” Heather sobbed.
“Penelope is my mate now. And I’m sorry, I know Cassandra was your best friend, but she shoved me aside while she was still alive and I don’t owe her anything. I refuse to live in the past any longer. Goodbye.”
The door closed, and then he said, “You can come down now, my little she-wolf.”
“I knew you knew I was here,” I said smugly, and he grinned. “Can I pry a bit?”
He cocked his head and studied me for a moment before nodding.
“What was that about shoving you aside?”
Dominic started closing his eyes but then shook his head and widened them. I saw the exact moment in which he decided what to do. He took my hand and pulled me toward the couch.
“Please sit down with me. I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone before. I’ve written it down in one of my letters, but this is the first time I’ll be saying it out loud, okay?”
I nodded dumbly.
“You probably heard the tragic story of me collapsing during dinner at the Alpha Summit?” he asked, and I nodded again.
“Well, everyone was terrified that we’d been attacked or that all the food was poisoned to get to the King. I was rushed to the hospital, the palace was locked down, every wolf in there was detained and questioned, every piece of food and drink was sent for testing at the lab, it wasabsolute mayhem.
When the human police came to the Court to inform them of Cassie’s accident – that’s the address Heather gave them when she woke up – everyone was relieved, as awful as that may sound. There was a plausible reason for my collapse, case closed.”
I frowned because it sounded like there was more to it.
“Penelope, I collapsed at nine pm. Cassie had her accident at eleven.”
I frowned even more. That didn’t make any sense.
“But how? Wh-? How?”
“She was doing something else that caused me to collapse in pain,” he told me, patiently waiting for me to get it so that he wouldn’t have to say the actual words.
My hand flew to my mouth.
“No!”
“Yes,” he nodded sadly.
“No! How can you be sure? Are you sure?”
It was one thing for an unmated wolf like Charlotte to see what was out there, but a mated one, a Luna? Knowing her mate would know what she had done? It was insane.
“I wasn’t even aware of it for the longest time. Since they took her to the human morgue and then prepped her for the funeral, I never got close enough to her before the funeral to smell anything suspicious.
For almost a year, I had no clue that anything was off. I was messed up and grieving, but my wolf was just angry. I couldn’t figure it out. And then, one day, it randomly clicked that something wasn’t right, so I started investigating.
Looked at my hospital admission forms, looked at the timestamp on the police report, tried talking to Heather, though Lord knows she couldn’t remember anything useful and would just start hyperventilating,” he scowled.
“Could it have been something else?”
He shook his head.
“There is no other explanation, Penelope, and believe me, I’ve looked. In the end, the only thing I managed to find out was that a group of wolves skipped the dinner and went partying with Cassie. I poured over hundreds of files and transcripts and investigative reports from that night to try and piece everything together, but I still don’t have all the pieces to the puzzle. Heather went to pick her up afterwards, Cassie insisted on driving, and they crashed because she was drunk and careless like she always was.”
“I’m so sorry, Dominic. Have you tried getting the King to launch a formal investigation?”
“I’m not exactly keen on everyone knowing my mate cheated on me. I can barely look you in the eye as I’m telling you. I know it’s not my shame to bear, and yet I am deeply ashamed,” he admitted, more defeated than I’d ever seen him.
“And I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry that I was so obsessed with solving this and so scarred by it that I closed myself off from you. It messed with my head so bad. I didn’t want to show my insecurity to you, and I certainly didn’t want a repeat of what happened with Theo. I’ve been working on a lot of it with Vera, and now that I’ve said this out loud, I think I’m gonna confide in her as well and work through it in therapy as much as one can.”
“I hope it helps,” I said and squeezed his hand, which I hadn’t let go since he pulled me to the couch. He squeezed back. “Wait, what happened with Theo?”
He looked very uncomfortable.
“The day after you moved to the pack, he kept yapping about his new Luna, how the Gamma was the protector of the Luna, and how he’d take his duty seriously, and I was consumed with such insane jealousy that I immediately reassigned him to Campus. Not my proudest moment. I didn’t want to be that male, so I tried keeping my distance in a way, and I made a huge mess of things instead.”
“Oh.”
I didn’t think my brain was capable of absorbing any new information at this point; it had too much trouble processing what had been said so far.
“All of this is no excuse for how I treated you, but it will maybe help you feel less like you were unwanted or that my assholery was your fault somehow. Sorry,” he winced when I automatically frowned at his choice of words.
“I understand you a bit better now.”
“That’s good,” he smiled at me, his eyes gentle. “You are the most perfect mate a male could ever have and I’m sorry for never letting you know that before tonight. If you give me a chance, I’ll spend the rest of my life rectifying that mistake,” he made his vow, and I almost lost my breath from the intensity of his love and conviction.
“Thank you for telling me now. Better late than never,” I smiled and then heard Gabriel starting to cry upstairs. “I better go to him. Thank you again for telling me about all this, Dominic.”
He just kissed my hand before finally letting it go.
“Go.”
The next day, I kept replaying his words in my head over and over again. It was all too much. Margaret’s confession and the thought of her poor mate, Cassie’s sordid double life, Dominic’s burden...
I nuzzled Gabriel’s soft neck and allowed myself to forget everything for a moment. We were lounging on the deck after lunch, enjoying the summer, him with my boobs for company, me with a glass of lemonade.
A feeling of panic and sadness hit me so strongly that I knocked over the glass. I checked my mental calendar. Dominic wasn’t supposed to have therapy today, he would have warned me. What was going on? I carefully avoided the broken glass as I went into the house.
Feelings of fear and anxiety and panic kept welling up inside me, but I was still managing to keep them contained. I didn’t even know which ones were mine and which ones were his.
I was just hoping he’d come home soon and tell me he had rescheduled his appointment with Vera and simply forgot to tell me. That I’d worried for no reason. That there wasn’t some horrible thing I didn’t know about yet waiting to be spoken into becoming my reality.
Ten minutes later, he threw the front door open, the grief on his face clear as day, even without the bond. I immediately knew something was seriously wrong. He took Gabriel from my arms, and I sank into the couch.
“There was a call from Utah,” he said and we both knew that calls were never good. “Your grandmother died this morning.”
I gasped as I felt the dam inside me break.