23 - Penelope
January 25, 2023
“T he Crown calls Hank Miller to the stand,” King David announced on the first day of my hearing.
Apparently, Alphas and Lunas could not go around killing pack members, not even in self-defense, without a formal hearing to determine that there was no abuse of power.
I appreciated the checks and balances that the Royal Court placed on pack leaders. It made me queasy to imagine what Alpha couples could do if there was no one to hold them accountable. I’d heard lot about it the last time I’d been in this courtroom.
“ Tell the truth ,” the King commanded Hank. “Mr. Miller, can you tell us about your job in the Greylock pack?”
“I’m Luna Penelope Hedge’s driver,” Hank said, still looking frail from our ordeal.
“How long have you been her driver?”
“Ever since she moved to our pack almost two years ago.”
“Describe the nature of your relationship to the Luna.”
Hank frowned, “She is like a daughter to me. My whole family not only respects her as our Luna, but we also love her very much.”
“Very well. What about the late Miss Heather Taylor?”
Hank’s upper lip curled in disgust, “What about her?”
“What was your relationship with her like?”
“I barely knew her or spoke to her beyond the cursory hello.”
“Could you please tell us what happened on January 7?”
“I was leaving the pack house when Miss Taylor stopped me and asked me to give her a ride to the Alpha’s house.”
“What did you think of that?”
“I was kind of glad. Everyone knew that Miss Taylor had problems with cars after being in the accident that claimed our former Luna’s life; and everyone gossiped about the Alpha having to drive her around, so it was good to see that she was making progress.”
“Did you love and respect your former Luna?”
Hank hesitated, but ultimately found a way to answerdiplomatically while still obeying the command to be honest, “My wolf respected her authority over him.”
David just smirked and moved on.
“What happened when you got to the Alpha’s house?”
“Miss Taylor stuck a needle in my thigh. It all happened so fast,” he said and it was obvious to everyone how guilty and ashamed he felt because of it.
“Did you pass out?”
“Yes. When I came to, I was tied up in the Alpha’s living room, and I couldn’t reach my wolf.”
“Could you hear or smell what was happening upstairs?”
“No. All my enhanced senses were gone.”
“What happened next?”
“I tried as hard as I could to break free from the restraints, and when I finally managed to do so, I ran upstairs, where I found both Miss Taylor and the Luna bleeding out on the floor. I picked up the Luna and carried her to the car and then drove her to the hospital.”
“Was there anything suspicious about Miss Taylor’s demeanor while you were driving to the Alpha’s house?”
“That’s the thing,” Hank blew out a breath and ran his hand through his hair. “She was perfectly calm and normal. I’ve gone over it in my mind a million times, and I still can’t remember anything suspicious. I’m sorry, Luna,” he apologized to me for the umpteenth time since we’d both been discharged from the hospital.
I gave him a bright smile and a nod to ease his worry.
“Very well, thank you Mr. Miller.”
As Hank got up and left, David continued, “The Crown now calls Alpha Dominic Hedge to the stand.”
Dominic reluctantly let go of my hand and walked to the witness stand.
“Alpha Phillips, Alpha Scott, will you please join me?” David asked and I held my breath.
Commanding an Alpha was almost unheard of and happened only in the rarest of occasions. At least three other Alphas were needed for the command to stick.
“On three?” the King looked at the two males and they both nodded.
“One, two, three,” and then they all said “ Tell the truth ,” in unison.
Dominic gnashed his teeth as his body briefly fought the command.
“We should check whether the command took,” David said with a mischievous glint in his eye as Dominic growled at him. “I should ask you something really embarrassing.”
“Just get on with it.”
“Alpha Hedge, please tell us of the first time you met Miss Taylor.”
“I met my first mate during a diplomatic visit to the Yosemite pack in June of 2016. I was introduced to her cousin, Heather Taylor, during that same visit. Then she moved to my pack with Cassandra, as per their custom.”
“Did anything about her stand out?”
“Not really. She seemed withdrawn and reserved, which I understood and respected.”
“Did you ever get the feeling that Miss Taylor wanted something more from you?”
Dominic ran his hand over his face in frustration, “Maybe I’m an idiot, but it never even crossed my mind.”
I could almost hear all the Lunas in the courtroom roll their eyes. As morbid as the reason for the hearing was, I had to fight a snicker.
Dominic continued, oblivious, “Maybe it’s because of how much respect I have for the mate bond or how little I even notice females who aren’t my mate, but I truly viewed every interaction I had with her as an interaction between an Alpha and his pack member.”
“What happened on January 7?”
“After Miss Taylor had repeatedly refused to get counseling to deal with the trauma from her car accident and had continued to approach me in order to discuss my deceased first mate, I made the decision to transfer her back to her pack of origin in California. I thought that maybe having family around would help her heal better than she had in Greylock. On January 7 she was scheduled to travel back to Yosemite, and she’d asked me to drive her to the train station before I went to my office on campus.”
“Did Miss Taylor know your schedule for the day?”
“She probably did, since she did a lot of the admin work for my office.”
“Where did you pick her up?”
“In front of her apartment building. I loaded her suitcases in the car while she got us coffee from the café across the street. She also got a tea for Penelope and asked me to stop at the house because she wanted to say goodbye to her Luna.”
“Did you think anything of it?”
“Not really. Heather was always bringing by treats and food she’d made, even when Cassie was still alive.”
“Who gave Penelope the tea?”
Dominic shook his head, still disappointed in himself because of it, “I did. I parked the car, and Heather thrust the tray into my hands before getting out. I didn’t question the gesture. It was just tea!”
I felt through our bond how much he blamed himself, and I let him feel how sad that made me.
“What happened then?”
“She said goodbye to Penelope, and we drove off.”
“What was their relationship like?”
“As far as I could tell prior to that day, uneventful. My mate had expressed her displeasure about me acting as Heather’s chauffeur a while ago, but that was because I’d acted like an ass,” a few snickers and huffs of amusements could be heard at Dominic’s confession.
“Did Miss Taylor talk to you during the drive? Did you feel anything was off?”
“Nothing at all. I tuned her out as I always did, so even when she talked I didn’t really respond. When we got to the station, I helped her with the bags, got her settled on the train, shook her hand and said goodbye. I then went about my business.”
“When did you notice the effects of the wolfsbane?”
“Not until much later. I’d been working alone in my office for maybe 4 hours before Theo, my Gamma, came in and his arrival caught me by surprise. I realized that I hadn’t heard him arrive, and I couldn’t feel his scent at all.”
“What did you do then?”
“Honestly? I panicked. I didn’t know what was going on. I tried mind-linking Penelope but it was all wobbly and wrong, and I couldn’t reach her or feel her. Then I used the campus phone to call my office, where I reached my Beta who informed me that my mate was at the hospital. Theo drove us there because I wasn’t in any shape to drive.”
“Where was your pup during all this?”
“I’d left him with my mother that morning, luckily,” Dominic swallowed, pressing his palms against his thighs to stop them from shaking at the thought of Gabriel in a room with that insane female.
“When did you go to your house?”
“Four days later, after Penelope woke up.”
“Can you describe the state of the nursery?”
Dominic took a few deep breaths. I could see that his claws were out, but he was blocking me from the brunt of the pain the memory evoked.
“There was so much blood. The carpet was soaked. It was awful.”
“Thank you, Alpha Hedge. We’ll take a short break now, see you all in thirty.”
“Are you okay?” Dominic asked me as I cuddled Gabriel in one of the drawing rooms.
Florence had come with us to care for him while we were at the hearing. Queen Regina had encouraged everyone to bring their pups, and had even organized pupcare for those who didn’t have a Florence like we did. I was very averse to being away from my pup these days.
Not only had Heather’s attack and the four days I spent in the hospital because of it taken the breastfeeding bond from me and Gabriel, but the injury and stress associated with it had also stopped the heat I had been about to enter. I wouldn’t let her take anything else from me. I looked down at Gabriel, who was happily drinking from his bottle and I hated the reason for it.
“I am. A bit nervous, but not worried.”
“Hedge,” a tall, blond male approached us with Agnes in tow.
I smiled at her, and she smiled back shyly but didn’t say anything. Her eyes had dark circles under them.
“Larson,” Dominic said, angling his now-tense body as if to shield me from the other Alpha.
Gabriel seemed to sense his father’s anxiety and started wailing, promptly spitting out a mouthful of milk onto my sleeve as he flailed in my arms. Agnes quickly got a handkerchief from her purse and handed it to me.
“I gotta say, Dominic, I’d never hand over my mate to be commanded like you’re about to,” Larson said, and Agnes’ hold on the handkerchief tightened.
I tried tugging it out of her hand but she was petrified.
“None of your business, Erik,” Dominic growled, and the other male just shrugged before turning and pulling Agnes away from us a little too aggressively for my taste.
“I don’t like him,” I admitted quietly.
“Smart,” Dominic nodded darkly.
“The Crown calls Luna Penelope Hedge to the stand.”
I took a deep breath as I stood up. Ignoring all the eyes on me, I made my way to the stand.
“ Tell the truth ,” the King commanded me and I sucked in a breath.
It hurt like heck. I remembered Queen Regina’s testimony and the multiple commands she’d suffered through so I straightened my spine and looked him in the eye instead of keeling over like I wanted to. He gave me an approving nod.
“Luna Penelope, can you please tell us about your relationship with Miss Heather Taylor?”
“She was a pack member who I did not particularly care for,” I admitted. “If she wasn’t interrupting my time with my mate in our home, she was monopolizing his time by insisting that he be her driver to and from her physical therapy appointments. It was a source of great stress for me in the beginning of my mating.”
Dominic looked ashamed, and rightfully so.
“What are some examples of her visits to your home?”
“She’d show up unannounced to drop off food for my mate, which I’d immediately throw in the trash,” I started listing, but David interrupted me.
“Why did you throw it away?”
“My Nana, my late grandmother, taught me never to eat food prepared by wolves I didn’t trust.”
“Why didn’t you trust Miss Taylor?”
“It was a gut feeling. She was always trying to talk to my mate about his first mate, Cassandra, or she'd insinuate that he wasn’t being appreciated the way he deserved to be; it all rubbed me the wrong way.”
“Did you ever confront her about it?”
“No,” I admitted, the familiar shame coursing through me. “I was never one for confrontation, but especially now, as Luna, I always strive to be fair and kind to pack members, and not to project my insecurities onto the things they may say.”
“I see. What happened on January 7?”
“Heather came to the house to say goodbye to me, since she was moving back to California, and as Dominic already explained, after they left I drank the tea that she must have laced with wolfsbane.
Maybe two, two and a half hours later, she surprised me by entering the nursery as I was folding Gabriel’s clothes. I never heard her coming, that should’ve been my first clue that something was wrong with me. She had a silver knife and she told me she had my driver Hank tied up downstairs.”
“Did she explain her motivation for the attack?”
“She did, although at the time I struggled to understand all of it. She seemed unstable and confused. What was clear was that she wanted me out of the way so she could be with Dominic. She told me about something called the Clearheart legend,” I told David and he frowned. “She basically believed that she could become Dominic’s mate through sheer willpower.”
“I heard of this,” king David glanced at his mate who was sitting in the first row. “There is a legend that says that pure, true love between non-mates can break a bad mate bond.”
“I honestly thought it was something she made up. She didn’t exactly seem coherent. She seemed very distraught, and the last time I’d seen her before that I’d noted how pale she looked and how sick she smelled.”
“What happened then?”
I blew out a breath. I was about to utter an accusation against a sitting Alpha so I straightened in my seat.
“I tried reasoning with Heather by telling her that my bond with Dominic wasn’t bad, and that, even if she killed me, he wouldn’t become her mate. She then told me how she killed Cassandra, his first mate, because Cassandra had cheated on Dominic that night.”
No one in the courtroom moved. I think even Larson was speechless. I tuned into the bond to see how Dominic was feeling, but all I felt was his determination to get to the bottom of this.
We’d discussed this at length before the hearing. I was willing to try to avoid disclosing this part of Heather’s attack unless asked directly, but he was adamant about finally coming clean and letting go of the shame. I was so proud of him.
King David cleared his throat, “Luna Penelope, could you please elaborate on that?”
“Well,” I took a deep breath. “When Dominic collapsed at the Alpha Summit in February of 2018, everyone assumed it was due to Cassandra’s death, but the truth of the matter is that his collapse had happened two hours before her accident.
He’d lost consciousness because of the pain of being betrayed by his mate. Heather finally provided the missing piece of the puzzle that day in the nursery, by telling me that Cassie had slept with Alpha Anderson that night.”
Gasps and the sound of chairs scraping the floor followed my statement.
“Block the door,” the King told the guards as he leveled a male who had stood up with a mean look.
I assumed that was Anderson. He looked familiar. David nodded at me to continue.
“Her cheating had enraged Heather, who was already carrying a torch for Dominic back then, so much, that she caused the accident by attacking Cassie while she was driving. Cassandra had ingested wolfsbane in her drinks that night, so the plant that facilitated the infidelity also made it impossible for her wolf to heal her and she succumbed to her injuries.”
“What happened next on that day in your son's nursery, Luna Penelope?”
“I finally made my move. I had a silver dagger taped under the bed,” I was in the middle of explaining when David held up a hand.
“Why did you have a silver dagger under your bed? In your pup’s room?”
I suddenly felt very self-conscious, “Another thing my Nana insisted on. I have an arsenal of silver weapons hidden all around my house.”
“Smart female,” he lifted his eyebrows, clearly impressed by Nana’s foresight. “Please continue.”
“I stabbed her in the heart, and as she fell, she stabbed me in the side. I woke up in the hospital four days later.”
David glanced at Dominic, and then turned back to me.
“One last question, Luna. What were you thinking about as you were struggling with her?”
The command forced me to think back to those agonizing moments. Dominic tried getting up but David subtly shook his head at him.
“I was thinking about my mate. I was worried about leaving Gabriel motherless like I had been. I was thinking about how heartbroken Dominic would be if I died. I knew that he loves me so much that he wouldn’t survive my death, not even for Gabriel,” I admitted with tears in my eyes. “So I had to fight, for Dominic. And I’m not sorry I killed her. I feel zero guilt and my wolf is proud of me,” I added for good measure.
I’d sensed how careful Dominic was being with me these last weeks. I knew he worried about my mental state, afraid that the blood on my hands was haunting me.
He could rest easy now, since we all knew it was impossible to lie under command. Somehow, David had known my mate needed this. He’d have my eternal gratitude for asking that last question.
“Thank you, Luna. You may return to your seat. The Crown now calls JD Anderson, the Yosemite pack Alpha, to the stand.”
The male reluctantly made his way to the front. The atmosphere in the courtroom was more tense than I’d ever experienced before.
“Phillips, Scott,” David urged again.
When all three were standing in front of Anderson, they commanded him together, like they had done with Dominic.
“Alpha Anderson, tell us about your relationship with Cassandra Hedge.”
The male hesitated before he replied, “Cassandra and I had a fling when she was still an unmated member of my pack.”
“What does a fling consist of in your pack?” David asked, the disgust in his face plain for all to see.
I knew that the Colorado pack was as strict as the one in Utah when it came to relationships between wolves who weren't each other's fated mates.
“We, uh, were bedmates for a while.”
“You had sex with her?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Two years.”
“And you call that a fling?”
“Yes,” JD admitted reluctantly.
David frowned as he thought of his next question, “Was she the only female you were sleeping with during that time?”
“No.”
The courtroom was buzzing with whispers and shocked gasps.
“When did you break off this fling?”
“When she met her mate.”
“Did you have contact with her after she became the Luna of Greylock?”
“She sent me a letter once, saying she missed me and complaining about how boring her new pack was.”
“Did you reply?”
“No.”
“Did you love her?”
“No.”
“What happened the night of her death?”
Anderson remained silent. David repeated his question. When Anderson’s lips became white from how hard he was pressing them together, David looked at Phillips and Scott again, and they came forward.
“ Respond! ” they roared in unison, causing JD to clutch his head with both hands.
“She came on to me!” he gasped as if he was being choked.
Dominic was holding my hand so tightly that I worried he’d crack a bone, but I’d heal. I wanted to be there for him.
“A few of us from the Cali pack went to a human club; we partied, started talking about the old times, and ended up having sex in the club bathroom. I regretted it as soon as I sobered up. Haven’t had a drink since,” he looked at Dominic apologetically, but Dominic just stared at the wall behind him.
There wasn’t a single wolf in this room who’d allow this behavior to go unpunished.
“One last question, Alpha Anderson, are you currently sexually involved with any females in your pack?”
JD swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Very well. The witnesses can leave. We’ll reconvene in an hour for the reading of the decision.”
As we filed back into the courtroom, I saw David gently stroking Regina’s upper arms as they stood in the corner. Today was probably very triggering for her. I realized that I didn’t envy their closeness and connection like I would have if I’d witnessed the same scene a year ago. Now, I knew what a mate’s supportive touch felt like. I squeezed Dominic’s hand. He rewarded me with a smile.
“Order in the courtroom,” Prince John announced. “The unanimous consensus is that Luna Penelope Hedge acted in self-defense and was justified in the killing of Miss Heather Taylor.”
I breathed in relief. It was truly over.
“We have a few other decisions to announce. The Crown has decided to strip JD Anderson of his title because of interfering with a mate bond and alienation of affection. The Crown will seize control of the Yosemite pack and find new leadership for it at the next Alpha Summit.”
All the wolves present started talking among themselves; some even started yelling at John and David, but John just banged his gavel, indicating that he wasn’t done yet.
That was when I noticed that the room was absolutely packed with guards.
“The last item on the agenda is informing all packs that Alpha Larson’s Luna has requested asylum for herself and her pups in the Royal Pack, which the Crown has granted.”
Complete mayhem broke out after that.