Chapter 11 #2
She’s right. Lydia is the only woman in this territory trained to stand beside me in the role of luna.
I see now that my father brought us up shoulder to shoulder for exactly that purpose.
The pack would shift beneath her hand like water.
She is my oldest friend. She would bleed for this house.
The fated mate bond would blunt. Sienna could finish her work here and go home to Moonvale.
She could be somewhere else in the world, moving through her life. Alive.
“It doesn’t feel right,” is all I manage to say.
“It isn’t supposed to.” Lydia’s mouth twitches with a flicker of sadness. “You are saying goodbye to something.”
I close my eyes.
“I am not forcing you.” Her hand finds my shoulder. It’s warm. Familiar. “You take the time you need. But if you keep going as you have been, you will mark her. And you will watch her die. Do you want her to go through that? Do you want to live through it?”
I don’t answer. I cannot.
Her hand drops, and she steps back.
A long breath shakes out of me. “Alright,” I whisper.
She waits.
“There is a council meeting in two weeks. I will do it then.”
“The engagement?” she checks quietly. “Or the mark?”
I swallow. My throat is dry. “The mark. The engagement will be tomorrow.”
Her face doesn’t change. But the look in her eyes is different. Satisfaction? Relief? Grief? I cannot tell them apart.
“You are doing the right thing, Lucas.”
I can’t speak. She stretches up to kiss my cheek, and my wolf shrinks, not wanting her touch. He wants Sienna.
I stand at the window for a long time after she’s gone.
Then, suddenly, I move.
I don’t remember going down the stairs. I’m through the side door before I know what’s happening.
The cold night air hits me in the face. My wolf is already pushing at my skin.
Hot. Restless. Sick from what I have just agreed to.
I storm through the gardens, past the oak tree where she likes to sit, beyond the edge of the mowed lawn.
I strip at the tree line. I leave my clothes where they fall. Shirt. Belt. Pants. Shoes. Everything I came out in, dropped in the moss. My wolf does not wait for me to fold things.
The shift takes me between one breath and the next. My wolf is already running by the time paws hit earth. He doesn’t know where he is going. He doesn’t care. He runs because stopping will mean feeling. We cannot feel this yet.
I run for hours. Until my lungs burn. Past when my paws hurt.
The moon climbs high overhead and begins to fall again.
I tear through brush I don’t recognize, ford a stream, cross a ridge I have not crossed since I was twenty years old and angry at my father about something I cannot remember now.
My wolf flushes out a deer, but he doesn’t chase it.
He doesn’t want meat. He wants to run until there is nothing left in him to run with.
I collapse onto my side in a stretch of moss somewhere deep in my own territory. My ribs are heaving.
Then, I sit up, throw my head back, and howl.
The cry comes out of me broken. Long. Ragged. Nothing like the voice of an alpha. It is the sound of grief.
I howl again. And again. I howl until my throat is raw and the birds have left the trees around me.
The forest swallows the sound and gives nothing back.
She will live, I tell my wolf. This way, she will live. She will live.
He does not care. He lies in the dirt with his ears pinned back and keens until the first gray light of dawn edges the sky.
I call the meeting at nine. The announcement will happen at eleven.
By the time the council files into the room, I have drunk three cups of coffee, eaten nothing, and my face is set. My hands don’t shake. My voice will not shake.
Sienna walks in with her two assistants right behind her. She sits right next to Lydia, who smiles gently at her.
I don’t look at Sienna. I make myself not look at her. Out of the edge of my vision, I see dark hair. A blue blouse. A tablet held against her chest. That is as much as I allow myself. Any more, and I will break down in front of thirty people.
I wait for everyone to settle. I wait the beat that people expect.
“I have called you here,” I begin, “to announce my intention to take a mate. Within two weeks’ time.”
The room stops breathing.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Sienna jerk. A small, involuntary movement. Her fingers tighten on the tablet.
I stand up and raise my hand, holding it out.
For half a breath, for one terrible half of a breath, I see her move. A small lift of her own hand. A flinch forward. As if she thought…As if for one instant she believed…
Lydia rises smoothly, brushing past Sienna as she walks toward me. She takes my outstretched hand.
Forgive me.
The room erupts. Cheers. Fists pounding the table. Someone whoops.
One of the council members is grinning. “About time,” he says to the man next to him.
The older members of the council nod at each other as if something long awaited has finally arrived. Lydia smiles, accepting congratulations as people move forward. I try to smile, but my expression is stiff.
I can’t bring myself to express any sort of joy when my heart is being torn apart. Unable to stop myself, I look where my fated mate is still seated.
Sienna is clutching the tablet to her chest, her face ashen as she stares at Lydia.
Her eyes drift to mine, and inside her gaze, I see a mixture of humiliation and grief. The pain is so intense that I nearly stagger.
I want to tear this room apart. I want to shift and howl again. I want to cross to her and fall on my knees and tell her why.
I can’t do any of that.
She gets up, turns around, and walks out of the conference room with her head high. Her gait is wobbly, and at one point she grabs the back of a chair to steady herself. My feet move without consulting me, but Lydia’s hand closes on my forearm.
“Don’t follow her. Not now,” she murmurs, low enough that only I can hear. “Let her go.”
And I know I have to.