Chapter 30 The Lunas
thirty
The Lunas
*GWENDOLYN*
My first stop after lunch is Marina. Felix joins me but keeps a respectful distance as usual. Unfortunately, there is no good news. She is still not eating properly. “She has a fever, too,” the nurse whispers towards me. “Faye is with her.”
“I thought Faye was supposed to be out a lot,” I say.
“We couldn’t get her to leave her mom’s side,” the nurse mutters sadly. “I think she feels that something is off.”
“Goddess.” I sigh. I was hoping Faye wouldn’t be confronted with reality so soon, but it also means that Elden and Liam’s first intuition was right: She must have felt it already. She must have known that her mom’s condition was very serious. Her mind just couldn’t cope with it.
She is only five… and Marina has been like this for over a year now, and maybe also for a while in her mate‘s pack. I don’t know what Faye saw, I don’t know what she experienced, and I don’t know what she knows, but there is no way that she didn’t see anything.
And whatever it is, the situation must be deeply traumatic for her.
Such things leave an impact on a child’s mind, especially when it concerns their own mother.
I don’t spend a lot of time with Marina and Faye, but mostly because Faye doesn’t seem to want me to be there; she just wants to be with her mom. Since she is usually such a joyful kid, the change is even more obvious. So, after a short time, I left to meet up with Felix.
“If I had doubts about giving a report to the alphas before,” I say to Felix. “Then they are gone now. I definitely need to talk to them to make them understand the gravity of the situation.”
“I know.” Felix kisses the top of my head before his eyes flash over. “Dad just linked me. He wants me to join them briefly to tell them about the men who followed you around and my overall perception. Are you okay on your own, or should I ask Dario to join you?”
“I am fine,” I reassure him. “Your mom wanted to meet me in a couple of minutes to take me with her to the luna meeting.”
He looks torn. “Are you sure you are okay?”
“Yes, I promise. Seeing Faye so distraught gave me the push I needed. And your mom and Arden will be with me. Plus, once I join the alpha meeting, you will be there.”
“Okay.” He pulls me into a kiss. “You are really it, for me, Gwen,” he says, taking me completely by surprise.
Goddess, this guy! How can he say these things with a straight face and not sound cheesy at all?
I am such a sucker for when he says things like that.
Everything he does and says seems genuine.
The girls who badmouthed him are fools – he is such a catch!
Genuine, kind, helpful, and so in tune with his feelings, and he isn’t afraid to voice what he feels.
“I… you know it’s difficult for me to say how I feel,” I say. “But… you are it for me too.”
His eyes light up.
He’s about to pull me into a second kiss when Liam suddenly appears and grabs him by his arms. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “But I offered to come and fetch you.”
“Oh shoot, you have been waiting?!” Felix groans.
“Yes,” Liam chuckles. “But we will survive.”
“See you later, Gwen,” Felix calls out to me before hurrying after Liam.
I watch him until he is completely out of my view, trying to suck in as much of his warmth as I can, then I head to my own meeting point to catch up with Flora.
She doesn’t waste much time and takes me to the luna meeting immediately, chatting all the way, until I forget to think about what’s ahead of me.
Flora ushers me into a comfortable-looking meeting room that looks more like a living room than anything else. The only other person I know is Arden, and he is currently chatting with a young woman, shorter and with shoulder-length hair. She has a warm smile and an equally warm aura around her.
“Okay, let me give you a rundown on who’s who.” Flora links our arms. “The woman Arden is talking to... that’s Annie. She is Liam’s mate.”
“Oh,” I exclaim. “Felix talked about her a lot. Easy to remember. Red Claw pack.”
“Exactly, and the only other man besides Arden-“ I follow her gaze until I find a tall, young man with long hair that he wears in a bun. He has a handsome face and is dressed stylishly. “That’s Marius. He is my second-oldest son and Felix’s brother, obviously.”
“Marius,” I repeat. “Felix talked about him, too. His mate is currently the only female alpha, well, until Aurelia takes over, then there will be two. Did I get that right?”
“Yes.” Flora smiles brightly. “And the two women who are talking to Marius are the lunas of the twin alphas of Emerald Moon. It has been an allied pack for many centuries. Elden and I are best friends with the former alpha and luna there. The dark-skinned woman is Dalila, the one next to her is Elodie. The pack has two lunas because the twin alphas reign together, and each has their own mate.”
“I didn’t know that it was possible to have more than one alpha,” I whisper.
“Everything is possible,” Flora explains to me. “We are just used to things being a certain way.”
“And the man who is currently filling his cup with tea?” I glance at a lean, elegant-looking man.
Unlike Marius and Arden, however, he… he doesn’t actually look like he‘s one of them.
Something about him feels intense and different – if only I could put a finger on what it is that strikes me as unusual.
Flora snorts. “He isn’t a luna. He is a vampire leader and co-leads a pack and coven together with his alpha mate. He is a vampire lord. Lord Silas.”
The edges of Silas’s lips tug slightly, and he casts us a look from the corner of his eyes. He must have heard us. Flora ignores him. “If you ask me, he is only here because he doesn’t want to argue with the alphas.”
“Too much testosterone,” Silas says out loud now.
This draws everyone’s attention away from their private talks and first, towards Silas, then Flora and me. Flora shoves me further into the room, skipping some steps around me and opening her arms to the little gathering. “This is Gwendolyn.”
Annie’s face lights up, and she approaches me immediately. “Felix’s mate,” she says warmly, pulling me into a hug.
I instantly feel comfortable in her embrace. I don’t quite remember the luna from my old pack, as she was barely around, but this… this is how I’ve always imagined one. The others soon follow Annie, with Marius playfully wrestling with Elodie to reach me first.
“Happy to meet you, Gwen,” he says while Elodie glares at him. “Felix has been spamming me with messages about how awesome his mate is.”
Annie elbows him. “You keep spamming us with messages about Celine yourself.”
“Well, I can’t help it if my mate is just so perfect,” he grins, before reaching out his hand and patting his mom’s hand. She is so much smaller than him, it looks hilarious. “Glad to see you too, Mom.”
“They all grew so tall,” she complains. “That’s Elden’s genes. Oh!” She beams at me before smirking. “Elden has very good genes by the way, and he-“
“No, no, no,” Marius pulls his hand away. “I know where this is going. I am sorry, you are not tiny, I never implied you are.”
“When will you ever learn?” Elodie asks and rolls her eyes.
Dalila, who has been silent until now, just chuckles. “Welcome, Gwen. We are obviously very happy to have you.”
“Yes, come,” Annie guides me to the table, where Silas is sitting and watching in very clear amusement. “Let them have their fun. We can drink tea, meanwhile.”
I am relieved she has taken the lead, and I sit down next to Dalila, while Annie fills our cups with tea. “Felix mentioned you are very good with animals,” she adds.
This seems to pique Silas’s interest. “Oh, really?”
“They kind of come to me,” I explain. “I am not sure how it works. They are just suddenly there.”
“What kind of animals?”
“Yesterday, an alpaca appeared out of the blue,” I explain. “A couple of days ago, a Pallas’s cat. I also have a capybara, a bird, a raccoon, and several others. Oh shoot, that reminds me that my duck has stolen another egg. I don’t know what’s going to hatch from that.”
“Hm,” Silas hums. “Interesting.”
“Very,” Dalila says. “I would love to have a capybara.”
“You can totally visit anytime and pet Tuesday,” I offer. “That’s his name.”
“Really?” she asks. “Goddess, yes!”
“Does anyone want a glass of wine?” Marius asks when he, Flora, and Elodie join us.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Silas says. Some of the others agree, but Annie shakes her head.
“I have to decline,” she says. “I have been having a queasy stomach since yesterday. Tea for me.”
“Then take another cup,” Silas says. “It’s a good brew. I should know, because I brought it along.”
While the others make themselves comfortable, I sneak another curious peek at him. It’s the first time that I‘ve met an actual vampire. He looks like I would have imagined one. Beautiful, a bit pale, dignified, and a touch intimidating.
“Gwen,” Flora pulls me out of my thoughts. “Why don’t you tell the others what you told us already. About Marina and Faye, your experience with your old pack, and how you left.”
I nod. “Of course.” That’s the story I have prepared myself to tell.
The small circle of lunas… and Silas, give off such welcoming vibes that I don’t feel nervous or anxious anymore.
I begin to tell them my story, starting with my general life there, up to the point when I landed in a small town at the coast and met Felix.
Annie stirs her cup of tea. “Your friend, Marina...“ she pauses. “Liam told me about her, and now hearing it from you again makes it all the more upsetting.”
I nod. “He and Elden tried to reach out for her wolf, but”-I take a moment to collect myself-“she doesn’t have her wolf spirit anymore.”
“I know my fair share about wolves,” Silas says. “But this is something I haven’t encountered or even heard about before.”
“It’s because it rarely happens,” Marius says, a deep frown on his face.
“It’s one thing for a wolf spirit to be weakened, to retreat and hide themselves,” Annie adds. “But to disappear completely?” A shiver goes down her spine.
“It’s truly a scary thought,” Elodie mutters.
“But how can it happen?” Dalila asks. “Flora, you mentioned the council can do it, but I doubt just any member could-“
“True, just a handful of high-ranking council members can do it,” Flora verifies.
“Could one of them have taught someone how to do it?” Dalila asks. “Someone who shouldn’t know how.”
“Highly unlikely,” Flora says. “It’s not an easy thing to achieve, and frankly, most wolves can’t do it. You need to literally break someone’s soul into pieces. It’s incredibly difficult to do.”
“Which means something happened to her,” Silas says. “Something grave enough that it killed her wolf.”
It’s silent around us. “Yes,” Marius agrees quietly.
“It must have something to do with her mate,” Elodie says. “I can’t see any other option, or rather, it’s the most likely one.”
“I agree,” Annie takes another sip of her cup. “He did something to her. I…I don’t know how to say it,” she adds quietly. “But it must have been truly traumatic,”
“And probably over a longer time span,” Marius adds.
I look at them. “What are you thinking about?”
“Assault,” Annie says. “Or torture.”
“Or both,” Silas mutters. “Or heavy abuse.”
“Faye doesn’t know anything, does she?” Flora asks.
“If she does, she hasn’t told us,” I say. “I think she definitely saw something or even experienced it, but I hope she didn’t come in contact with too much cruelty.”
“The way she is protective of her mom, I am sure she saw something.” Flora furrows her brows; the look in her eyes seems to be far away, like she is looking at something we can’t see. “Maybe…”
When she is silent, Marius pushes. “Maybe?”
“Nothing,” Flora says. “I can’t say for sure yet. What I can say is that Faye definitely experienced something traumatic. She is a cheerful child, very cheerful, almost a bit too much. She is also unusually mature for a kid of her age.”
“Did your gift tell you that?” Silas inquires. There is a glint in his eyes I can’t quite describe. I am just starting to understand that both he and Flora know and understand a lot more about our world than most others do.
“No, experience.” The look in her eyes is sad for a moment. “She reminds me of a young boy who was my best friend when I was a child.”
“Did he go through something similar?” Elodie asks.
“He had the same look in his eyes,” Flora says thoughtfully.
“Poor little girl,” Marius mutters. “I agree with Liam and Dad’s assessments.
She for sure knows that her mom is very ill, but has clung to any ray of hope she could find.
She must be going through so much. Just imagine.
She had to see her mother turn into a living shell.
She probably was too tiny to be considered a threat to Marina’s pack, but she must have seen a lot, and she must have buried everything in her tiny heart.
And her father was probably the one who is responsible for her mom’s state. ”
“Yes,” Annie says quietly. “I agree with everything you said. I believe that’s what’s going on with her.”
As usual, when I think about Faye and Marina, my thoughts start running, battling it out in my mind.
There are several voices. One is full of anger and venom against my old alpha and wants revenge.
One is sad for losing Marina, or rather, having lost her.
Then there is the guilty one, and a very delusional one that hopes for a magical, happy end.
“Gwen,” Flora says, her eyes glossing over. “That’s Elden.”
“It’s time for me to join the alphas?” I ask nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Elodie reassures me immediately. “It’s just our mates.”
“Yeah, they are all good guys,” Dalila adds.
“I will take you there,” Flora says. “You are not alone, don’t worry.”
I take a deep breath. “I got it,” I say.
“We’ll see each other later,” Annie says. “We are all staying for dinner.”
“And we want to see the capybara,” Dalila adds.
Annie nods. “And the alpaca.”
They all chuckle and agree, which makes me smile. Flora links our arms again and leads me out of the room. For a while, we walk in silence. “Flora… can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“What happened to the young boy?” I ask. “The one you mentioned and compared to Faye. Your childhood friend. Did he grow up well? Did he have a good future? What happened to him?”
Flora smiles at me. “He became my mate.”