Chapter 34 A Luna’s Regret
The cottage was warm, but the silence between them wasn’t.
Freda sat across from Evelyn Langford, a cup of tea cooling between her palms, watching the woman who was technically her Alpha’s mother settle into the chair opposite her like someone bracing for something long overdue.
Thomas had stayed outside. Freda had heard the soft click of the door behind him.
Evelyn’s gaze moved through the room, not with curiosity, but with quiet recognition. It passed over the child’s drawings pinned to the wall, the small boots by the door, the stack of Liam’s books on the table, lingering only briefly, as though she already knew where everything was.
Something shifted across her face.
“He has Lucian’s eyes,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
Freda didn’t reach for her tea.
Evelyn folded her hands in her lap. No jewelry tonight. No formal pins. None of the markers that announced who she was.
Just a woman.
“I didn’t come here to talk about Lucian,” she said. “Not entirely.”
Freda held her gaze.
“Then talk.”
A flicker of something, approval, perhaps, crossed Evelyn’s expression before it was gone.
She drew in a slow breath.
“His name was Daniel,” she said. “He was an omega. Quiet. Thoughtful. He worked in the pack archives, cataloguing records no one else cared about.”
A faint smile touched her lips.
“He used to say history mattered more than rank. That what a pack remembered was more honest than what it claimed.”
Freda set her cup down carefully.
Something in her chest had already begun to tighten.
“I met him three months before the council announced my mating to Edmund Langford,” Evelyn continued. “I already knew the arrangement was coming. My family had made it very clear what was expected of me.”
Her fingers laced together, steady, deliberate.
“Edmund was a good man. The right bloodline. I was the right match. That was the beginning and end of it.”
“But Daniel was your mate,” Freda said.
Not a question.
Evelyn looked at her.
“Yes.”
The word didn’t waver.
“The bond formed during the spring assembly. The moment he walked into the room…” She paused briefly. “I imagine you understand what that feels like.”
Freda didn’t answer.
She did.
Too well.
“We had two weeks,” Evelyn said. “Two weeks before someone noticed. Before it was reported.”
Freda’s fingers curled slightly against the table.
“And then?” she asked.
Evelyn exhaled slowly.
“They gave me a choice. Complete the political mating to Edmund… or watch Daniel be exiled from Silverpine territory.”
The words settled between them, heavy and immovable.
The fire cracked softly in the corner.
“You believed them,” Freda said.
It wasn’t gentle.
Evelyn didn’t look away.
“I did.”
A beat.
“I was twenty-two. I was afraid. And I believed them when they said exile was survivable. That he would find somewhere else. That he would live.”
Freda’s jaw tightened.
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
Evelyn’s voice remained steady, but something beneath it gave way.
“He died two years later. Rogue territory. Eastern border. No pack. No protection.”
Silence pressed in.
Freda drew a slower breath, the ache in her chest sharpening.
“They told you it would save him,” she said quietly.
“They told me many things.”
Evelyn lifted her gaze.
“I chose Edmund.”
The words landed cleanly.
Freda didn’t move.
“I have been Luna of Silverpine for twenty-three years,” Evelyn continued. “I stood beside my mate. I fulfilled every duty asked of me. I was good at it.”
She paused.
“I believed in the pack.”
“I still do.”
Freda’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“But you knew,” she said.
Evelyn nodded once.
“I knew what that law cost.”
Her voice lowered, not weaker, just heavier.
“I knew when I lost Daniel. I knew when Lucian came back from the Harvest Moon Festival with something different in his eyes and refused to speak of it.”
Freda’s pulse shifted.
“I knew when the council gave their ultimatum,” Evelyn said. “And I watched my son make the same choice I once made.”
The air felt thinner.
“And you said nothing,” Freda said.
This time, there was no softness in it.
Evelyn held her gaze.
“I said nothing.”
A pause.
“Again.”
The word settled deeper than anything else.
Freda looked at her, really looked.
At the control. The restraint. The kind of grief that had been carried long enough to become part of the bones.
“I told myself I was protecting him,” Evelyn continued. “That speaking too soon would make it worse. That the council would turn it against him.”
Her fingers tightened slightly.
“But the truth is…”
She shook her head once.
“I was afraid.”
No defense. No excuse.
“The same fear I had at twenty-two,” she said quietly. “It never leaves you. You just learn how to live around it.”
Freda’s anger didn’t vanish.
But it shifted.
Just slightly.
“You knew what they were doing to him,” she said.
“I knew enough.”
Evelyn didn’t look away.
“And I stayed silent when I should have spoken.”
A beat.
“I owe you that.”
The words were simple. Unpolished.
Honest.
Evelyn leaned forward then, reaching across the table. Her hands closed over Freda’s, firm, steady, leaving no room for hesitation.
“I watched that law take everything from me,” she said. “And I did not fight.”
Freda didn’t pull away.
“I will not make that mistake again.”
Her grip tightened just slightly.
“Not for my son. Not for you.”
A breath.
“Not for that child.”
The words cost her something.
Freda felt it.
“Tell me what you need,” Evelyn said. “And I will do it.”
Freda held her gaze for a long moment.
Outside, a branch shifted in the wind.
From deeper in the cottage, Liam’s steady breathing carried faintly through the walls, soft, even, unaware.
Innocent.
“I need you to tell that story,” Freda said at last.
Her voice was quiet.
Steady.
“Exactly as you told it to me.”
A pause.
“In front of the council.”
Another beat.
“In front of the whole pack, if it comes to that.”
Evelyn didn’t hesitate.
“I know.”
Something in her expression settled.
“I have been preparing myself to do that for a very long time.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then…
“The council won’t let me finish it,” she added.
Freda’s gaze sharpened.
Evelyn held it.
“And if they try to silence me…”
Her voice didn’t waver.
“They will have to do it in front of everyone.”
A beat.
“And this time…”
Something colder moved beneath the calm.
“I won’t stay quiet.”