Chapter 126 Celeste
Jolie POV
The after math wedding breakfast is exactly as uncomfortable as I expected.
Long table, formal place settings, twenty guests making polite conversation while servants pour coffee and deliver elaborately plated food. Everyone dressed in their finest, everyone playing their roles perfectly.
I sit between Ryder and Luna, Celeste directly across from me. She's wearing a cream-colored dress that is so expensive, her hair styled in intricate braids. She looks like a magazine cover model, perfect, polished and untouchable. And when she meets my eyes, I feel absolutely nothing from her.
It's not like reading someone who's hiding their emotions. That still has texture—the effort of concealment, the weight of what they're holding back. This is pure void. Like looking into a room where emotions should live and finding it completely empty.
"Luna Kane." Celeste's voice is pleasant, modulated perfectly for polite conversation. "I hope your accommodations were satisfactory."
"They were fine." I keep my own voice neutral. "Thank you for asking."
"Of course." She takes a delicate sip of tea. "Your father says you've had quite the journey since leaving Nightshade. Building a new pack, developing your divine abilities, destroying the Council. It is quite impressive."
The words are complimentary but delivery is hollow.
"I did what needed to be done." I spread jam on toast, watching her carefully. "The Council was corrupt, someone had to stop them."
"Corruption is subjective." She sets her teacup down with precise care. "What some call abuse, others call necessary discipline. What some call tyranny, others call effective leadership."
"And what do you call it?" I ask.
"I call it politics." She meets my eyes without flinching. "Power structures require maintenance. Sometimes that maintenance is unpleasant but necessity doesn't care about our feelings."
"No." I agree. "But feelings care about necessity. That's what makes us wolves instead of machines."
"Is there a meaningful difference?" Her head tilts in that mechanical way I noticed yesterday. "Both serve functions are operate according to programming, wolves are simply biological machines with delusions of free will."
Ryder's hand finds mine under the table, squeezing gently. I feel his concern through our bond.
"You don't believe in free will?" I keep my voice level.
"I believe in cause and effect." She cuts her food with care. "You were abused as a child, developed empathic abilities as a defense mechanism, and now use those abilities to recreate the safety you never had. Your father needed political advancement, arranged this marriage, and will benefit from the alliance. Everything follows logical patterns."
"That's a very cold way of looking at the world." Luna observes.
"Cold implies temperature." Celeste looks at her. "I'm simply accurate. Emotion clouds judgment and without it, I see things as they actually are rather than how people wish they were."
"And what do you see when you look at me?" I lean forward slightly. "What does your accurate vision tell you?"
She studies me for a long moment, those empty eyes cataloging details."I see a wolf who survived trauma and convinced herself that survival equals strength. Who developed unusual abilities and now believes those abilities make her special. Who attracts a powerful mate and mistakes his possession for love." Her voice never changes tone. "I see someone desperately trying to prove she has value after years of being told she doesn't."
The words should hurt. They're designed to hurt—precise strikes at every vulnerability I have. But I feel nothing from her. No malice, no satisfaction, no emotion at all. She's not trying to wound me. She's just stating what she perceives as facts. Which is somehow worse than cruelty.
"That's an interesting interpretation." I keep my hands steady. "Incomplete, but interesting."
"Oh?" For the first time, something flickers in her expression. Curiosity maybe. "How is it incomplete?"
"You missed the most important part." I hold her empty gaze. "I'm not trying to prove I have value. I know I have value. The people who love me showed me that, reflected it back until I could see it myself. That's what love does—it helps us see truths about ourselves that trauma tried to hide."
"Love is chemical bonding reinforced by social conditioning." She says it like she's reciting a textbook. "Oxytocin, dopamine, neural pathways formed through repeated positive stimulus. It's biology, not magic."
"Why can't it be both?" I ask gently.
She pauses, fork halfway to her mouth. "That's illogical. Things are either biological processes or mystical experiences they can't be both simultaneously."
"Why not?" I press. "Your heart beats because of electrical impulses, but that doesn't make it less miraculous that it keeps you alive. My divine power follows biological rules, but that doesn't make it less sacred. Love is chemical reactions that create something greater than the sum of its parts. Biology and magic."
"I don't understand." She sets her fork down, and for the first time, I see something in her eyes. Confusion. Genuine, human confusion. "How can something be mechanical and meaningful?"
"Because meaning isn't something external we discover." I lean forward. "It's something we create through connection. The chemicals in your brain when you see a sunset don't invalidate the beauty of the sunset. They're part of how you experience that beauty."
"But I don't experience beauty." Her voice is still flat, but something has shifted. "I observe colors arranged in patterns. I register that others call these patterns beautiful but I feel nothing."
"Is that because you can't feel?" I ask carefully. "Or because you were taught not to?"
She stares at me. For a long moment, the table conversation continues around us, but we're locked in this exchange.
"I was trained to recognize that emotions are weaknesses." She speaks slowly, like she's working through a complex problem. "That wolves who feel too much are vulnerable to manipulation. That empathy is a liability in strategic thinking."
"They lied to you." I keep my voice gentle. "Empathy isn't weakness. It's the thing that makes pack bonds strong, that lets us work together instead of just alongside each other. They didn't train you—they damaged you."
"Damage implies something broken." She tilts her head again. "I'm functioning exactly as designed."
"Designed by who?" I challenge. "You didn't choose this. They chose it for you when you were young. Took a child and systematically destroyed her capacity for connection. That's not training, thats abuse."
Something flickers across her face—too quick to identify, but it's there. A crack in the perfect mask.
"I don't remember being that child." Her hands are very still on the table. "I was told memories of emotional dependence would fade as I developed proper mental discipline. They were right."
"Or the ones who told you that stole those memories from you." I feel my empathy gift stirring, wanting to reach out to her. "Took away not just your ability to feel, but your memory of ever being able to feel. So you'd never know what you lost."