Chapter 33 33
Lena’s POV
“We figured you’d like the upgrade, Luna,” Maria said as she placed a plate of food in front of me that I didn’t order. "Lady Selena said the other timing was slowing down the pack too much.”
Lady Selena. Not “Selena” or “the visitor,” but “Lady Selena,” as if she had never ceased being their mistress.
“I see,” I said, looking at the beautifully cooked dish that was nothing like what I’d been eating all season. "And when did she say this?"
“Literally right now, when she was talking about weekly meal plans. She is so full of good ideas for things to do that would make us more efficient.”
The weekly menu planning. The job I’d been working on for months, hijacked while I slept.
"Thank you, Maria. This looks... lovely."
And yet, as I choked down food that other people had determined was best for me to eat, all I could think was how I felt myself gradually being erased from my own life. Every “improvement” made sense, streamlined the system for me, was no question superior to what I’d been doing. That made my annoyance seem small and unfounded.
The sensation only deepened when I went over to check on the household ledgers, and discovered there was an entry in them from Selena.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said when I found her in what used to be my study, its tables and ledgers and correspondence looming all around. "There were some issues that I quickly observed needed to be addressed.”
"issues?"
"Nothing serious. Some hiccups in the procurement contracts. You were overpaying for basic goods by almost twenty percent.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, educational. “It’s a natural assumption when you have no relationships with the merchants,” he said.
Twenty percent more. I peered at the meticulous spreadsheets she had drawn up, displaying to a tee how much money I had been burning in my rookie foolery.
“Ouch,” I said quietly when she released me.
"Of course not. Why would you? These connections are not made overnight. But luckily, most of my old contacts were willing to pick up where we had left off.”
Her old contacts. Her previous arrangements. The message was evident — she had the networks, experience, skills that I didn’t have, or come to easily.
“Thanks,” I managed to choke out. "I appreciate your help."
"Think nothing of it. I’m just happy I could stop any more of this needless spending.”
Stepping out from the study—my ex-study, that is—three pack members stood in the hallway, all three looking over when I approached them.
“Luna,” they greeted me formally, but there was something in the way they looked at me that sent my stomach into knots.
One of them made an exaggerated exhalation and announcement. “How splendid that Lady Selena has journeyed back to us!” “It feels like the old days, having somebody that really knows how things should be done.”
“The pack is feeling more stable already,” another said
They moved further on down the long passageway, but their voices were distinct in the silent stone.
“Poor girl does her best but she’s so young. So inexperienced."
“At least now she has some guidance. Lady Selena will remedy that.”
"Do you think she'll stay? It would be so healing for all of us.”
I was frozen in the hallway, hearing members of my own pack talk about me with a kind of idle sympathy. They weren’t deliberately cruel — if anything, they were attempting kindness. But their pity was worse than outright criticism would have been.
“You look troubled, dear,” Selena noted when she came and saw me in the garden that afternoon. "Is everything alright?"
“Just tired,” I lied, but the tiredness I was feeling ran far deeper than pregnancy exhaustion.
"May I sit?" She nodded to the bench I was sitting on and her eyes asked me if that would be all right with me.I sat down reluctantly.
We sat for a few seconds in companionable silence, observing the light of the late afternoon filtering through the trees. It should have been calm, but I tensed at every shuffle she made or time she cleared her throat.
"Lucien adored this garden," she had finally said, her voice all but nostalgic.” And so he’d come to this place when he needed a space for working through challenging decisions. I’d find him sitting right here sometimes, after hard pack meetings.”
"Did you?" I strove for a neutral tone, but knew there was a quaver beneath the words.
"Oh yes. He used to have this mannerism of running his hands through his hair when he was frustrated—you’ve probably seen him do it. She smiled with fond recollection. “I’d go in with a tray of tea and just sit silently until he decided to work his way through whatever it was.”
I had observed the hair-tugging habit, though I never did think to bring him tea. When I’d find him grieved, as was often the case, I would do my best to give advice or ask for details that could help me understand what he needed — what he wanted and how it might be delivered.
He said, “You’re the only one that could calm my mind down.”Selena added. “That no matter what happened out there, being here with me made the rest of the world seem sane.”
It was like a knife, each word cutting through the security I had believed was in my relationship. She was not saying this maliciously — her tone was wistful, almost sad. But the intimacy she described, their deep mutual understanding, made me feel as if I was an interloper in my own life.
"You knew him so well," I said, unable to keep the longing out of my own voice.
“You get a couple of centuries to figure somebody out,” she said.
I thought all the things I was still learning about Lucien, all those times that he would mention something in his past that I could not relate to or understand. Our mate could bond was strong, but it was fresh. Fresh. Still bringing the kind of history she talked about into existence.
“He used to have nightmares,” Selena answered softly. "Dreams of horrid memories of the wars he'd been through, people he had lost. I was the only person who could rouse him gently enough that he wouldn’t strike out, disoriented.”
Nightmares. Not once in all our months together had Lucien ever mentioned experiencing nightmares. Did he still have them? Was it because he’d only been concealing them, or was there some way I hadn’t managed to be the safe haven Selena had?
“I had this special touch on his forehead that would make him immediately peaceful,” she said. “Just a little pressure right here—” and she pointed to a place in her own temple. “He said it was like magic, the way it could always bring him back from whatever darkness haunted him.”
I attempted to imagine being that well-acquainted with someone — of knowing how best to comfort them so specifically and effectively. But each sample she offered convicted me of how little I knew about the man to whom I was being covenanted.
“Does he also talk in his sleep still?” she asked with a small laugh.
“Sometimes,” I admitted, though I had never been able to understand his whispers in the night.
She was compiling a dictionary of Lucien’s subconscious, casually imparting information that could have taken me years to glean on my own. And with each disclosure I felt smaller, more insignificant, less permanent in his life.
By that evening I was slinking away to the bedroom I shared with Lucien, unable to bear another discussion in which my lack of experience came out or another scenario in which Selena’s competence rendered me childish.
But still I couldn’t escape the whispers there.
"Do you suppose she'll so journ forever?" One of the Pups in training enquired as they walked past in the hallway outside.
"I hope so. They need that sort of experienced leadership in the pack.
“But what about the current Luna? Where does this leave her?"
"Well, she's carrying his heir. That gives her some security. But running things, actually... I mean, Lady Selena must know what she’s doing.”
I leaned my body against the door, heart pacing as I eavesdropped on their conversation about my future like I was already certainly not a part of this equation.
"Maybe they could share duties? Lady Selena oversees all the intricate, high-end political issues while the current Luna... Deals with home crap?”
Domestic concerns. As though I were ornamental, good only for producing heirs and that wasn’t even worth much anyway.
"That could work. It’s kind of an awkward spot to be in, with two women in those roles.”
"Not if they knew their jobs properly. Lady Selena as regent in rule, and the Luna as brood mistress."
Ceremonial consort. The words turned my blood into ice. Was that how people saw me? Not as Lucien's actual partner, but as a decorative bimbo who kept his bed toasty and birthed his kids, while his ex did the real work?
I was sitting at the window looking out into the garden, which was now sheened in darkness, as I realised that Lucien had finally come back to us and come back to our room.
“You’re silent tonight,” he noticed, his clothes coming off with the practiced nonchalance of someone who believes that they own themselves.
"Just thinking," I replied.
"About what?"
I wanted to tell him everything– that I was hearing whispers, that I felt displaced in my home, how Selena continually reminded me without saying a word of just how much she knew about him and how would never. But when I saw the weariness in his eyes, when I witnessed how much it was taking out of him to recover and take care of everyone else, I couldn't bear to press him on this.
"The baby," I said instead. “Just what kind of world we’re bringing him into.”
"Her," he corrected with a small smile, pulling up to the edge of the bed. “I just know that it’s going to be a girl.”
"What makes you think that?"
"Just a feeling. A hope, maybe. A little girl with your yellow hair and obstinate ways.”
He took one of my hands and I allowed him to help me up and pull me into his arms, inhaling his unique aroma. But even here, in this moment of intimacy, I could not shake the distant belief that I was transient. An agreeable interlude in a far longer, more complex tale.
"Lucien?" I murmured into his chest.
"Do you ever regret it? Choosing me?"
I sensed the muscles in his shoulders and arms stiffen, become taut at my embrace. "Why would you ask that?"
"Just... sometimes I wonder if you might be happier with someone with more experience. Someone who got your world more.”
"Lena." There was a threat in his voice. "Where is this coming from?"
But I couldn’t tell him the truth—that every day since Selena had come back, more and more, I’d felt like a mistake. As if he had bought it on a whim one night, when his blood ran hot, rather than presumed to make this kind of decision about how he wanted to spend the rest of his life.
“Pregnancy hormones,” I countered instead, with Selena’s own explanation. “They think something’s more emotional than it really is, in everything.
It appeared as if he did, because he kissed me on the top of my head. But somehow, there in the dark next to him, I couldn’t ignore the growing certainty that everyone—including maybe Lucien himself—would be better off if I simply disappeared.