Chapter 34 34
Lucien’s POV
“The eastern patrol needs to be doubled for the next two weeks,” Selena was speaking, her finger sketching over one of a number routes etched onto a large map. "Intel indicates King Jubril's troops are still testing our defences.”
"Yes Lady Selena," Marcus said and made notes with respect. "Do we need to contact the southern pack as we have planned?"
"Already arranged.” She looked up and saw me standing in the doorway. "Lucien. Perfect timing. I was just wrapping up work on the security procedures you ordered me to implement.”
The security precautions I had requested but which due to my convalescence we had no time to organise adequately. That Selena had not only managed them but enhanced my plans with tactical suggestions I hadn’t thought of.
“Thanks,” I said, and meant it. “This is just what we needed.”
"Of course. I recall much the same thing happening in the territorial battles of the 15th century. They waylay strategies across the centuries.”
And as the pack members left with their duties, I couldn’t fail to see how they went—head up, skillful work hands and pleased that they got to work for someone who knew what she was doing. It was an unsettling contrast to the tentativeness that I'd seen from Lena when she had attempted to handle situations like these.
"Where is Lena?" I said, I hadn’t seen my mate at all that morning.
"Resting, I believe. It’s having a big impact on her energy levels.” Selena’s tone was cautiously neutral, yet something about the way she looked made me study her harder. “She attempted to engage on morning briefings but couldn’t quite get the message or focus, seemed over her head with all this detail,”
Overwhelmed. The word lodged uncomfortably in my chest, evoking associations I did not want to inspect too closely.
“She’s learning,” I said, defensively and more than I’d meant to.
"Of course she is. A few things are more discriminating than the others; these cannot easily be brought through." Selena snapped up her papers like the pro that she was. “I hope you don’t mind, but what with your being catatonic and all I figured it would be okay if I went ahead and dealt with the more urgent issues. I know how much getting things done means to you and that your people are everything."
Mind? I should be grateful. The safety of the pack could not afford to wait for Lena’s abilities to mature which could take years to manifest. Selena’s intervening had almost certainly averted disaster, perhaps saved lives.
So why was I acting as if I were betraying my mate by accepting her help?
"Lucien?" I heard Lena's voice call from the doorway and turned. She stood there in a simple dress, golden hair pulled back, somehow looking smaller than I remembered. "I was looking for you."
“I am here,” I said, going to her. "How are you feeling today?"
"Better, thank you. I thought we could look over the supply requests. I have spent years trying to streamline the process.”
Before I had the chance to reply, Selena had something to say. "Oh I have already done those, dear. There were some inefficiencies in their vendor relationships that demanded corrective action now. Hope you don’t mind—I know our sensitivity around not spending all the money we have unnecessarily during uncertain times.”
I studied Lena’s face, saw the slight tightening around her eyes, and the hand that moved to rest in the pit of her stomach.
"Of course," Lena said quietly. "That makes sense."
“So your instincts were right,” Selena said, sounding almost encouraging “You just would have seen those problems with a little bit more time in the saddle. These are things you just have to learn.”
The compliment should have made Lena seem proud. Instead, she seemed somehow subdued, as if every compliment only showed her deficiencies.
“I should leave you two to discuss pack business,” she said, already retreating. “I don’t want to be an obstacle to work that is important.”
“You aren’t interrupting,” I said, quickly. "This affects you too."
Yet as I said so, I could see the skepticism edging her brown eyes. The feeling of being an addendum, a conversation in which she should have been included as a matter of course.
After dinner that evening, in front of the cozy fire in our own chambers, Selena started sharing stories from our past like it was yesterday's news.
"You recollect that winter when we lay snowed up with all the eastern country for three months?" she asked with a laugh. “You were so confident that we could keep up patrols, you almost got half the pack killed in that blizzard.”
In spite of myself I was smiling at the memory. "I was young and stubborn."
"You were insufferable," she corrected, affectionately exasperated. "I had to threaten to tie you to the bed if you tried leading another patrol into it.
“You did strap me to the bed,” I pointed out. “With those silver manacles from the dungeon.”
“Because you wouldn’t see reason otherwise!” We were both laughing, by now wrapped up in a mutual memory that felt as immediate as if it had happened just yesterday. “And yet you still persuaded young Thomas to fetch the keys.”
"Thomas always was easily bribed."
“With the promise of extra rations and first pick of the spring hunting ground. You were shameless."
The easy banter, the inside references, the refreshing hail-fellow-well-met of our talk — it all seemed second nature, so unforced and real that for a few moments I forgot we were being watched.
Then I noticed Lena.
She’d been typing in her laptop computer, but she had stopped and was looking at our back-and-forth with a look I couldn't quite read on her face. It’s not anger per se, but something sadder. More resigned.
“That sounds like some trip,” she said after we had both stopped laughing, her voice carefully courteous.
"Oh, it was. Lucien’s always been too stupidly brave for his own good,” Selena said. “I spent half our relationship nursing him back to health after his various heroic urges got him injured.”
Our relationship. The words hung there in the air, and an embarrassed silence descended over us all—all of us united by the knowledge that nothing we could say would help restore that moment.
And Lena's not chopped liver when it comes to my protective instincts either," I said, attempting an olive branch. "Haven't you, love?"
“O.K! Of course,” she answered, but her smile didn’t make it to her eyes.
"It's a little different when you're pregnant, though, isn't it?" Selena observed thoughtfully. "More complicated. It’s just that the protective instincts become so much more acute when a child is involved.”t
"Did you...?" Lena began to press, then stopped herself.
"Did I what, dear?"
“Did you ever... were you and Lucien expecting...?"
The question caused a silence so deep that I could hear the sound of my own pulse. Selena’s face softened, as if wistful.
"Once," she said quietly. "Long ago. But supernatural pregnancies can get … complicated. “For some people, once they get home and can do a bit of eating and relaxation and not have to worry about those things, that feels really good to them — especially if there’s constant stress or always ongoing conflict.”
She didn’t say it in so many words, but the implication was obvious. She had lost a child, and I'd never told Lena that or spoken of it enough even centuries later.
“I’m sorry,” Lena murmured, resting her hand on the swell of her own belly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to strike a nerve there.”
"It's alright. It was a very long time ago." Selena's smile was gentle, understanding. I'm sure your will end up with a much happier outcome!!!! The situation’s so much more … stable all of a sudden.”
Three days later, the explosion finally came, caused by something so small I very nearly missed it entirely.
I had been going over reports in our bedroom when Selena knocked on the door.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but there’s a development on the southern border situation that requires your immediate attention.
She talked to me about the latest intelligence, idly pacing around the room with the professional comfort of someone who’d been through it time and again. Pulling the curtains back to make the light better, moving this chair so it looked out at a more pleasing angle on something else; straightening up little objects on the chest of drawers which had been left crowded together and untidy.
Little gestures, concrete improvements, just something any reasonable person would do. But to Lena, watching from the doorframe, they probably seemed like someone else declaring ownership over her space.
"Get out."
The words were not loud, but it had impact – both Lena and I flinched as we brought our faces to bear on Selena.
“I told you to leave,” she repeated, her voice strengthening. "This is my room, my space, and I want you out of it.”
“Lena,” I began, but she whipped around to glare viciously at me, brown eyes flashing.
“And all of you,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “You just let her roll in here like she’s the queen of the castle. Like I’m just some stop-gap measure you’re putting up with until she returns to her rightful place.”
“That’s not what’s going on,” I objected.
"Isn't it?" She laughed bitterly. "The last time you bothered asking me my thoughts about pack business? When was the last time you came to me for advice or comfort or like anything that actually mattered?”
"I knew it," Lena said, interpreting my silence accurately. "You've already decided, haven't you? She's back, so I'm unnecessary. She knows you more, understands your world, can give you what you truly want.”
"Lena, that's not true. I love you."
"Do you?" Her voice cracked with pain. “Or do you love the concept of who I am? The gorgeous young mate who adores you and never asks complicated questions about your past?”
The words hurt more than any punch every could. Because they contained truth, and a truth I hadn’t wanted to look too closely at.
"If that's all I am to you." she added with tears rolling down her face, trailing on her cheeks make their ways to the ground "Then maybe everyone would be better off if I did. Let yourself take back what is your ideal life, the way it was meant to be with who is supposed to actually fit in it.”
“Stop that,” I snapped, lunging toward her. "You carry my child. You are my mate."
“Your most recent mate,” she corrected with brutal precision. “And when the next young, pretty thing bewitches you, I’ll be another good memory that you share with your new uncover girl.”
Before I could react she made a 180 and stomped out of the room, leaving me there with Selena amidst the remains of a confrontation I should have predicted.
"I guess I'll leave," whispered Selena. "I never meant to come between you.
But as I watched sweet, competent, familiar Selena who made everything in my life roll so much more smoothly than it had ever before until frighteningly recently, at all of her glorious life and why she became caught in my head like that — I knew the problem wasn’t hers.
The issue, if ever there was one, was that I’d been too cowardly to make the only choice left to be made. And now, my indecisiveness may have cost me the future I’d actually wanted.