Chapter 35: A Suitable Luna

Lady Seraphine requested a private audience with the Alpha before lunch.

Olivia found out because she was the one who delivered the message.

The note had been handed to her by one of Seraphine's attendants in the corridor – a girl younger than Olivia who could not quite meet her eyes when she passed it over. Olivia had taken it without comment, knocked on Josh's study door, and slid it across his desk.

He had read it. Said nothing. Folded it once and set it down.

"Tell her I will receive her at midday," he said.

"Yes, your majesty."

Olivia left.

She did not think about it.

She had duties. The chambers needed airing. His afternoon correspondence needed sorting. There was a loose thread on the curtain in the east window that had been bothering her for three days and she intended to fix it today.

She did not think about it.

++++

Lady Seraphine arrived at the study precisely at midday.

Olivia was in the adjoining corridor fixing the curtain when she heard the door open and close.

She kept her hands on the curtain.

She could not hear the words. The door was solid oak and the walls of the Dark Howlers palace were not built for eavesdropping. But she could hear the rhythm of the conversation. Seraphine's voice was low and melodic and very composed. Josh's was shorter. Quieter. The kind of quiet that was not agreement but was not refusal either.

Olivia focused on the curtain.

The thread came loose in her fingers and she wound it carefully and began to stitch it back with the small kit Jean had given her on her first week.

Inside the study, Seraphine's voice rose slightly. Not in anger. In the particular warmth of someone making a case they had rehearsed and believed in.

Olivia's needle slipped.

She steadied her hand.

Her wolf had gone very quiet in her chest. Not the comfortable quiet of earlier. Something different. The way a room went quiet when the temperature dropped.

She finished the stitch. Tied it off. Smoothed the curtain flat with her palm.

The study door opened.

Seraphine stepped out into the corridor. She saw Olivia immediately and for just a moment something crossed her face – surprise, and underneath it, something sharper. Then the pleasant smile returned, smooth as water closing over a stone.

"Still working," Seraphine said lightly. "How dedicated."

Olivia said nothing. She gathered her sewing kit and gave a small bow.

"You know," Seraphine said, as though the thought had just occurred to her, "it must be strange. Being so close to a man like the Alpha every day." She tilted her head. "Dressing him. Serving his meals. All that – intimacy." The word landed deliberately. "And knowing it means nothing beyond the job."

Olivia looked at her.

"I find my duties very straightforward, my Lady," she said.

Seraphine smiled. "Good. That is exactly what they should be."

She walked away down the corridor. Her attendant fell into step behind her.

Olivia stood with her sewing kit in her hands and looked at the curtain she had just fixed.

Her wolf was so still it felt like holding her breath.

She did not know what had been said in that study. She did not know what Josh had answered. She only knew that Lady Seraphine had walked out of there looking like a woman who had planted a seed and was fully prepared to wait for it to grow.

++++

Josh was still at his desk when Olivia came to collect his lunch order.

She knocked. Entered. Stood at the appropriate distance and waited.

He looked up at her. Something moved across his face that she could not read.

"What would you like for lunch, your majesty?" she asked.

"Whatever the chefs have prepared."

"Yes, your majesty."

She turned to leave.

"Olivia."

She stopped.

She turned back.

He was looking at her steadily. The same way he had looked at her last night by the broken fountain. Like he was deciding something.

"Lady Seraphine's father has proposed an alliance," he said. "The terms include a formal pairing."

The corridor outside was very quiet.

Olivia kept her face exactly where it was.

"I see, your majesty," she said.

"I have not agreed to anything," he said.

She nodded once. "Will there be anything else, your majesty?"

"No."

She left.

She walked down the corridor at the same pace she always walked. She went to the kitchen. She gave the chefs his lunch order. She stood by the window while they prepared it and looked out at the garden below.

Her wolf was still quiet.

But Olivia's chest ached in a way she did not have a word for yet.

She had said yes last night by a broken fountain. She had meant it with everything she had.

But she was still an omega. Still a servant. Still a girl with no pack, no bloodline, no name that meant anything to anyone in this world.

And Lady Seraphine was none of those things.

I have not agreed to anything, he had said.

She turned that over in her mind.

He had not agreed.

But he had not refused either.