The Discarded Luna

Kade's heir

I got there first.

I don't remember the greenhouse door or the forty yards of frozen lawn. I remember Tobin at the foot of the terrace steps in his blue pyjamas with his arm bent the wrong way and blood in his hair, and the stone balustrade above him with one baluster missing, and nobody else in the garden.

I went down on my knees in the gravel and got my hands on him.

"Shh. Shh, love, I've got you, don't move."

He screamed and screamed. Two years old. He'd been born in this house with me holding Sera's hand.

And my palms went warm.

Warm, and then bright, and I watched a thin thread of silver run down from my fingers into that broken little arm, and I heard the bone move, and Tobin's screaming stopped like a tap turning off.

He hiccupped. He blinked up at me with Rowan's dark eyes.

"Ellie," he said, wetly. "I falled."

"You did." My voice came out in pieces. "You're all right. You're all right."

I looked at my hands. Ordinary. Filthy with gravel. The light was gone as if it had never been.

I looked up.

Rhydian stood ten feet away at the edge of the lawn, absolutely still, and the expression on his face was not surprise.

It was recognition.

Then the terrace doors crashed open.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?"

Sera reached us at a dead run and tore Tobin out of my arms so hard my sleeve ripped. Half the household spilled out behind her, kitchen staff, warriors, Vashti in her dressing gown and Kade came through them like weather.

"He fell," I said. "The baluster's loose, look at the rail."

"You were alone with him." Sera's voice climbed. She was crying already, beautifully, the way she did. "I looked out and you were on the lawn with him, Elara, and he was screaming."

"I was in the greenhouse. I heard him and I ran."

"With him?" Kade's head came around and found Rhydian standing at the tree line with dirt on his hands. Something ugly happened in my mate's face. "You were in the greenhouse. With the Alpha King. At dawn. While a two-year-old walked out onto a terrace nobody was watching."

"I don't watch him at night," I said. "You moved him into the wing where I'm not allowed."

It came out flat and it landed like a slap.

Kade's jaw flexed. Two dozen wolves stood in the frost watching their Alpha and the woman with his mark on her throat, and I saw him do the arithmetic he always did — what's cheapest, what's quietest, who will forgive me faster.

"Go inside, Elara," he said. "You've done enough."

Three years I had swallowed that sentence in one form or another.

This time my hands started to burn.

I put them behind my back, turned around, and walked into the house, and I didn't look at Sera, because if I had looked at Sera I think something would have happened that couldn't be undone in front of witnesses.

Nobody looked at the loose baluster.

Nobody asked how a two-year-old had gotten out of a latched nursery door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The treaty table sat that afternoon in the war room, and I brought the wine, because that is what I fetch.

Maps. Nine miles of the Ridge. Kade's voice, tight; Dorian's, placating; Northern captains with their boots on our floor.

And then Rhydian, leaning back, saying lazily:

"Terms are acceptable. With surety."

Kade's pen stopped. "What surety."

"A Blackthorn envoy at my court for thirty days. Standard. My grandfather did it, your grandfather did it." Rhydian turned the map around with one finger. "I'll take the Luna."

The room made a noise.

"Seraphine has a small child," Kade said carefully.

"Did I say Seraphine?" Rhydian's pale eyes came up, and every ounce of laziness went out of them. "I said the Luna. The woman wearing your mark. Elara."

"Absolutely not."

"Mm." Rhydian tapped the map. "Then let's discuss the roses."

Silence.

"There's a six-foot arc of dead soil on your east wall," he said pleasantly. "There's a healer in your stillroom who won't sleep. And there's a woman in this house who's been drinking hemlock out of a teacup every night for three years while her Alpha explains to her that he's been busy." He stood, and he was suddenly enormous. "I can raise that in open council with your elders present, Ashborne, or you can sign the surety and I can leave in three days with a guest. Choose."

Kade did not look at me. He looked at the map for a long time.

Then he said, "I'll consider it," which is what he always says, and I set the wine down and walked out before I said something I'd have to live in.

Rhydian found me on the back stair an hour later. He didn't crowd me. He sat two steps down, which put our eyes level, and said nothing for a while.

"You did that to force his hand," I said.

"I did that to open a door." He rested his forearms on his knees. "Elara. I'm not going to drag you north. If you say no, I'll sign the treaty anyway, I'll go home, and you'll never see me again."

"Then why."

"Because I want you to say no for the right reason." His voice dropped. "Say no because you love him and you're staying. Fine. That's a woman making a choice. But don't say no because you've been made so small you can't imagine a door." He stood up. "Thirty days. A room with a lock. Food nobody's touched. And I'd tell you every true thing I know about what you are."

He went up past me and stopped.

"For what it's worth," he said, "you healed that pup in nine seconds. It would've taken my court physician nine weeks." A beat. "Nobody said thank you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I went to my mate that night.

He was in his study with the lamp low and I stood in front of his desk and I said, "Kade. Look at me."

He looked up, tired, and for a second he was nineteen again on the ridge with grass in his hair.

"I've waited," I said. "Three years, four months, thirteen days. I've run this house, I've buried your dead, I've told your pack you were grieving when you couldn't come out of this room. I have never once asked you for anything." My voice shook and I let it. "I'm asking now. Take the stone off her neck. Put me back in my room. Tell them what I am to you. Tonight."

Kade rubbed his face with both hands.

"Sera's fragile right now," he said. "The pup's had a fright. Just be patient a little longer. You're so good at that." He reached for a paper. "That's what I love about you, Sera."

The lamp hummed.

He didn't hear it. That's the part I want you to understand. He wrote two more lines and he never heard himself say it.

I stood there until I could move, and then I left.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't know why I went by the nursery. Habit, maybe. I'd walked that corridor every night for three years listening for a child who wasn't mine.

The door was open two inches. The lamp was on. And Kade's voice, low, said:

"he's Rowan's son, Sera. That's the whole point. That's why I owe him everything."

"Stop it." Sera's voice, and it wasn't soft at all. It was hard and shaking and I had never heard it before in my life. "Stop saying that. I can't hear it one more time."

"Sera."

"He was never Rowan's."

The corridor

went very quiet.

"Look at his eyes, Kade," she said. "Look at his eyes and count backwards, and stop calling him your brother's. He's yours."