The ugly Luna

His demands

*Fennec*

"I thought I would be able to replace it in a matter of weeks," my father says, the color leaving his cheeks suddenly so that he looks positively used up.

My legs feel so weak that I have to lean against the door. "How much of her fortune is gone?"

"Enough." He drops his eyes, at last showing some sign of shame. "If she marries anyone else, I'll... I'll face trial. I don't know if they can put Alpha princes in the dock. The House of Alphas, I suppose. But it won't be pretty."

"Oh, they can put an Alpha prince on trial, all right," I say heavily. "You embezzled the dowry of a she-wolf entrusted to your care since the time she was a mere infant. Her mother was married to your dearest friend. Svane asked you on his deathbed to care for his daughter."

"And I did," he replies, but without his usual bluster. "Brought her up as my own."

"You brought her up as my sister," I say flatly. I force myself to cross the room and sit down. "And all the time you were stealing from her."

"Not all the time," he protests. "Just in the last year. Or so. The majority of her fortune is in funds, and I couldn't touch that. I just... I just borrowed from... well, I just borrowed some. I'm deuced unlucky, and that's a fact. I was absolutely sure it wouldn't come to this."

"Unlucky?" I repeat, my voice liquid with disgust.

"Now the girl is getting a proposal or two, I don't have the time to make it up. You've got to take her. It's not just that the estate and this townhouse will have to go; after the scandal, the name won't be worth anything, either. Even if I pay off what I borrowed from her by selling the estate, the whole wouldn't cover my debts."

I don't reply. The only words going through my head are flatly blasphemous.

"It was easier when your mother was alive," he says, after a minute or two. "She helped, you know. She had a level head on her shoulders."

I can't bring myself to answer that, either. My mother died nine years ago, so in under a decade my father has managed to impoverish an estate stretching from Scotland to Staffordshire to London. And he has embezzled Poppy's fortune.

"You'll make her love you," he says encouragingly, dropping into a chair opposite me. "She already adores you; she always has. We've been lucky so far in that poor Pollyanna is as ugly as a stick. The only men who've asked for her hand have been such obvious fortune hunters that her mother wouldn't even consider them. But that'll change as the mating season wears on. She's a taking little piece, once you get to know her."

I grind my teeth. "She will never love me in that way. She thinks of me as her brother, as her friend. And she has no resemblance whatsoever to a stick."

"Don’t be a fool. You’ve got my profile." A glimmer of vanity underscores his words. "Your mother always said that I was the most handsome man of my generation."

I bite back a remark that would do nothing to help the situation. An overwhelming wave of nausea hits me. "We could tell Poppy what happened. What you did. She’ll understand."

He snorts. "Do you think her mother will understand? My old friend Svane didn’t know what he was getting into when he married that she-wolf. She’s a termagant, a positive tartar."

In the seventeen years since Mrs. Svane and her infant daughter joined our household, she and my father have managed to maintain sufficiently cordial relations… primarily because my father has never thrown anything in the widow’s direction. But I know instantly that my father is right. If Poppy’s mother gets even a hint that her daughter’s guardian misappropriated her inheritance, a fleet of solicitors would be battering on the town house door before evening falls. The thought drives bile into my throat.

On the other hand, my father is cheering up. He has the sort of mind that flits from one subject to another; his rages are ferocious but short-lived. "A few posies, maybe a poem, and Pollyanna will fall into your hand as sweetly as a ripe plum. After all, it’s not as if the girl gets much flattery. Tell her she’s beautiful, and she’ll be at your feet."

"I cannot do that," I state, not even bothering to imagine myself saying such a thing. It isn’t a matter of not wishing to spout such inanities to Poppy herself; I loathe situations where I find myself fumbling with language and stumbling around the ballroom. The mating season is three weeks old, but I haven’t attended a single ball.

He misinterprets my refusal. "Of course, you’ll have to lie about it, but that’s the kind of lie a gentleman can’t avoid. She may not be the prettiest thing on the market… and certainly not as delectable as that opera dancer I saw you with the other night… but it wouldn’t get you anywhere to point out the truth." He actually gives a little chuckle at the thought.

I hear him only dimly; I’m concentrating on not throwing up as I try to think through the dilemma before me.

The Alpha prince continues, amusing himself by laying out the distinction between mistresses and mates. "In compensation, you can keep a mistress who’s twice as beautiful as your mate. It’ll provide an interesting contrast."

It occurs to me, not for the first time, that there is no one in the world I loathe as much as my father. "If I marry Poppy, I will not take a mistress," I say, still thinking frantically, trying to come up with a way out. "I would never do that to her."

"Well, I expect you’ll change your mind about that after a few years of marriage, but to each his own." His voice is as strong and cheerful as ever. "Well? Not much to think about, is there? It’s bad luck and all that rot, but I can’t see that either of us has much choice about it. The good thing is that a man can always perform in the bedroom, even if he doesn’t want to."

The only thing I want at that moment is to get out of the room, away from my disgusting excuse for a parent. But I have lost the battle, and I force myself to lay out the rules for surrender. "I will only do this on one condition." My voice sounds unfamiliar to my own ears, as if a stranger speaks the words.

"Anything, my boy, anything! I know I’m asking for a sacrifice. As I said, we can admit amongst ourselves that little Pollyanna is not the beauty of the bunch."

"The day I marry her, you sign the entire pack over to me… the Staffordshire house and its lands, this town house, the island in Scotland."

His mouth falls open. "What?"

“The entire pack,” I repeat. “I will pay you an allowance, and no one needs to know except for the solicitors. You can keep your title, but I will not be responsible for you and your harebrained schemes. I will never again take responsibility for any debts you might incur… nor for any theft. The next time around, you’ll go to prison.”

“That’s absurd,” my father splutters. “I couldn’t… you couldn’t possibly… no!”

“Then make your good-byes to Staffordshire,” I say. “You might want to pay a special visit to my mother’s grave, if you’re so certain she would have been distressed at the sale of the house, let alone the churchyard.”

He opens his mouth, but I raise a hand.

“If I were to let you keep the pack, you’d fling Poppy’s inheritance after that which you’ve already lost. There would be nothing left within two years, and I will have betrayed my closest friend for no reason.”

“Your closest friend, eh?” he is instantly diverted into another train of thought. “I’ve never had a she-wolf as a friend, but Pollyanna looks like a man, of course, and…”

“Father!”

The Alpha prince harrumphs. “Can’t say I like the way you’ve taken to interrupting me. I suppose if I agree to this ridiculous scheme of yours I can expect to look forward to daily humiliation.”

It is an implicit concession.

“You see,” he says, a smile spreading across his face now that the conversation is over, “it all came well. Your mother always said that, you know. ‘All’s well that ends well.’ ”

I can’t stop myself from asking one more thing, though, the Goddess knows, I already know the answer. “Don’t you care in the least about what you’re doing to me… and to Poppy?”

A hint of red creeps back into his cheeks. “The girl couldn’t do better than to marry you!”

“Poppy will marry me believing that I’m in love with her, and I’m not. She deserves to be wooed and genuinely adored by her mate.”

“Love and marriage shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath,” he says dismissively. But his eyes slide away from mine.

“And you’ve done the same to me. Love and marriage may not come together all that often, but I will have no chance at all. What’s more, I will begin my marriage with a lie that will destroy it if Poppy ever finds out. Do you realize that? If she learns that I betrayed her in such a callous way... not only my marriage, but our friendship, will be over.”

“If you really think she’ll fly into a temper, you’d better get an heir on her in the first few months,” he says with the air of someone offering practical advice. “A she-wolf scorned, and all that. If she’s disgruntled enough, I suppose she might run off with another man. But if you already have an heir… and a spare, if you can… you could let her go.”

“My mate will never run off with another man.” That growls out of my chest from a place I didn’t even know existed.

He heaves himself out of his chair. “You as much as called me a fool; well, I’ll do the same for you. No man in his right mind thinks that marriage is a matter of billing and cooing. Your mother and I were married for the right reasons, to do with pack obligations and financial negotiations. We did what was necessary to have you and left it there. Your mother couldn’t face the effort needed for a spare, but we didn’t waste any tears over it. You were always a healthy boy.” Then he adds, “Barring that time you almost went blind, of course. We would have tried for another, if worse came to worst.”

I push myself to my feet, hearing my father’s voice dimly through a tangle of hideous thoughts that I can’t bring myself to spit out.

“Neither of us raised you to have such rubbishing romantic views,” the Alpha prince tosses over his shoulder as he leaves the room.

Having reached the age of nineteen years, I had thought I understood my place in life. I’d learned the most important lessons: how to ride a horse, hold my liquor, and defend myself in a fight.

No one had ever taught me… and I had never imagined the necessity of learning… how to betray the one person whom I truly cared for in life. The only person who genuinely loved me. How to break that person’s heart, whether it be tomorrow, or five years, or ten years in the future.

Because Poppy will learn the truth someday. I know it with a bone-deep certainty: somehow, she will discover that I had pretended to fall in love so that she would marry me... and she will never forgive me.