3. Because I Was Useful
1301 Words
By mid-morning, the house no longer felt like mine.
I packed before dawn with the bond agreement sealed in my bag and my ring locked away with it. I took clothes, medical notes, Lily’s drawings, and the small box of herbs I could not risk leaving behind. Everything else could rot behind Onyx’s black gates for all I cared.
I carried the last suitcase down the stairs and stopped in the open doorway.
The rest of my luggage had been thrown across the front lawn.
One bag lay open in the wet grass with my clothes spilling out. Another sat upside down near the walkway. A pair of pack warriors hauled a velvet settee through the front gate while two more carried a stack of white furniture wrapped in plastic and gold ribbons. Boxes marked with Mona’s name lined the drive like someone had prepared a welcome parade.
Selena Voss stood in the middle of it all with her phone in one hand and a smug little smile on her face.
Seventeen years old, spoiled by rank, and cruel in the easy way of girls who had never been forced to pay for a single word they threw.
She saw me and lifted her chin. “Move your stuff. We’re making room for someone who actually belongs here.”
A warrior froze with one of my sweaters in his hand.
I looked at the furniture. It was expensive. Too expensive for Selena to have ordered alone. Cream velvet. Carved wood. A vanity mirror framed in gold. Mona’s taste was exactly what I expected from her. Pretty, fragile, and designed to make everyone else carry it.
I let two seconds pass. Then I pointed at the movers. “Take it all. Split it between yourselves. It’s yours.”
The nearest warrior blinked. “Doctor Dray?”
“You heard me.”
One of the movers looked at Selena.
Selena’s smile vanished. “You can’t do that.”
I picked up my wet sweater from the grass and wrung water from it. “It is on my lawn.”
“This is my brother’s house.”
“Then your brother can explain to Mona why he let her furniture get stolen before lunch.”
The movers did not need more encouragement. One grabbed the gold mirror. Another took the wrapped chairs. The warriors hesitated until I looked at them, then two of them stepped aside with the good sense to become very interested in the driveway.
Selena lunged toward the mirror. “Stop. All of you stop.”
No one stopped.
I crossed the lawn and closed my suitcase. My cheek still ached. My body still remembered Onyx’s mouth against mine, and I hated that memory enough to make the zipper bite when I yanked it shut.
Selena planted herself in front of me. “You think this makes you look powerful?”
“No.” I lifted the suitcase. “I don’t care about looking powerful. I know I am.”
Her face turned red. “Mona is going to be Luna. You were just the healer Grandmother let stay too long.”
I set the suitcase down.
The warriors nearby pretended not to listen. Useless creatures. Every last one of them could hear a mouse breathe at the border, but now they had all discovered selective hearing. Convenient. Almost inspiring, if cowardice needed a mascot.
I stepped closer to Selena. “If you keep making a scene, I will make one too.”
She scoffed. “About what?”
“About Mona showing up pregnant when Leo has been paralyzed for five months. About her refusing blood work the second I noticed the dates were wrong. About your family trying to move her into this house with Alpha Onyx.”
Selena’s color drained.
I lowered my voice. “I wonder how your school friends would tell that story. They are creative girls. I am sure they would choose the ugliest version possible.”
Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.
“Move.”
She moved.
I carried my suitcase to the small car I had parked near the side gate and loaded it with the rest of what I could salvage.
A black sedan pulled through the gate before I shut the trunk.
Joanna Voss stepped out in a cream coat that had no business near wet grass. Onyx’s mother never hurried. She walked like the ground owed her obedience. Selena ran to her at once, whispering fast enough to look guilty.
Joanna listened, then turned to me. “Ember.”
I closed the trunk. “Joanna.”
She looked at the scattered luggage, the departing movers, and the empty place where Mona’s furniture had been. “You have embarrassed this family enough.”
“This family has handled that without my help.”
An omega near the door lowered her eyes. Smart woman. I almost envied her survival instincts.
Joanna sneered. “Mona suffered a terrible shock last night. You will prepare the calming herbal soup she needs and send it to her room before noon.”
I stared at her.
For seven years, I had cooked when Mara’s hands hurt. I had stitched warriors at the kitchen table because the clinic was full. I had brewed Joanna’s sleeping tea during her grief season after Onyx’s father died. I had checked Selena’s fevers, Leo’s nerves, Onyx’s wounds, and every servant too afraid to visit the clinic without permission.
I had run the medical life of this pack. Not because I was Luna. Because I was useful.
Mona had been the one they groomed for the chair beside Onyx. Mona had been the one they pictured under the public moon. Mona had been the woman with space already waiting in the house I had decorated, slept in, cleaned, and haunted for seven years.
I had never been mistress of this home.
I had been staff with a marriage certificate.
Joanna snapped her fingers once. “Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Then go prepare it.”
I smiled.
Joanna went still.
“If she cannot survive without my soup, she might as well die.”
Selena gasped. A warrior turned away. The omega looked like she might drop dead from the pleasure of hearing it.
Joanna's entire body went stiff. “You forget yourself.”
“No.” I picked up my keys. “I finally remembered.”
I left before she could order anyone to stop me.
The bar near the border opened early for night patrol and bad decisions. Harlow was already in the back booth when I arrived, black hair tied crookedly and two coffees in front of her. She took one look at my face and stood so fast the table rocked. “Who?”
I slid into the booth. “Pick a Voss.”
She sat slowly. “Tell me everything.”
So I did. The clinic. Mona. The pregnancy. Onyx ordering me out. The bond agreement. The house. Selena. Joanna. The soup.
By the time I finished, Harlow had both hands flat on the table.
“She did WHAT in your emergency room?”
“She slapped me.”
“And Onyx?”
“Carried her out.”
Harlow stared at me like she wanted permission to commit a felony. “We are taking Lily. Today.”
“Not yet. I need the documents secured first.”
“Emme.”
“I know.” I wrapped both hands around the coffee. “But if I run wrong, he can come after her. If I leave clean, he loses us both.”
A cold sneer came from behind me. “Touching. Planning treason over cheap coffee now?”
Harlow looked over my shoulder.
I did not have to turn. I already knew that voice.
- Writer
