Too Late, My Mates

The Fall

For a moment, I thought I was in the wrong room.

The bed was mine. The blue blanket was mine. The small candle on the nightstand was the one I lit every night after Kael fell asleep. But the woman sitting in the middle of it, wearing my husband's black shirt with her gold hair spilling over the pillows, was not mine at all.

"Wren," Kael said. He did not look guilty. He looked tired, like I was a problem he had hoped to avoid. "I was going to find you."

"What is this?"

"Isolde's room is too cold. The fire in the guest wing won't hold." He rubbed the back of his neck. "She was shaking. She's not been sleeping well since she came back."

"So you gave her our bed."

"It's only for tonight."

"Where do I sleep?"

His silence answered me before his words did. "The guest room on the second floor is ready. Tilly already moved your things."

I looked at the pillow I had slept on for three years. Then I looked at Isolde, who was staring at her hands, doing her best to seem small and sorry.

"I told him I could sleep on the floor," she whispered. "Please don't be angry with me, Wren. I didn't want to take anything from you."

I almost said it. I almost told her I knew exactly what she was. But the words stuck in my throat, because I could already hear how they would sound. A jealous wife. A bitter Luna. A woman who couldn't share.

"Fine," I said.

Kael frowned. He had expected a fight. I could see it in his face, and I could see something else too, a flicker of unease that he quickly smothered. "Wren..."

"It's fine, Kael. Goodnight."

I walked out before he could say anything else. Down the hall, I passed Dorian carrying a tray of tea and soft pastries, and Ronan right behind him with a fur blanket over his arm. They were heading straight for my bedroom.

"Luna," Dorian said awkwardly, and stopped.

I looked at the tray. It was the same tea he used to make me when I was sick. The same blanket Ronan had once wrapped around my shoulders during a winter storm.

"Don't let it get cold," I said, and kept walking.

The guest room was small and smelled of dust. I sat on the narrow bed for a long time, staring at the wall. I did not cry, because I was too tired. My stomach rolled with a strange, sour wave, the same one that had been coming and going for a week now. I pressed my hand against it and breathed slowly until it passed.

Stress, I told myself. It is only stress.

Wren, Sable said gently. Listen to your body.

I am listening. It says I need sleep.

My wolf was quiet, but I felt her watching me, waiting.

I lay down and closed my eyes. Through the thin wall, I could hear faint laughter from down the hall. Isolde's laugh, soft and sweet. Then Dorian's. Then, after a long moment, Kael's.

I had not heard Kael laugh in months.

By morning, the whole pack house was talking about it.

I came downstairs and heard the maids whispering by the kitchen. The Alpha gave her his own room. The Beta made her breakfast. Poor Luna, will they send her away? They went quiet the moment they saw me, and one girl would not stop staring at my stomach as if she knew something I did not.

I kept my head high and walked past them.

At the training yard, Ronan was running drills with the young warriors. Normally he waved when I appeared. Today he only nodded, quick and stiff, and went back to correcting a boy's stance. I stood by the fence waiting for him to say something, anything, about last night. He never did.

So I went to find Dorian. He was in the council room, bent over a pile of letters, and he straightened up too fast when I came in.

"Wren. I was going to come and see you."

"Were you?"

"Yes. I wanted to..." He stopped and ran a hand through his hair. "Look, I know yesterday was hard."

"Yesterday was hard," I agreed. "Today is not much better."

"Isolde is only trying to adjust. She's been through something terrible, I can see it in her. She flinches when someone raises their voice."

"And I don't?"

He blinked. "What?"

"When Kael raised his voice at me in the hall yesterday, did you notice?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it. I saw his eyes drop to the floor.

"Dorian," I said quietly. "I am not asking you to hate her. I am asking you to remember me."

"I do remember you."

"Then why does it feel like I am the one who left?"

He did not answer. A voice answered for him from the doorway.

"Am I interrupting?"

Isolde stood there in a pale blue dress, carrying a small silver tray. She smiled at both of us, bright as morning light. "I made honey biscuits. For Wren, actually. I wanted to apologize for last night."

I looked at the biscuits. They smelled perfect. Too perfect.

"That's kind of you," I said.

"I hope we can be friends." She stepped forward and held out the tray. "Please. Try one."

Dorian watched me. I could feel him waiting for me to be gracious, to be the Luna he wanted me to be. I took one biscuit and bit into it.

It was good. It was sweet and warm and buttery. It was also, I realized three bites later, the only thing that had stayed down in my stomach all morning.

"Thank you," I said, and for one strange second, I meant it.

Isolde's smile widened.

I should have known it was too easy.

It happened at noon. I was crossing the great hall, heading for the grand staircase, when I heard someone call my name from the top. I looked up and saw Isolde standing at the very edge of the landing, one hand on the carved wooden rail.

"Wren! Could you come up for a moment? I need help with something."

"What kind of help?"

"It's about Kael." She lowered her voice. "I think I have found something you should see."

I should not have gone. Sable warned me. Wren, no. But I was tired, and I was desperate, and some stupid part of me still wanted to believe that if I could just talk to her alone, I could make her stop.

So I climbed the stairs.

The hall was empty. Sunlight poured through the tall windows, turning the marble floor to gold. There were no maids, no guards, no warriors. Only the two of us, standing at the top of thirty stone steps.

"Where is it?" I asked. "What did you find?"

Isolde turned to face me. The sweetness was gone from her face. In its place was something calm, cold, and pleased.

"Nothing," she said. "I only wanted a witness."

"A witness for what?"

She smiled.

Then she stepped backward off the edge.

I screamed.

I lunged for her wrist, but she was already falling. Her white sleeves snapped through the air, her golden hair streaming. Her body struck the steps once, twice, three times, and rolled all the way down to the marble floor.

The sound of it echoed through the whole house.

For a second, I could not move. I stood frozen at the top of the stairs, staring down at her still body, at the bright red streak of blood across her forehead. My heart pounded so loudly I could barely hear the shouting that started below.

"ISOLDE!"

Kael came running from the east wing. Dorian from the council room. Ronan from the courtyard, still holding his training sword. They all reached her at the same time, and Kael dropped to his knees and gathered her into his arms like she was made of glass.

"Isolde," he said, shaking. "Isolde, open your eyes."

Her lashes fluttered. She gave a faint, broken whimper. Her gaze drifted past him, past Dorian, past Ronan, and up to the top of the stairs where I stood.

And she began to cry.

"She pushed me," Isolde whispered.

Everything in the world stopped.

"I only wanted to talk to her," she sobbed. "I asked her to forgive me. And she... she told me I should have stayed gone. She said I would never have them. And then she..."

"That's a lie!" My voice cracked. "I never touched her! She jumped!"

Three heads turned toward me, slowly. Kael first. Then Dorian. Then Ronan.

I had seen my mates angry before. I had seen them furious, ruthless, cold. But I had never seen them look at me like this, with eyes full of hatred and grief and something that looked terrifyingly like disgust.

"Wren," Kael said, and his voice was low and shaking. "Come down."

"Kael, listen to me. She set this up. She wanted..."

"COME DOWN."

His Alpha voice rolled through the hall like a command from the Moon itself. My knees buckled. My wolf cried out in protest, and my stomach twisted so hard I almost doubled over.

I gripped the rail and forced myself to take one step. Then another. Each one felt like walking toward a grave.

When I reached the bottom, Kael was already standing. He had handed Isolde to Dorian and was walking toward me, slow and steady, his dark green eyes colder than I had ever seen.

"Do you have anything to say?" he asked quietly.

"I did not push her."

"Do you swear it on the Moon?"

"I swear it."

"Then why is she bleeding?"

"Because she wanted you to think I did!"

He stared at me for a long, long moment. I held his gaze, my whole body shaking, praying that the man I had loved for three years would look at me and see the truth.

"Guards," Kael said.

My heart stopped.

Two warriors stepped forward. They did not look at me.

"Take the Luna to the lower cells," he said. "Until the council decides what to do with her."

I could not breathe. "Kael. You can't."

"I told you," he said, and his voice broke on the word. "I told you not to hurt her."

"I didn't!"

He turned his back to me.

Behind him, in Dorian's arms, Isolde lifted her head just a little. Her eyes found mine across the marble floor. And over the blood and the tears and the perfect, pitiful ruin of her face, I saw it again.

That small, cold smile.

Then the guards took hold of my arms, and I felt the first sharp, strange flutter low in my belly, as if something deep inside me had just woken up and was afraid.