A Luna for the Lycan King

For two months I thought the pain was grief. I lost my pup in the spring, and everyone told me this was what that did to a shifter’s body. My mate told me, sitting on the edge of my bed, holding my hand while I cried into his shoulder. He knew exactly what it was. He had known the whole time. But I only found out an hour before the Lycan King’s army crossed our border. *** “Luna!” Bastian came through the front doors at a run, and the sight of it put my hand on the railing. Bastian didn’t run. He was my mate’s beta, and in all the time I had lived in this house I had never once seen the man move faster than a walk. “A messenger from the Lycan Kingdom.” He was out of breath, which was another thing he never was. “Luna, it’s bad.” He held the letter out. My eyes landed on the seal and I read over the words over and over. My brain refused to keep the words in order. Alfred, Alpha of the Quartz Pack, was summoned to the Lycan Kingdom to answer for assaulting a royal officer. The party last week. The one he took Ivy to instead of me. He had come home drunk and pleased with himself and told me it went well. “He has until noon,” Bastian said quietly. “If he doesn’t turn himself in, they come by force. The messenger said they would make an example of the pack.” Make an example. Two words for burning down everything I had. “Where is he?” “That’s the thing, Luna. Nobody has seen him since breakfast.” The office was empty. It looked as if it hadn’t been used all day. Which was odd, because he told me he would be in the office most of the day. I checked the training yard. I checked the garage. By the time I got back inside I was moving as fast as my body would allow, one hand pressed flat under my ribs where the pain was attacking in waves again. The east hall smelled like her. Ivy. My mate’s stepsister. She had arrived in the spring with three suitcases and no money, and somehow, in two months, she had gotten her perfume into every room in this house. Alfred told me the previous alpha sent her away for draining their accounts. He told it like it was a funny story about a girl who liked nice things. Then he started writing her checks. I have kept the books for the Quartz Pack since the day I came here, so I know exactly how much money left this pack in eight weeks. I know the exact nights he signed for it. I stopped outside our bedroom door. I have gone over this part more times than I can count, so I am going to be honest about it. I heard them before I opened it. I stood there with my hand flat on the wood and I heard my mate’s voice, and I heard hers, and I still told myself there was going to be an explanation waiting on the other side. Then I opened the door. Ivy saw me first. She didn’t scramble. She didn’t even pull the sheet up. She looked at me over my mate’s shoulder, and she smiled. And the pain hit again. The way it had been coming, burning … tearing, and this time I finally realized the cause of it, my body understood before my mind could catch up. Every shifter knew this. When your mate is unfaithful, you feel it. It isn’t a metaphor and it isn’t heartache. It is your body telling you that the bond has been betrayed. I was such a fool. I had been feeling my mate cheat on me for two months, and I had been calling it grief for my baby. Then the second thing landed, and it was worse than the first. I lost my pup eight weeks ago. Ivy arrived nine. He knew. He knew the reason and let me believe it was just my body. A mate who cheats can cost the female her pregnancy, and Alfred knew that, and he did it anyway, and then he sat at my bedside afterward and held my hand while I grieved a child he had killed. HE KILLED OUR BABY! I don’t remember crossing the room. I remember Alfred scrambling backward off the bed with the sheet twisted around his waist, saying my name, saying it wasn’t what it looked like, which is the stupidest sentence in any language. It wasn’t what it looked like?! He had his d**k in his stepsister. There is no other way around it. “Two months.” My voice came out in a cold whisper, and that scared me more than screaming would have. “Two months, Alfred.” “Lissa—” “Our baby.” I got that much out, and then I lost the flatness and everything else with it. “You knew what it would do. You knew, and you did it anyway, and you sat with me. You held my hand.” He had nothing. He stood there in the middle of my bedroom with his mouth open and nothing behind it. So I threw the letter at his chest. “The Lycan King has summoned you. You have until noon to turn yourself in and answer for what you did at that party, and if you don’t, they come here. They come for the pack. Get dressed. Get in the car. Go.” “You don’t understand what they do to people in that kingdom.” He wouldn’t look at me. “Lissa, if I go there, I’m not coming back.” Did he think I would care about that? Good. I hope he didn’t come back. “Then you should have thought about that before you put your hands on a royal officer.” I was so angry I was shaking. I was so blinded by my rage that I did not notice Ivy get up. I saw her stand. I thought she was getting dressed. Something punched into my back, just below the shoulder blade. It wasn’t even a hard hit. It was almost gentle. Then the cold spread out from it, and my legs stopped belonging to me. I went down. I never felt the floor. I couldn’t move. My arms wouldn’t answer. My legs wouldn’t answer. I reached for the pack link to scream for help and hit a wall where the link should have been. All I could do was lie there on my own bedroom floor and listen. “Quickly, Al. Get the cards and money. We have to leave,” Ivy said, and I heard drawers opening. Then Alfred knelt down in front of me. I could see his knees and his bare feet and nothing else. “Ivy, what did you do to her?” There was a growl in it. There was, and I hate that I heard it, because for one second I thought it meant something. “She’ll be fine. She is paralyzed. This is perfect. She will have to take responsibility for your actions as your luna. We have to leave, or who knows what they will do to you.”