Chosen
720 Words
Lena POV
Oh, my sweet darling Alpha.
I see Tristan standing on the other side of the room, how he bends backwards with the bluntness of the pack is a part of him--of his shoulders, his hands, his blood. The fire light throws the jagged lines of his face, the impressions on his skin that have not faded yet since my Luna ceremony. He is the way he is supposed to be.
Mine.
I smile before I reach him. I don’t rush. There’s no need. Because everyone in the Crest Lunar are aware of the winner.
I keep stopping at a distance near enough so that he can feel me first before turning up his eyes. His eyes open and look at mine with gentle. Not so much--Tristan does not hand over too much--but enough. Enough for me.
Oh, Oh, I say , with my fingers following along his arm, my sweet darling Alpha.
He snort laughs out his nose. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Enjoying?” I drop my head, inspecting him like a prize that is unwrapped. It is a pitiful little word to what I feel.
His lips are twisted, gradual and threatful. You did not hold back with Evelyn .
“Why would I?” I ask lightly. “Everyone was thinking it. I just said it out loud.”
I glance around the hall. The flags are still fluttering about and the pine branches are already starting to dry and twist. The air is filled with smoke and triumph and the smoke of constant, lingering defeat.
She’d stood right there.
I could see her still, with shut eyes, of she who is so stiff and pale in that crazy white cloak, so anxious to pass as belonging. Such as making a pretence could make it so.
Pathetic.
I nearly feel sorry about her, I say, and chuckle to show him that I do not. “Almost.”
Tristan’s gaze sharpens. “Don’t.”
I move nearer, my voice is lowering. “You did what had to be done. The pack had to have a clear view of it.
“They did,” he agrees. “No more pretending.”
I smile wider. “No more wolfless fantasies.”
Just a little his jaw tightens at the word. Not guilt—never that. Irritation. She had been inconvenient, and thus. It was that she had been too long too near power.
No, it was not an option; she was not an option, he says. “Nothing more than a favor.”
I hum, pleased. “Say it again.”
He gazes at me now, gazes at me indeed. I turned away on her account of her being wolfless. Nothing more.”
The words sink in me, comfortable and ideal.
There it is.
Not because of politics. Not because of pressure. Not because of timing.
Because she was nothing.
I touch his hands, and I interweave my fingers in them, as always it has been. Like it was inevitable. And That man next thee wanted a Luna in the pack. Not a person to whom her parents needed to give a support.
“They won’t question it,” he says.
They are not already, I say, and look around at the furthest parts of the hall whence the wolves are murmuring, with a glance at our direction. “They saw her break. That’s all it takes.”
I recall the noise of her cloak when I ripped it.
Soft. Satisfying.
I lean towards Tristan and whisper, just so that he is the only one who can hear. She had never known how this happened. It is not kindness and obedience that make power. It is a result of being irrefutable.
His thumb keeps touching my knuckles. “And you are.”
I smile, slow and certain.
“She’ll disappear,” I say. “They always do.”
The fire burns behind us, and spurts fly up, and the hall is now cozy, as though a tale were put to right, a misdeed wiped out.
I touch his hand and place it on my cheek, and possess it to the world, and would not be long watched.
However, she may, I murmur, remember it. “All that matters is this.”
And I tighten my grip.
Chosen.
- Writer
