Chapter 2
687 Words
"Elara, don't be like this." Kael pulled back his Alpha pressure. His warm lips grazed my ear. "Just be a good Luna for me. I'll always keep this seat for you."
That was it. No other explanation. He grabbed his coat and walked out the door.
The second the door closed, I dropped into the soft chair, gasping for breath. The seventh anniversary candle was still burning on the table. A gust of wind came through, and the flame thrashed violently, on the verge of going out.
Buzz.
My phone vibrated. There were messages from the spy I had quietly put on the trail.
Spy: Faye, 23 years old. Omega.
Spy: Family went bankrupt three years ago. She was sent straight into the Alpha's administrative building. Currently working there as a personal assistant.
Spy: Luna, she's just been quietly moved into the Moon Goddess Springs villa in the east wing.
My pupils contracted.
The Moon Goddess Springs?
The year we mated, I had been suffering from an old battle injury, deep in my bones. Every full moon, my inner wolf would tear at me with pain. I had tried to coax Kael into letting me rest in the warm waters of the Moon Goddess Springs once, since he gave me everything I had asked for. But that time he refused, his tone sharp.
"Baby. That's the sacred ground where every pack alpha has gone to seclusion since the beginning. No one but an Alpha sets foot there. That's the law."
To make it up to me, he had flown to Euravia that same night and brought back a rare pink diamond.
I had been moved by that for seven whole years.
And now, with him hiding his mistress in there, that so-called law of his was nothing but a joke.
Bitter heat surged up through my chest, riding the violent thrashing of my inner wolf and burned all the way up into my throat.
I closed my eyes and reached into Faye's consciousness through the mind-link.
The second the link opened, there was no panic at her end. What I sensed, with perfect clarity, was that she was humming. Humming the private soothing song that mates sang to each other during intimacy.
I stayed silent at my end.
A few seconds later, the humming stopped. A small, contemptuous laugh came through instead.
"What's this? The great Luna finally couldn't help herself? Came to check up on her territory?"
Familiar phrasing. Familiar tone.
Eight years ago, when Lyra followed the scent to my villa for the first time, I was the one in this position.
Except back then, Lyra was completely out of her mind. She shifted halfway, smashed through my front door, claws swinging wildly, screaming hysterical curses.
And I stood there in one of Kael's shirts, leaning on the second-floor railing, smiling down at her from above.
"This is the great former Luna? Can't even hold yourself together?
"Look at you. Pathetic. No wonder Kael won't even waste a glance on you anymore."
Lyra was shaking with rage. The extreme jealousy drained her inner wolf to nothing, and there were fine lines etched into the corners of her eyes. She looked like a pathetic, broken madwoman.
The memory of that twisted face snapped me back. I opened my eyes.
In the reflection on the floor-to-ceiling window, I caught my own face. Well-maintained. Flawless.
I took a deep breath and forced down the inner wolf inside me, the one that was howling to rip Faye's throat out.
I was never going to let myself turn into Lyra.
Through the mind-link, I let the absolute pressure of a Luna who outranked her come through, my tone hard. "Since you're waiting for me, come to my receiving room tomorrow afternoon. We'll talk then."
Faye had clearly been trying to provoke me. When she saw how calm I stayed, she lost interest.
"Sure."
See, Lyra?
A Luna and a Luna were not the same thing. Even faced with the exact same betrayal you went through, I, Elara, was going to handle it with infinitely more grace than you ever did.
- Writer
