The Last Tail Of The Fallen Luna

What He Already Knows

CHAPTER SEVEN: WHAT HE ALREADY KNOWS

Seraphina does not rest.

Every time she closes her eyes, she pictures the rider's smile.

It was not the smile that scared her the most.

It was the confidence he radiated.

He didn't seem surprised when he saw her.

He seemed glad.

Like it was somehow more important than the task he had come to do.

She goes over the events of the previous evening in her head.

Silver hair.

Fox tails.

Missing cargo.

Employer.

Those are the words that won't let her go.

Who hired her?

What could he want with her?

And how did he know she would be present at the auction house?

All of these questions make her realize a truth that she had been trying to forget.

Maybe her kidnapping wasn't as random as she hoped.

Maybe there were people looking for her even before she showed up at the auction house.

She feels the tails on the back of her head.

For many years, she despised what they represented.

But now she thinks they might be more dangerous than she knew.

Before the sun fully rose, the Varkos warriors start getting ready to go away.

Seraphina watches from afar as men get ready to ride on horseback.

There are more warriors than she expected.

They are not preparing for just another patrol.

Their weapons are strapped on.

Armor is buckled.

And their faces are full of resolve.

Maybe Ronan told them enough for them to know that something was really serious.

Seraphina feels strange feeling of guilt and thankfulness.

She had come to Ronan's territory hurt, exhausted, and carrying nothing but sadness.

Now his warriors are going to risk their lives because she was seen by someone.

But she can't figure out why.

She doesn't have any titles now.

No kingdom.

No army.

No political value that she can think of.

At least, not that she tells herself.

But perhaps there is still something about herself she does not know, based on how Ronan is reacting.

She catches him before he can follow the other warriors.

"What are you doing?"

He turns toward her.

For just a moment, his face shows a softer expression.

Then his gaze shifts back to the warriors waiting for him outside.

He tells her he is joining the group.

"Why?"

He does not answer right away.

Her memory of Kael's silence flashes through her mind.

But where Kael leaves his silence as such, Ronan answers her question.

"Make sure a loose end can't report back to the mastermind."

It seems like he assumes the answer should be obvious.

She understands perfectly well what he means.

The third rider.

The one who had smiled at her.

Ronan intends to stop the rider before he has time to report back to his superior.

"Do you mean to kill him?"

Ronan does not directly answer her.

Instead he tells her he needs to discover who sent the riders and what their intentions were.

There is a clear distinction here.

Ronan is not protecting his territory.

He is investigating his enemy.

And as Seraphina realizes in horror, he wants to prevent the rider from reporting back.

That would mean that his master would discover where she was hiding.

---

Ronan tells her that he had noted the rider who had lingered at the tree line.

That he had noticed how his gaze had drifted towards her house.

That he had seen him look out of her window.

Suddenly she realizes Ronan had seen everything the same as she did.

He had understood the danger before she had even needed to explain it to him.

Where she had always had to beg for anyone's help, Ronan had done something nobody else had done before.

He had noticed her plight and had acted.

Years of being neglected by everyone had taught her better than to hope for anything more.

He acts without needing to be told to.

A part of Seraphina shatters into pieces.

Not entirely.

Not enough for her to let go of her past.

But enough for her to feel something she hasn't felt in a long while.

Safe.

The realization causes a slight discomfort within her.

She doesn't want to be dependent upon another man.

She doesn't want anyone else to be responsible for her security.

Most of all, she doesn't want to trust someone only to find out that her trust was misplaced.

But Ronan has given her something she didn't think she would get ever again.

Kindness that doesn't expect anything in return.

And she suddenly understands that is exactly the reason why she fears him.

Because being kind allows one to trust more easily.

Seraphina tries to prevent him.

“You don't have to do this.”

She doesn't know why she is speaking so softly.

She isn't even sure what she means.

It could be about the riders.

It could be about protection.

Maybe she is trying to thank him for everything he did since the rescue.

Ronan watches her for several seconds.

She believes he will disregard her worries.

Instead, he moves closer to her.

His face doesn't show any anger.

There is something else in his expression that she can't name.

He prevents her from continuing with a look that isn't unkind.

“I already know more than you believe I know.”

The words freeze Seraphina.

They alter the mood between them.

Until now, she thought she held the secrets in her possession.

She had kept her silence about Lucan.

She hadn't said that she was Luna.

She hadn't talked about Kael.

She had been silent about the reasons for her shame.

She had thought that her silence was her shield.

But now she realizes that maybe Ronan had been giving her permission to hold those secrets.

“What do you mean?”

Ronan hesitates to answer her.

His hesitation causes fear within her.

For the first time since her arrival into his territory, she begins to wonder if Ronan was studying her.

Observing her.

Gathering information she never told him.

All the help he gave her.

The healers.

Meals.

Clothing.

Her room.

Protection.

Had it all been nothing but his kindness?

Or had he known from the very beginning that she was important?

She examines his features for any trace of deception.

But she does not see it.

It only serves to make things worse.

He finally explains himself.

He grew up among wolves that were raised within the palace.

He knows how the royal family behaves.

How they walk, how they talk, how they give commands.

He tells her that even though she was broken, exhausted, scared, and starving she carried herself like a Luna.

Seraphina is stunned.

She remembers all of her efforts to conceal it.

From abandoning the formal tone of speech.

From giving commands.

From dressing herself nicely.

To staying quiet about the kingdom and trying to fade into the background.

And still, he was able to figure it out.

His words are not accusations nor do they demand any explanation from her.

He simply tells her the truth.

"Even broken," he says in a quiet voice, "there are some things that are hard to hide."

This simple statement leaves a stronger impression on her than she thought it would.

For the first time someone saw what she was without using it against her.

All the carefully concealed secrets suddenly seem to come to light.

Seraphina comes to a realization that she cannot deny him anything anymore.

He already knows that she is not just any wolf.

That she was raised among royalty.

That the way she talks and holds herself is not something that belongs to a commoner.

And considering what he learned from the riders he may have more information coming soon.

She starts to wonder whether she should tell him everything.

But her fear gets in the way.

After all, what if everything changes once he knows who she really is?

Will he see her the same way everyone else did?

As a failed Luna.

As a woman who could not bear children.

A broken mate.

A former queen.

She bows her head.

Ronan does not make her.

This consideration gives her some confidence in him.

But there is yet another detail that she fails to see.

Ronan's expression shifts for an instant when he looks at her remaining tails.

It happens so fast that she almost misses it.

There is recognition in it.

Not shock.

Recognition.

Then it disappears.

Ronan finally confesses how long he has known.

"I've known since the second day."

Seraphina feels her heart miss a beat.

The second day.

Not yesterday.

Not after the arrival of the riders.

Since the second day she had been in his territory.

He had known.

All along, while she thought that she was doing a good job of concealing her identity, Ronan had already figured out that she was a Luna.

He looks at her calmly.

"I was just waiting for you to trust me enough to say it yourself."

Seraphina does not know which hurts her more—that he had known or that she believes him.

For some reason, although she has survived all those hardships, she trusts him.

She trusts that this man will not abuse the knowledge of her identity.

She trusts that she has finally found someone to rely on.

But there is one question that stays unanswered.

If Ronan had known that she was a Luna since the second day, what else did he know about her?

Ronan had known who she was practically from the very beginning. Seraphina had been concealing a secret from him—but she had begun to think that maybe he had some of his own.