The Luna’s Suite

I woke up in a room the size of a closet.

For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. Then I saw the narrow cot, the cracked plaster, the single window looking out over the kitchen garden, and the memory hit me like cold water.

The servants’ wing.

I’d slept a few hours at most. After Marta promised to call the moment anything changed, a stern older woman had met me at the packhouse door and led me here without a word. I’d been too exhausted to notice anything except the bed.

But I knew this room.

In my last life, I lived in it for a whole year.

What is this? Freya demanded, pacing restlessly in the back of my mind. Why do we smell like dust and onions? We’re Luna. Where’s our den?

Good question.

I got dressed in the plain clothes someone had left folded on the chair and went to find out.

*****

---

The packhouse kitchen was warm and bright and full of people. The moment I stepped through the door, every conversation stopped.

A dozen faces turned toward me. Cooks, maids, a couple of young warriors grabbing breakfast. Some looked curious. Most looked wary.

Dark Moon’s girl, someone whispered.

The spy’s daughter.

Why’d the Alpha marry her?

Of course. I’d been so busy worrying about how Dark Moon saw me that I’d forgotten how Silver Lake would. To them, I was the daughter of a woman accused of spying for them, now married into their pack. Either I was a liability, or I was here to spy on them next.

At the head of the long table stood the stern woman from last night. Gray hair pinned in a tight bun. Black dress, crisp apron, a ring of keys at her belt.

Agnes. The head housekeeper.

Another memory surfaced, sharp and bitter: Agnes handing me cold toast while the rest of the household ate hot breakfast. Agnes telling me the Alpha didn’t wish to be disturbed. Agnes, smiling for the first and only time I ever saw, as she welcomed Jessi through the front door.

“Luna.” Agnes dipped her head a fraction of an inch. “I trust you slept well.”

“In the servants’ wing,” I said.

“The Alpha requested separate rooms.” Her voice was perfectly polite. “That room was available.”

“So is the Luna’s suite.”

The kitchen went silent.

Agnes’s expression didn’t change, but her fingers tightened on the keys at her belt. “The Luna’s suite is being prepared.”

“For whom?”

She didn’t answer.

But I already knew. In my last life, I’d walked past that suite a hundred times, the most beautiful rooms in the packhouse, with a view of the lake and a balcony that caught the morning sun. Always locked. Always “being prepared.”

Until Jessi visited. Then it was unlocked, aired out, filled with fresh flowers.

For her.

Oh, I’m going to bite this woman, Freya growled.

Not yet.

“The Alpha requested separate rooms,” I said calmly. “Not servants’ quarters. I am the Luna of Silver Lake, and I’ll be sleeping in the Luna’s suite starting tonight.” I held out my hand. “The key, please.”

Agnes stared at me. I could see her weighing it, the same way Zion had weighed the contract. The meek girl she’d expected versus the woman standing in front of her.

“I’ll need to confirm with the Alpha,” she said.

“Go ahead.” I didn’t lower my hand. “And while you’re at it, you can explain to him why his wife slept in a storage room on her wedding night. In front of the whole household.”

A cook near the stove made a sound that might have been a snort.

Agnes’s lips thinned to nothing. Slowly, she unhooked a brass key from her ring and set it in my palm.

“Thank you, Agnes.” I closed my fingers around it. “I’ll need someone to help me move my things.”

Silence. No one volunteered.

Then a chair scraped.

“I’ll do it, Luna.”

A girl stood up from the far end of the table. She couldn’t have been older than eighteen, small and freckled, with a messy auburn braid and an apron two sizes too big. She looked terrified of Agnes and like she’d decided to volunteer anyway.

“Tessa,” Agnes said sharply.

“It’s no trouble,” the girl said quickly. She hurried around the table to my side, ducking her head. “I’m finished with the dishes. Mostly.”

I looked at her. In my last life, I’d never learned her name. I’d never learned anyone’s name.

“Thank you, Tessa,” I said.

She gave me a small, nervous smile.

*****

---

The Luna’s suite was even more beautiful than I remembered. Tall windows overlooking the lake. A balcony bathed in pale morning light. A bed big enough for four people, piled with cream-colored pillows.

There were fresh flowers on the dresser. White roses.

Jessi’s favorite.

Tessa saw me staring at them and shifted nervously. “Agnes had them brought in yesterday morning. Before the wedding.” She hesitated. “She said a special guest might be staying.”

“I’m sure she did.”

I picked up the vase, walked onto the balcony, and dumped the roses over the railing into the garden below.

Tessa gasped. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth, but not before I heard the start of a laugh.

I like her, Freya said.

So do I.

It took us an hour to move my few belongings from the servants’ wing. On our last trip, Tessa stopped at the top of the back staircase and caught my sleeve.

“Luna,” she whispered. Her face had gone pale. “Listen.”

Below us, in the narrow hallway near the pantry, I heard Agnes’s voice. Low and urgent, the way people talk when they think no one can hear.

“...took the suite. Yes. This morning.” A pause. “No, she wasn’t like that at all. She was...” Another pause, longer. “Yes, Luna Jessi. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

Tessa and I looked at each other.

Jessi had someone inside Silver Lake.

Inside my house.