~ 3: Fanny the Sly Fox

~ 3

~ Mia ~

The dinner was a performance, and I was the supporting actress who hadn't been given her lines.

The West Mountain Alpha and his Luna sat across from Darian and me, their questions flowing like wine — personal, probing, the kind allied packs ask when deciding whether your house is stable enough to invest in.

How did East Lake balance tradition and progress? How had the Alpha pair kept their bond strong? What was our philosophy on raising the heir?

Every question hurt, because none of them had a true answer I could speak aloud. I answered carefully, painting a portrait of harmony I didn't feel, while my head throbbed in time with my pulse. Darian offered occasional comments, letting me carry the conversation. It was what I always did.

Then Fanny walked in.

She appeared in the dining room doorway like she'd been summoned by moonlight itself, wearing cream silk that made my new carefully picked red dress look like waitress clothes. Hair artfully styled. Makeup perfect in that effortless way that took an hour.

My eyes flicked to her stomach — the faint curve there, so subtle no one would notice unless they knew. As I did. From a hospital hallway, from her breathless I'm pregnant! to my husband.

She has the nerve to come here. To this table. Hasn't she taken enough?

"Oh Goddess, I'm so sorry I'm late!" Her voice was bright, apologetic, drawing every eye. "The pack hall meeting ran long. You started without me? Darian didn't mention I was coming?"

Darian shifted beside me. "Fanny," he said, tight but polite. "Join us."

"Better late than never," the West Mountain Alpha said, gesturing to the empty chair. "And you are?"

"Fanny. Daughter of East Lake's late Beta pair." She settled gracefully into the seat beside Darian, and I watched the room's gravity shift toward her in real time. "My parents fell defending the Alpha family. Old Alpha Wilson raised me after."

"Of course… the Beta couple. Heroes of the border raids." The West Mountain Luna leaned forward, and then her gaze sharpened with a smile. "But my dear, you're absolutely glowing tonight. What's your secret?"

Fanny's lashes dipped. A perfect, practiced hesitation.

"Well… I suppose it will show soon enough anyway." Her hand drifted to her stomach. "I'm expecting."

The table erupted in delight. The West Mountain Luna clapped her hands; her Alpha boomed congratulations. Darian lifted his glass with the rest of them, his expression carefully, perfectly neutral.

"And the fortunate father?" the West Mountain Luna asked. "Will we meet him tonight?"

"That…" Fanny smiled down at her plate, soft and mysterious. "…I'd like to keep to myself a little longer. It's complicated. But the pup is loved. That's what matters."

Complicated. I stared at my plate. 

"To new life in East Lake," the West Mountain Alpha declared, raising his glass. "The Goddess blesses a growing pack!"

Everyone drank. I lifted my glass and let it touch my lips, tasting nothing.

"This venison is remarkable, by the way," the West Mountain Luna said, turning to me at last. "You truly made all of this yourself, Luna Mia? With your own hands?"

"I did. Thank you. I…"

"Mia is wonderful that way." Fanny's voice slid in smooth as oil. "She keeps the Alpha house running — the meals, the linens, little Nick's schedule. And I handle the outside affairs. The pack hall, the school board, the border families, the ceremonies." She took a delicate bite of my venison, eyes meeting mine across the table. "We each serve where our gifts lie. Mm. Yummy."

The words were a slap dressed as a compliment. She'd just told an allied Alpha pair, at my own table, that the Luna of East Lake was the help — and she was the Luna in everything but name.

And the worst part was that no one blinked. Because it was true. Because she'd made it true, year by year, duty by duty, while I stayed home being wolfless and invisible.

"How very modern," the West Mountain Luna said. Her gaze lingered on me a moment too long, and something in it looked almost like pity.

The rest of the dinner washed over me in a blur of Fanny's stories — the alliance details she'd helped negotiate, the pups at the pack school who adored her, the improvements she'd suggested for the border patrols. Each word erased me a little more. By dessert, I was a ghost at my own table.

…

The moment Darian walked the guests out to their cars, I fled upstairs. My skull was pounding; twice on the staircase my vision went white at the edges.

I just needed one minute. One minute alone in the only room in this house that was still mine.

It wasn't.

Fanny reclined on my bed like she belonged there, cream silk fanned across the white duvet, her shoes still on.

"Fanny." My voice trembled with the effort of staying level. "What are you doing in here?"

She tilted her head, with a lazy smile. "Since when is it a crime? Darian doesn't mind."

"Get off my bed."

"Your bed." She sat up slowly, unhurried, and strolled to my dresser, trailing a finger along it. She adjusted a perfume bottle that didn't need adjusting. "That's the thing about you, Mia. You keep saying words like my. My bed. My husband. My pack." She turned. "But what exactly have you ever given this pack? You can't run with them under the moon. You can't feel the pack-bond. You can't stand at Darian's side at a single ceremony without every wolf in attendance smelling what you are."

"Stop."

"An omega with no wolf." She said it softly, almost kindly, which was worse. "Squatting in the Luna's chair because a dead man's pity put you there. Meanwhile I do the work. I hold this pack together." Her hand came to rest on the curve of her stomach, and her smile turned razor-fine. "And now I'm giving it something you never could either, aren't I? A strong pup. With a strong bloodline."

"Get out," I whispered. "Get out, Fanny, or I swear…"

She stiffened. Her gaze darted past me, toward the hallway — and I heard it too. Footsteps on the stairs.

In an instant her face transformed. Fear flooded it, wide-eyed and trembling, a performance so complete it stole my breath. She stumbled backward into the dresser and crumpled to the carpet, arms curling around her stomach.

"Fanny!" The cry left me in panic before I understood.

"I won't say it again, I promise…" Her voice broke, pitched exactly loud enough to carry. "Please… not my stomach…  please don't push me again…"

I was bewildered.

Darian filled the doorway, and the pressure of his fury hit the room before his voice did. "What is going on here?"

Fanny flinched, curling smaller. "It was my fault," she whispered, shaking. "I only came to congratulate her on the dinner. I shouldn't have… she said… she said, 'I am the Luna. How dare a low-born orphan resist me?' … Darian, please don't be angry with her, she didn't mean to push…"

"I never touched her!" I stepped forward, panic flooding my chest. "Darian, she was fine in here, she started…"

"Enough." His voice cracked like a whip, and the force of an Alpha's command rolled through it. "The West Mountain cars haven't even left the drive and you're up here assaulting a pregnant woman?"

"I didn't…"

"You have no wolf, Mia." Each word landed like a stone. "You can't run patrols. You can't hold ceremonies. You can't do one single thing a Luna exists to do — and I have carried that humiliation for eight years. The only thing I ask of you is to not disgrace this family. And you can't even manage that."

The room swam. Tell him. Tell him about the tumor, the six months, tell him right now…

But his eyes held nothing to tell it to.

"Apologize to her."

"What?"

"You heard me. Apologize."

Fanny gazed up at him with perfect fragility. "It's all right, Darian. Truly. It was a misunderstanding…"

"Now, Mia."

My pride screamed. But I didn’t want further troubles. I am just too weak.

"I'm sorry." My voice came out hollow.

Fanny's lips curved, the act complete. "I forgive you," she murmured.

Darian exhaled and crouched beside her, steadying her with an arm as she rose — careful, gentle, like she was made of glass. He pulled out his phone.

"Dr. Halden. It's Darian. I need you at the Alpha house tonight… yes, now. Quietly. Someone dear to this family took a fall." A pause. "Thank you."

Dr. Halden. The private physician. The one I'd been forbidden from calling this very morning because the pack might talk.

He guided Fanny toward the door, her head tucked toward his shoulder. At the threshold, he paused and looked back at me with dismissal.

"The West Mountain Alpha and I ride at dawn to survey the border sites. Have my gear ready tonight. The riding leathers, the ceremonial saddle, provisions for both of us." He turned away. "Don't be seen downstairs until Dr. Halden is gone."

The door closed.

I stood alone in the center of my bedroom, in the dress I'd been ordered to change into, and listened to my husband's footsteps carry another woman toward the doctor I wasn't allowed to have.