Semua Bab Luna Reborn: I Refused My Fated Alpha : Bab 1 - Bab 10

The Lunar Citadel was full of light the night I died, and I remember thinking, right up until the knife, that I had never been happier. Five years of marriage had taught me how to read a room full of Alphas, had taught me how to move around them, talk around them, and even breathe around them. Everything that had to do with them required a kind of carefulness and patience I had spent those five years learning. Kai's hand rested on my back the whole evening, steady, warm, the way it always did at these galas, like he wanted every pack lord in Lunara to see exactly whose wife I was. "You're doing the thing again," he murmured against my ear, midway through the conversation with the Ashwood delegation I'd barely been listening to. "What thing?""Smiling like you have a secret." His grey eyes found mine, warm in a way that still, after five years, made my heart do something foolish. "Do you?""Maybe I'm just happy," I said. "Good," he said, and pressed his mouth briefly to my temple

The Voss great hall smelt the way it always did on important days, beeswax candles and crushed lavender strewn across the floor to mask the older smell of blood that no amount of scrubbing ever fully lifted from stone this old. I stood at the base of the dais in a gown with the color of the Nightfang banner, because someone had decided that was a clever touch, and I watched my father's face and thought about how differently I saw him now. Alpha Corin Voss looked, for all purposes, like a man who had already won. "The nightfang envoy," the herald announced, and three men entered in dark grey and silver, the middle one older, greying at the temples, carrying the sealed contract like it was something sacred. He wasn't Kai. I noted that with something between relief and disappointment I refused to examine too closely. "Alpha Voss," the envoy inclined his head. "Alpha Thorn sends his son's formal proposal for the hand of your daughter, Selene, in a union that will bind our two packs und

I found my father In his study that evening, going over ledgers by lamplight with the kind of stillness he had when he wanted to be left alone. I closed the door behind me anyway. "Tell me about the debt," I said. He didn't look up. "Selene.""You said there was a debt to my mother's line. You said this marriage would settle it. I want to know what it is.""It isn't your concern.""My entire future was supposed to pay for it." I crossed the room and put both hands flat on the desk, forcing him to look at me or look ridiculous avoiding it. "I think that's what makes it exactly my concern."He set down his pen. For a long moment he just looked at me, and I watched him do what he always did, weighed what he owed me against what he was afraid of, and lose to fear every time. "Your mother's line carries an old obligation," he said finally, choosing each word like it cost him something. "Older than the moon pact. I don't fully understand it myself. I only knew the men who came before me

Five days after Kai rode out of Voss territory, my father called a war council, and I invited myself. "This isn't a place for you," he said, when I appeared in the doorway of the map room, already dressed as someone who intended to stay. "I've been studying border laws since twelve," I replied. "You used to be proud of that.""I'm still proud of it. I'm also aware that pride doesn't earn you a seat at a war council.""Then let me sit somewhere that isn't a seat.""Selene." He rubbed his hand over his face, it was obvious that he was exhausted. My guess was that he had already lost one argument with me this month and didn't want to argue again, so as not to lose a second time. "This isn't a game. Men will be making decisions in this room that could cost lives."I understand that better than you think.""Do you." It wasn't really a question. He studied me for a moment, some of the fear I'd noticed since my refusal flickering behind his eyes again, quickly suppressed. "You've been dif

I found Petra in the lining room past midnight, folding sheets that didn't need folding, the way people do when their hands need somewhere to put the things their mouth won't say."You should be asleep," I said. "So should you." She didn't look up, but her shoulders eased slightly, like she'd been hoping for company without wanting to ask for it. "I heard the shouting from the east corridor. Half the house probably did.""Then you know it wasn't my finest hour.""I know your sister's been carrying something heavy long before tonight." She set down a sheet, finally meeting my eyes. "That's not really my place to say.""Say it anyway. I could use someone who isn't managing me for once."That got a small, surprised laugh out of her, and she sank onto the bench beside the linen shelves, patting the space next to her until I sat too. It felt strange, sitting there as an equal instead of someone being dressed or tendered to, and stranger how much I'd missed it without knowing I did. "Can