*Maddox*
Suitcases. On the bed. Packed.
Isla. In her mother’s arms.
After the discussion I just had with her father, I can’t believe that her mother is encouraging her to leave the castle. Did Daniel not mean a word of what he was saying when he told me that Isla’s parents would encourage her to stay so long as I could assure him that she wouldn’t have to worry about any of these other women?
Of course, she doesn’t have to worry about them. They are white noise. Only here to serve the specific purpose of getting these other Alphas off my back. I have told her that a dozen times, but she will not listen to me.
Now, it seems she is listening to her mother, and the message Constance is telling her is not the same one I just heard from her husband’s mouth.
The Luna turns around and stares at me with a mix of surprise and anger in her eyes, possibly a touch of hurt. “I was trying to convince MY baby not to leave, that she needs to stay here and see this through, thank you very much. You have only yourself to thank for those packed bags. As for YOUR baby, perhaps if you carried a little more for the woman who’s piecing him together for you, you wouldn’t find yourself in a situation where she wants to leave you.”
I can’t believe she was speaking to me so aggressively. This isn’t the mild-mannered woman I encountered all of those months ago when I first went to visit her in the village of Willow pack. Promoting her to Luna must’ve made her remember what it was like to be a queen.
“You’re trying to get her to stay?” I can hear the cynicism in my own voice. “That’s not what it looks like.”
“What does it look like, Alpha King Maddox?” Constance asks, her tone the same, if not angrier, than it was a moment ago. “Does it look like a young lady who has been promised one thing and shown something else? Does it look like a girl who’s been completely blindsided, unnecessarily, by a woman who looks exactly like your deceased wife? Does it look like someone who would probably be just about anywhere but here at the moment? That’s what you’ll see if you stop thinking about the fact that you have other people’s feelings to consider for once in your damn life!”
Isla reaches out and squeezes her mother’s arm, probably afraid that I will rip her head off. I am considering it. The words she’s using right now are borderline insubordinate. But I also understand why she is saying them.
I have my reasons for every single thing that I do, but I am not very good at thinking through situations from the eyes of others. I’ve never really cared much about other people. Rebecca was able to change that in me for a time, but then, after she died, caring about other people and their feelings became dangerous again, so I avoided it.
Now, I do very much care about Isla, but Constance is right. I’ve been putting my own needs, my own understanding, before what is important to Isla.
In some cases, that can’t be helped. She couldn’t talk me out of this queen contest, even though it is a farce, because I understand how important it is to the other Alphas. But I suppose I could have told her about Trinity.
I just didn’t know how. It’s not an easy thing for me to talk about.
“Isla, can we speak alone?” I ask her, looking past her mother.
Tears streak her beautiful face. She looks so lovely in her ballgown, but I never even got the chance to dance with her. I will have to go back down and mingle with the guests more. I can’t leave now when the dance has just begun, but I know there’s likely no way in the world I can get Isla back down there, short of dragging her against her will, and I don’t want to force her to do anything if it can be helped.
“What is it that you could possibly have to say to me that you can’t say in front of my family?” Isla challenges.
But her mother is on my side. “It’s all right. We will step out.” She turns back to her daughter and hugs her tightly. Isla looks like she wants to cry again. I feel a stab of jealousy that she loves her parents more than she loves me, or at least trusts them more than she trusts me at the moment.
The room empties out, leaving Isla and me alone. I have my hands buried deep in my pockets, and I’m not exactly sure what to say. “You were going to go. Where?”
“Home. To my parents’ house,” she says swiping away her tears. I can tell it is bothering her that she is crying. She doesn’t want to show me any weakness at the moment. “But I guess you have a problem with that because, at the moment, I’m carrying your baby.”
I take a deep breath in, hold it, let it out slowly, and try to come up with some way to explain my thinking from earlier. I was so angry at what I saw her mother doing, I didn’t think about how my choice of words might affect Isla.
What I thought I saw her mom doing….
“Isla, I was just trying to drive home to your mom that, while she might be able to convince you to go somewhere with her, that she has no claim over the child that you’re carrying, that’s all I meant,” I tell her.
She narrows her eyes at me. “I have claim over this child, though,” she reminds me.
“Yes, of course, you do, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take the baby or yourself anywhere without consulting me first. I know that you weren’t going to leave the castle by yourself this time, so it should be relatively safe with your parents, but I still would appreciate it if you didn’t just go anywhere.”
“Because of the baby.” She is still glaring at me.
“No! Because of you, too. Isla, come on. You know how much you mean to me, how much I love you.” I take a step closer to her but she backs up, running into the bed.
“You are not acting like someone who loves me right now, Maddox.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. I’m not good at loving other people. I’ve only done it a few times in my life, and other than my mother, possibly my grandparents and other relatives, Rebecca was the only other person I’ve ever loved.
So I don’t suppose I am acting like someone who loves her.
“I guess… I need to work on that,” I told her. I ran a hand through my hair and thought about the other things her mother had shouted at me. “I should’ve told you about Trinity.”
“Yeah, you think?” she spits at me. “Why didn’t you? I bet at least half of the other people in that ballroom knew exactly whose face they were looking at, and I had no idea! I had to find out in front of everyone, have the air knocked out of my lungs, so that I had to run out of the room to keep from passing out, Maddox. Don’t you know how overwhelming and embarrassing that was?”
I can’t answer that. I just stand there, shrugging, my palms up. “I didn’t really think about how it would affect you, Isla. Obviously, I should have, but I didn’t. I just… thought about how hard it would be to sit down and have that conversation with you. Honestly, I was caught off guard, too. I walked into a similar situation at Alpha Charlton’s mansion.”
“So you should’ve realized I’d have a similar experience!” she shouts at me. “You just let me go through the same confusion and embarrassment that you’d just gone through?”
“No!” I need to keep my voice down, but I can’t now. “How could I possibly think that you would have similar feelings to the ones that I had, Isla? I was looking at a woman who resembles my dead wife, the one I still blame myself for killing every single day. So no, I didn’t think that you seeing someone who looks like someone you never even met would have the same effect on you. Perhaps I should have.” I still don’t understand why.
Tears fill her eyes again. “You didn’t think you should possibly mention to me that the cousin of your deceased wife, who was made to look just like her by her manipulative father and uncle, was going to be part of this contest you are still trying to convince me is a farce? You didn’t think it might be pertinent for me to understand that everyone else in the room was going to see this and automatically assume that she is the frontrunner to become the next Luna Queen. After all, no one else knows that this is all a pretend pageant, right?”
I took in her words, trying to find a way to say what I was thinking in a sensitive manner. “It never crossed my mind that they would assume that, I guess.”
“But why wouldn’t it?” she asks. “Every woman who is here is fighting for your attention. Their parents want their daughter to have a leg up. Whether that means sharing a dance with you or having you ask them on a date or just a glance across the room, they’re all looking for indications that they have a chance at ‘winning’ this contest. So of course, when they see someone like Trinity, they’re going to see her as a threat. She knows that. Why do you think she was the last woman to enter the room?”
All I can do is shrug. I hadn’t been paying attention to that. I’d been too busy talking to the Alphas and other dignitaries.
“So, who the hell am I? They don’t know. Just another Alpha’s daughter. Or maybe the rumored breeder you may be considering replacing. If I’d had an opportunity to prepare for her appearance, at least I would’ve known.” She doesn’t sound so angry anymore. Just upset.
“I get that, Isla, but I don’t think it would’ve mattered. You would’ve still been upset because you don’t want me to do this anyway.”
“Well, it would’ve made it easier.” Somehow we have gotten closer to one another, and now, she is within arm’s reach. I want to touch her. I want to comfort her and let her know I love her—in the only way I know how to love her.
But I’m afraid right now.
Everything I do seems to make it worse.
Maybe it would be better if she left for a little while.