*Maddy*
I might be dreaming. The distant echoes of a scream flicker through the room. I look down at the moonlight dusted arm of Isaac, who is still holding me against his chest as he sleeps. He doesn’t wake to the sound, and it’s gone in an instant, replaced by total silence.
But every fine hair on my body is standing on end. Something isn’t right. I feel it deep in my bones but second guess myself. Isaac would have woken up if the scream had been real, right?
I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Our scents mingle. The bed smells like us, together. Everything is right in the world right now. Nothing but this moment matters. At least, I tell myself that, because internally I’m on the verge of losing my Goddess damned mind at the idea that there’s a ghost walking the walls and screaming at the top of his or her lungs.
When another ear piercing howl sends a tremor through the castle, I’m up out of bed, sprinting toward the door, naked as the day I was born.
I look back at the bed. Isaac hasn’t so much as flinched. I’ve never seen anyone so still. My mind is fractured by the horrifying thought that someone is being tortured and killed outside the room, and the realization that this man before me hasn’t slept in so long that a screaming racket isn’t enough to wake him up right now.
“Isaac!” I hiss, groping in the dark as I try to find something, anything, to wear. My fingers curl around something soft and textured and I pull it from a hook on the wall. It’s a robe, much too large for me, but it will do.
Isaac, meanwhile, continues to lay naked and tangled in the sheets, his chest rising and falling in a rhythmic, blissful fashion.
Guilt rocks through me at the idea of waking him up. Let the king sleep, I tell myself, tying the robe in place. It’s long enough to brush over the top of my feet as I carefully open the door and slip into the hallway. Only then does the quiet solitude of Isaac’s room crack, and I realize with a start that the castle is alight with activity.
Following raised voices across the second floor, I walk briskly toward the noise, my heart starting to race. Is someone dead? Hurt? Are we being attacked?
I round a corner and climb a short set of stairs, panting with the effort as I break into a sprint when another scream cuts through the air, punctuated by desperate voices and the clattering of what I believe is dishes, something glass falling and breaking, or swords colliding. I have no idea, but it’s starting to really scare me.
And then I realize where the screams are coming from.
That’s Ella screaming.
“Ell–” I grip the wall to steady myself as I come to an abrupt stop only feet from Ella’s bedroom door.
King Maddox stands with a frantic, ghostly pale Hannah, his head bent in conversation. His eyes flick to my face, then down to the robe I’m wearing, and my bare feet. He straightens up, and Hannah whirls around, looking suddenly relieved.
“What’s h-happening?” I hug my waist, feeling more than self-conscious under Maddox’s curious gaze. One glance downward shows me why he’s giving me an almost smug look right now. Isaac’s initials are stitched into the chest pocket of the robe. It’s his. I realize, with my cheeks going a deep red, that it’s obvious why I’m wearing nothing but his robe, and barefoot.
“Miss Ella is having a nightmare,” Hannah says quickly, stepping away from Maddox and taking me by the shoulder. “I’ll see you back to your room–”
“Let her stay,” Maddox cuts in with firm calm, a tone that totally betrays the frantic feeling in the air. He doesn’t look upset by any means, but there are dark circles under his eyes, a hint of pain in those wells of deep blue. “Isla may want to speak to her.”
“To me?”
He nods, then says, “Is Isaac asleep?”
I shift from foot to foot. “Y-yes. I didn’t know what was going on, so I didn’t wake him.”
Maddox dismisses Hannah with a single glance in her direction. I look after her, watching as she pulls a maid down the darkened hallway with her. Maddox is beside me all of the sudden, a gentle hand on my upper back. “I didn’t know he had the ability to sleep.”
I stifle my surprise as he ushers me down the hall and into a room I’ve never been in before. It’s mostly empty, save for a table and chairs, and a few armchairs covered in dust clothes. He leaves the door open just a crack before leaning his weight on the wall by the single window illuminating the space with starlight. I have no idea what to say to the man–the prior king. So, I wait.
Ella’s screaming has tapered off to a low, painful moan. It physically hurts to listen to. If the sound grates my bones, I can’t imagine how he must feel hearing it. It’s his daughter, after all.
“Is she all right?” I ask after a tense moment of suffocating silence between us.
Maddox glances in my direction for a fraction of a second before looking back out the window. “She’ll be fine. Her mother is with her.”
“She’s having a nightmare?” He already told me that, but it seems like it must be more, the sounds are so violent
“Yes.” The word is short, clipped, and for the first time, he betrays his utterly calm demeanor.
I want to ask if he’s seen her paintings, but something stops me. Ella, for whatever reason, trusts me. I wonder if she’s shown many people those paintings, especially her parents.
I roll my lower lip between my teeth and lean on the opposite wall, feeling ridiculous in the robe with my hair all mussed from… Well, it’s obvious what I've been doing recently, I am sure.
“How old are you?” Maddox doesn’t look at me. He’s watching something outside, something I can see from my vantage point.
“I’ll be twenty-five this year, sir.”
“Sir.” A smile cracks, but is gone in an instant. “You can call me Maddox. Sir is far too formal for a father-in-law in my opinion.”
I swallow hard past the lump in my throat.
“Twenty-five,” he whispers, rolling it over his tongue. “Twenty-five years ago…. That was a tumultuous time here in this kingdom.”
He’s speaking aloud to himself. I’m not sure what to say or do, so I fidget until I finally stuff my hands in the pockets of the robe. “Is that when you had to return the Diamond of Faith? Isaac told me about it recently.”
“Twenty-five years ago was before he was born.” Finally turning from the window, Maddox reaches for a lamp on the table and flicks it on, bathing us in soft, yellow light. “When Isla was a Breeder, and newly pregnant. We almost had a daughter before Isaac was born.”
“Oh.” I feel a sudden sinking feeling in my stomach. “I’m sorry–I’m sorry for you loss–”
“Not like that,” he corrects, straightening up and tucking his hands in the pockets of his pants. He’s a handsome man in his late fifties. I’d think he was far younger had I not known who he was. His hair is starting to gray along his temples, but his eyes are just as sharp as his son’s as he says, “Isla and I almost took in a baby who was born here, at the castle. The daughter of an Alpha who’d lost his way and became my enemy.. Her mother died in childbirth.”
I swallowed hard. “What happened to the baby?”
Maddox flexes his jaw. “Isla wanted to keep her. But like I said, the times were… Our kingdom was teetering on the edge of a collapse. I couldn’t show any weakness, and that included taking in a child that was not mine as passing her off as an heir. So, I arranged to have the baby sent away, over the northern border. I had connections in Celestoria that assured me they had a family waiting for her, a loving couple who’d been trying desperately for a child for many years.”
“Celestoria?” My mouth goes a little dry.
He nods, his brows slightly raised. “I wonder if you know her, the girl. Her mother’s name–her birth mother, was Sydney.”
I shake my head, a little confused. “I don’t think so–”
“There you are–” Isla comes into the room, her face flushed and golden hair piled on top of her head in a bun, looking… normal, not regal. She’s gorgeous, of course, even in a pair of flannel pajamas. She looks at me, her eyes searching my face before dropping to the robe. I immediately shift my weight, trying to hide myself. I want to disappear into the faded wallpaper. But to my surprise, her eyes twinkle with understanding, and a hint of amusement. “Isaac’s asleep for once, isn’t he?”
“Does he never sleep?” I ask, not meaning to say the words out loud.
Her mouth twitches into a smile, and she nods. “Hardly ever. Even as a kid. We tried everything. Warm milk, chamomile tea–”
“Healers, priestess’s praying over him,” Maddox cuts in with a grin at his wife. “He was born to be a king. I never slept either when I held the title. Not until I met Isla.”
“Well, you sleep like a rock now.” Isla’s answering smile is nothing but warmth.
I want that. I want that secret language they share. That bond.
I shouldn’t. I know what I signed up for by agreeing to marry Isaac. We agreed this was just business, but after tonight?
“Ella is all right,” Isla says to me, breaking me from the trace I’d been in for what must have been several seconds, because when I look up from my bare toes, Maddox is leaving the room. Isla turns and shuts the door behind him, her fingers curling around the knob. “You’ve seen her paintings, haven’t you?”
I chew my lip, wondering how much she knows about the strange apparition that haunts those canvases. “I have. They’re… I don’t know the word in your language–”
“Creepy? Sinister?” Isla says absently, turning back to face me. “Tonight she dreamt about a war, the coming war, I believe. I… I have visions like she does, but hers are never as vivid as mine. Mine are never… I see the truth more clearly, if that makes sense. I see solutions, but Ella struggles with whatever gift she has. From what she’s told me, nothing she sees makes sense, and she only remembers one thing from her visions.”
The man. It has to be.
“Is she in danger?”
“No,” Isla says firmly, nodding to herself as if to convince herself her words are true. “No, she’s not. I’m sorry her nightmare woke you, Madeline. I have one child who doesn’t sleep, and one who can’t sleep without being driven mad by nightmares.” For a moment she looks absolutely exhausted, like she’s been wearing a mask of calm and accidentally let it slip. She looks at me through her lashes, and for the first time, I see her as a fellow woman and not the golden queen whose wake I’m meant to follow. “Thank you for being there for my son.”
“Oh,” I say dumbly, taken by surprise. “Uhm, you’re welcome…”
Her cheeks go a little pink as she smiles soberly at me. “I’m happy, you know, that he chose you.”
This I did not expect.
She must see the surprise in my face because she continues, her voice as sweet as honey and as soft as a lullaby, “I wanted something good for him, someone good. Someone who saw him, underneath that… stubborn exterior. I know you see him for who he is, and I’m happy he found you. Ella, too. She talks about you all the time.”
“I didn’t give him much of a choice,” I choke out. I really need to keep my mouth shut, but I don’t. “I tried to escape over the garden wall, and he had to drag me into the castle the first time we really got to talk.”
“Well, I’m glad that escape attempt wasn’t successful, but I will say I considered doing the same thing myself a few times. Even made it into the forest once.”
We smile at each other, and I feel suddenly at ease in her presence. Something about her is so warm and familiar, like I’ve known her my entire life. That smile, I realize, is something I’ve witnessed before. Maybe she reminds me of my own mother, even if my early memories of her are starting to fade.
“Would you be willing to come with me to the temple tomorrow?” she asks, and I assume she means for preparations for the wedding, so I nod.
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. I made an appointment with the head priestess and their healer. I think they might be able to help us figure out why you don’t have a wolf.”
“Oh, for that,” I say, swallowing hard.
“As Luna of this kingdom, you’ll be the most powerful woman in all of the packs combined. You should have access to your wolf. I want to make sure that we have a solution before I leave again for Maatua, whenever that is…” She tapers off, a worried look causing her brow to furrow. “Anyway, it won’t take long.”
“I’d be happy too.”
“Good, it’s a plan. Ella will come too. She’ll enjoy it.” Isla turns to leave, brushing her hands over her thighs.
I step toward her, my hand outstretched to stop her before I curl it into a fist, thinking twice. “Uhm, King Maddox… brought up a story earlier about a baby–”
“He did?” Isla turns to me abruptly, looking almost hopeful as she searches my face. “What did he say?”
“That you almost adopted a baby after her mother died in childbirth.”
“We did.” Isla’s voice is strained and a sharp pain flashes behind her eyes.
I feel a little sick to my stomach prying, but I’m curious. “And then he told me you sent her to Celestoria, where I’m from. He wanted to know if I knew her. I might, if she was sent to my home pack. What was the baby’s name? Do you remember?”
“I do,” she says in a whisper, her eyes shining in the dim light. “I could never forget it. I named her after my mate.”
Shuffling footsteps outside the door tear Isla away from the conversation before she can explain what she means. Is Maddox her mate? But the baby is a girl….
She opens the door and steps out into the hallway, and I hear a quiet voice tell Isla that Ella is awake, and asking for her–and some paint.