*Maddy*
Sunlight beats down on the back garden. It’s too beautiful a day. The sun is bright and warm, the sky totally cloudless, and every flower in Isla’s rose garden in bloom.
Ella walks through the flowers, rubbing petals between her fingers. I watch her for several moments before I hear the clinking of glass behind me and turn my head to find Isla setting a tray of ice tea on one of the bistro tables. Her eyes are red and distant as she pours a glass for herself, drinking deeply.
I haven’t seen her since the three of us left the sitting room. Ella took me outside to get some fresh air, leaving me alone with my thoughts while she walked alone with hers. And Isla had disappeared into the depths of the castle.
“You were born here,” she says, looking down in her iced tea with a far off expression on her face. “In the very room you occupied until last night. I used to rock you to sleep. You were such a quiet baby. You barely ever made a sound. I wondered sometimes if you knew your mother was dead, and that you were alone, even though–” She trails off and meets my eyes for the first time. “I wanted to keep you. I felt like you were meant for me. I was pregnant with Isaac then, and chalked it up to the pregnancy hormones.” She lets out her breath and waves a hand in dismissal. “Now I know why I felt that way.”
In a daze, I say, “Tell me everything from the beginning.”
Her name was Sydney. She was beautiful, and very young. Her hair was a deep red and fell in the same gentle waves as my own. Her eyes were like stormy, imperfect sapphires.
She’d loved me, and died for me. Isla hadn’t been able to save her.
“Maddox killed your father. He was an Alpha, and… they were enemies. Sydney was caught in the middle and came into my care, heavily pregnant. I took care of her and promised her she would be okay, that she’d make it, and when she died she made me promise to look after you and ensure you were safe and loved. I thought I kept that promise.”
Isla named me Maddy, after Maddox. Maddox had his mate’s desperation and desire to keep me, but knew the implications of what adopting me would look like. Their son was months away from being born. He was the heir to the kingdom the Alphas expected, and they had been willing to go to war against Maddox if an heir hadn’t been produced.
Precarious times indeed, so much so that adopting a child like me, the daughter of an enemy, and allowing her to grow up a princess would have put the already delicate balance of things in jeopardy.
“He found you a family. Your parents, the ones that raised and loved you until–until their deaths. I didn’t know where you ended up, but all I knew during those first early years is that you were loved. Wholly, and utterly loved, and so desperately wanted.”
I had been loved. Until I was ten, I’d had an idyllic childhood.
But I’d lost two parents, and now I know in reality that number is actually four.
My birth parents, both of whom had been dead since I was born.
I’ve lived several lives now, but one thing is clear to me, even in my confusion: I was wanted, regardless of what Louisa tried to make me believe.
Everything suddenly makes glaring sense. “I used to pray every night to the Goddess that I’d have blonde hair like my mother someday,” I say, staring out at the garden. “She was so beautiful, and I wanted to look like her, to be like her, more than anything. Especially after she died. But I never saw my parents when I looked in the mirror. I never thought–I would never have thought they weren’t actually mine. They never told me.”
“They were yours,” Isla says, turning to me and gently taking my hand in hers. “They loved you. They raised you to be the woman you are now, the Luna you are now, and I am eternally grateful for it. Louisa couldn’t break you, Maddy. I credit your adoptive mother for that.”
My throat tightens, but my eyes are dry of tears. A strange feeling of calm sweeps over me, like I suddenly have the answers to the questions I’ve been seeking my entire life. I look at Isla and take her in, seeing the lines of sadness around her eyes as she watches Ella continue her walk around the garden.
I take a deep breath and ask, “You said I wasn’t yours to keep. What did you mean by that?”
Isla exhales, her eyes lost in some long ago memory. “I had a vision about you. About you and Isaac actually, that you were his mate, and therefore, I had to let you go because you belonged to him, and one day I’d have you back. I’m usually not wrong, but when that seer told Isaac he wouldn’t have a mate, and then you came here and didn’t have a wolf… I wondered if I had interpreted something incorrectly–”
“You didn’t,” I breathed, giving her a soft smile as I traced Isaac’s mark over my heart. “You weren’t wrong.” I turn to face her fully and look down at my feet before meeting her eyes again. Isaac told me I’m the only who knows what he is, and what he can really do.
If we’re mates, and this was fated between us, then there’s something we’re missing about this war, and his powers, and his destiny.
“I need a book,” I say, and Isla’s brows shoot up in surprise at the abrupt shift in conversation. “About the lore and mythology of our kind. Where could I find something like that?”
* * *
Time passes quickly over the next week. Those first few days of grief and longing are quickly overwhelmed by my new duties.
Everyday starts the same. I wake up in Isaac’s bed covered in his scent. I breathe it in and let myself cry until the maids come to help me dress. Hannah wants me to hire a personal maid, but there hasn’t been time to sift through applications. Every morning Isla and I go into the village before dawn and begin making the rounds to each tent, to each displaced family, to the women and children who’ve been left behind to see after their packs while their Alphas and warriors go to war.
I don’t recognize my own voice as I talk with my people. The old men, women, and children who look to me as their Luna Queen. I sound confident, like I’d been born for this very role, like it was in my blood all along.
Maybe that’s because it is in my blood. I am born from an Alpha’s line, after all.
We walk toward a hospital around midday where additional tents and makeshift clinics have been set up to provide more space for the patients and healers.
A healer meets up in one of the tents, a table and chairs and refreshments laid out for us.
The healer, an elderly man with soft, graying hair, sits down with a groan and faces the three of us over bottles of water and an assortment of granola bars and chips. “This is all we had,” he says apologetically as he motions to the food.
“We’re not here for lunch, Seamus,” Isla smiles.
“Nor to use up your valuable resources,” I add, bobbing my head at the healer. He gives a soft, knowing in return. I’d spent the entire week researching the kingdom, finding ways to get the medicine supplies the healers and clinics will need once injured warriors start arriving and to tend to the needs of the displaced packs now calling the village their home. “Princess Ella has been hosting the charity drive at the castle every day. So far we’ve collected toys, clothing, books–you name it, and it’s been donated.”
Seamus gives me a grateful nod, his shoulders relaxing a bit.
I glance at Isla and continue with what I’d spoken to her about this morning, “We have a large commercial kitchen at the castle that’s mostly unused. We’d like to start delivering meals, three times a day. Not only to the tent city but the hospital, for the staff and patients.”
His shoulders relax further. He takes off his glasses momentarily, wiping fatigue from his hooded eyes. “You’re very gracious, Luna. It would be most appreciated. I’ve worked at this hospital since before Alpha King Maddox was born. I’ve seen so many sick and injured people gathered just outside our doors, and we haven’t even seen any warriors yet, so I can only imagine what that's going to be like.”
I nod, my smile tightening into a grimace. Hell, it’s going to be hell.
Beside me, Isla pulls a small wooden box from her purse and sets it on the table, sliding it toward the healer. Confused, I watch with interest as she opens it, revealing at least a dozen small vials filled with translucent liquid. The healer meets her eyes, his brows arching in shock.
“My tears,” she says, looking immensely proud as her gaze roves over the vials. “A vial is enough for three or four people if their injuries aren’t fatal. One vial could likely bring someone back from the brink of death.”
The healer looks massively relieved. He bows his head, speechless. “You have no idea how much this means to all of us here.”
We leave the tent after a few more moments of conversation. Walking in silence through the tent city, we nod and smile at the people we pass, who bow low to us. I’m still getting used to this kind of attention.
“If my tears could do what yours can,” I say after we reach the outskirts of the tents and walk down the tree lined road leading to the castle gates, “I would have at least a gallon to give to the healers by now.”
“Crying for my mate and son every night has its advantages,” she says with a little laugh, but it’s pained. “I thought we would have heard from them by now.”
“I know,” I reply, trying not to choke on the words. It’s been a full week, and we have received no letters from Maddox, Isaac, or even Cassian. We have updates to let us know the armies have reached Moorn safely and set up campus within a fifty radius of that territory, with smaller scouting groups having been sent into the “dead zone,” as the commanders call it, where a wide, grassy plain stretches for dozens of miles before meeting a dense forest at the base of those far off, mystical mountains where Eastonia is rumored to be hidden on the other side.
“I think they mean to torture us.”
“Who? The Eastonian Army?”
“No,” she laughs. “Maddox and Isaac.”
I can’t help but laugh. It feels like it’s been such a long time since the last time I laughed, and meant it. “I think they might be enjoying themselves, shifting into their wolves and camping out under the stars.”
“It beats crying into vials,” Isla giggles, roping her arm in mine.
“I thought you were going to go chase them down after a week,” I say, looking toward her. I don’t want her to leave. I need her. Sometimes I feel like I know how to be a Luna, but only because I mimic everything she does, down to the words she says to people. I’m not ready for her to leave.
I’ll feel utterly alone if she does.
Her somber smile is the answer to my question. “I’m needed here. Not to rule. But these displaced packs need my help, and if battles start, the wounded warriors who will be transported here for care will need my powers more than those powers are needed at the frontlines. I’ve sent vials of my tears to Moorn and plan to send much, much more of them over the course of however long this takes.” She swallows hard, forcing a smile. “Maybe not hearing from them will keep those tears coming when I need them the most.”
The guards who’ve tailed us the entire morning disperse when we reach the gate and walk toward the castle. The door opens and crashes against the wall, Ella running outside with her long hair pulled back and away from her face. She’s grinning from ear to ear as she triumphantly holds up a thick stack of letters.
My knees weaken with relief as I look at the stack.
“Those better be from you, Isaac,” I say down the mindlink, and I’m met by the usual silence between our new bond.
Ella says, “Oh, and Maddy, one of the temple attendants dropped off a book for you.”