Maeve
My family has gathered for a final supper before everyone goes back to their usual lives. I sit at the head of the table, picking at my food, my stomach still in knots. I feel hot and cold at the same time, which is unnerving. I don’t get sick. Not unless I exhaust my powers, but the last few days have been… a real test of my limits, I suppose.
This isn’t a formal dinner by any means. Everyone is dressed comfortably and moving around, mingling in small groups. Kieran is asleep in Logan’s arms while he and Brie talk in quiet tones to my parents, while Sydney, my grandpa, and my father talk to Ryan on the far side of the room, glasses of whiskey in their hands as they stand near one of the windows overlooking the city below.
I had the meal setup in one of the upstairs rooms–the pink room, we call it. It’s wide and deep, with enough room to fit the entire family comfortably. It used to be a playroom. I remember being here as a kid with Maddy watching over all of us while the other adults held meetings or took a moment to themselves whenever the family gathered.
This place used to feel so warm and inviting. I split my time between here and the castle in Veiled Valley growing up. I have memories of racing up and down the hallways here and scaling the bookshelves in the library. I remember every room being full of people and lively chatter.
But a few hours from now, the castle will be ghostly silent again, with just me in attendance to fill the void of sound.
Aviva moves down the long table to sit beside me, smoothing her wild, untamable red curls away from her face. I’ve always liked her. She was my age when she married Ryan and joined the family. I was only a year old or so, I guess, but I have memories of seeking her out as a young child. I find her feral nature strangely calming.
“Lexa told me you offered her a position here in Moonrise,” she says by way of greeting, glancing down the table at her two daughters, Lexa and Nora.
Both look like Ryan with their height, but Nora, the youngest, inherited her mother’s red hair and amber eyes. She’s shy and quiet, however, compared to Lexa, who is loud and brave like her parents.
“Is that a problem for you and Ryan?”
“Not at all. Lexa’s ready for a bit of separation, I think.”
“She’ll return next spring, of course. I don’t mean to make this a permanent move. I just need my forces better trained. I’d ask you to move, too, but your duties as Luna of the Deadlands make that a tricky process to navigate as it stands.” I reach for my untouched glass of wine but think better of it, returning it to the table. “I’ll be on my tour of the kingdom for the next four or five months, anyway. She’ll be taken care of here, though.”
I can feel Aviva watching me closely, scanning my profile, when she says, “I’m sure Lexa’s tenure here will be good for her. She’s been leading her own group of warriors in the Deadlands for a few months now under my command.” She sighs, turning from me to look at her daughters instead. “She’ll make a fine Alpha one day. She’s just like her father.”
“She will,” I agree but notice Aviva looking at Nora with a sad kind of expression. “And Nora will… break out of her shell eventually.”
“I want to ask you something. Something I hope you’ll consider.”
“Okay,” I reply slowly, not liking her somewhat uneasy tone.
“Would you consider allowing Nora to come with Lexa to Moonrise for the winter? Nora is an amazing painter, like your grandmother Ella. There’s a few masters here she could train with, and Ella and I have discussed sending Nora to Veiled Valley for a few weeks to train under her, as well. It’s what Nora loves, and I sometimes wonder if she feels like she’s stuck in Lexa’s shadow.”
I glance at the young women at the far end of the table. “That would be fine. Lexa’s been offered her own townhouse. It’s perfectly safe and in a secured neighborhood.”
Aviva nods, smiling to herself. “She’ll be so excited.”
I shimmy in my chair, scanning the room for Ryan, who’s still with a group of the men by the window. “Won’t it be odd to have your house to yourself again?” I ask before I can stop myself. “Just you and Ryan?”
Aviva chuckles, taking a sip of her wine before replying, “Relationships happen fast in this family, Maeve. Ryan and I only had a little under a year together before Lexa came into our lives. In a way… I feel like I’ll be getting him back after a while apart.”
Something shifts in my chest. I feel that sucking, drowning sensation spreading in the pit of my stomach, flaring up my spine and into my chest.
“Are you okay, Maeve? You look sad,” Aviva asks, nudging me with her shoulder.
“I’m totally fine,” I lie, grinning through tears now beginning to well along my lower lash line. Lie, lie, lie. That’s all I’ve done for the past weeks, especially with my family here. No one has a clue what happened to me, and I’ll keep it that way forever, tucking Soren into the furthest recesses of my mind until I forget about him.
It’s not like we had much time together in the first place. A single night, honestly, where we both acted on our real feelings. It wasn’t meant to be. It was… fun. A moment of distraction. An adventure.
But my heart cracks every time I think of him, or catch his scent lingering on the old leather jacket hanging in the very back of my closet, its pockets full of his old IDs. I never had a chance to give it back after Jane and I stripped him down that day before everything changed.
“Maeve, honey, you look exhausted,” Mom says in a rush as she appears at my other side. “You need to go to bed, I think.”
“I’ll stay to tell everyone goodbye,” I argue, but she shakes her head.
“Don’t worry about it. Go upstairs and sleep. I know Jane had some of the guards finish moving your things into your new suite and finished setting up the furniture. I put a basket with herbs and salts for your bath in the main bathroom, so that’s what you should do tonight. Take a bath, relax, everything else can wait until tomorrow.” She squeezes my shoulder.
“I’ll miss saying goodbye to Brie,” I cut in, shaking my head.
“They’re going to the train station with us in an hour,” Aviva says. “Your mom’s right. You’ve had an insanely busy few days with little sleep, I think.”
I glance between the women with a resigned sigh, wondering why I’m so adamant about staying put when they’re giving me the perfect out. I rise, quietly hugging both of them and saying goodbye, and their promises to say my goodbyes to the rest of the family in the room are the last words I hear until I’m tucked in my new, formal ensuite bathroom in the massive royal suite on the sixth floor.
I kneel in front of the toilet, wiping my mouth with a trembling hand. White marble fills my vision as I slowly rise and sway to the sink, washing up, rinsing my mouth for what seems like the thousandth time today.
My eyes are bloodshot in my reflection, and my hair is a mess, sweat prickling along my hairline. My body roils, begging me for rest, for food, even though my stomach protests both at every turn. Whatever’s wrong with me is getting worse, I fear.
I turn to the huge bathroom–a small swimming pool, if I’m being perfectly honest. It takes up an entire corner of the gilded room and overlooks a beautiful view of the forest lining the outskirts of Moonrise. It’s full dark now, and the stars glow overhead, casting beams of gold and purple through the glass.
Mom did, in fact, leave a basket of herbs and salt for the bath. The herbs… stink. My stomach twists again, and I have two seconds to fall to my knees in time to retch, but there’s nothing left. Not after four days of this feeling.
“Mistress? Maeve?” Jane shouts into the recesses of my royal suite–all eight rooms and two huge living areas included. Her voice bounces off the boxes stacked in the oversized master suite just beyond the bathroom door as I rock onto my ass and slouch against the wall, wiping sweat from my brow.
“I’m in here,” I croak, and she knocks lightly on the door.
“Are you all right? Danny in the kitchen was making you a tea tray. I told him I could bring it up myself.”
Another wave of nausea rocks me to the core. I groan, choking back a sob.
“Maeve?” Jane says hurriedly, knocking again before opening the door. The scent of chamomile tea wafts into the room, the only thing beside Soren’s jacket that smells good right now, and it’s enough to bring me to tears. “Good Goddess, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t feel well,” I whisper, and I see the look on her face… the sympathy, the worry…. A sob tangles in my throat before bursting free. I gasp for breath, unable to speak as Jane sets the tray on the counter and rushes for me, kneeling at my side. She brushes my hair away from my face before laying her hand over my forehead. “I’m not… not sick. I don’t know what’s wrong with me–”
“You’re late by a week,” she says under her breath.
Time stops. The bathroom goes completely still. I blink, rapidly doing internal math and realize, with a start, that she’s right. “That’s why. I’m just… I’m just about to get my period. No wonder–”
“This never happens to you when you get your courses,” she says pointedly.
“There’s a first time for everything–”
“You’re pregnant, Maeve.”
I laugh because it’s all I can do. Delirium sets in, and I laugh harder, practically howling at the notion, but that laughter peters out, turning to choking, gasping sobs as the truth tears through my body. She wraps an arm around my shoulder, leaning her head against mine. “It was him, wasn’t it? He forced you–”
“No,” I whimper. “Oh, Jane, you have no idea–” I cover my face with my hands as the dam breaks, and I let myself feel for the first time since getting back on that train.
I tell her everything. Everything. Painting her a masterpiece of details. She sits in silence beside me while I talk, and talk, unable to stop until I’m totally out of breath.
“I can’t–I can’t do this. It shouldn’t hurt this much,” I cry out. “I–we barely knew each other. He doesn’t feel the same. I know that. And now my period is late and I–”
“Do you know how to find him? He should know about this,” she asks, but I shake my head.
“No. I don’t know where he actually lives. I have no idea how to contact him.”
“He was the one who sent you the tea, wasn’t he?”
I nod, blinking past tears.
“Maeve,” she says, swiveling to face me, “is he a good man or a bad one?”
“A little bit of both,” I laugh.
She nods, unsure what to think, and I don’t blame her. But knowing Jane… she’ll handle this. She’ll know what to do. “The family left. Everyone’s gone. What do you want to do? I can call for your mother–”
“Don’t,” I rush out, shaking my head. “Not yet.”
“We need to confirm you are, in fact, pregnant,” she says.
“I don’t want anyone to know if I am.”
“I understand. There’s a healer at the clinic downstairs who I know is discreet. She’s a midwife. I’ll speak to her in the morning and bring her here to confirm it.”
“And then what?” I ask as fatigue washes through my body.
She chews her lower lip, shaking her head. “I don’t know, Maeve. We’ll keep it a secret, if that’s what you want. But you’ll start to show, and from there, your family should know.”
“How much time until then?” I ask.
“A few months, I guess. I don’t know, I’ve never been pregnant before.”
“Well, that makes two of us.” I try to joke, but another tremble of heartbreak ghosts through my chest.
Soren doesn’t know, and I have no way to tell him. I close my eyes, listening as Jane concocts a plan of action, and give in to the pain and fatigue, my hand pressed against my lower belly.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” Jane says. “I promise.”