Chapter 140

Elroy POV

“All right,” I said. “The first time I noticed Emma, she was at the ceremony with Claudia.”

“So, she was in her fur?”

“Yes. She’s a silver wolf, like you.”

Olivia nodded. “And is that what you first thought when you saw her?”

I thought about it, noticing again a sort of resistance in my mind when I tried to remember specific details. “I thought she was lovely, and then I thought you needed to introduce her around the Palace.”

Olivia nodded more slowly. “Lovely.”

I waited and then raised my eyebrows.

“That’s what I thought too when I first met her,” she said. “That she was lovely. Not pretty, not beautiful. Lovely.”

“It’s a common term,” I said, only realizing I sounded defensive when I heard my own words.

Olivia noticed. I held up an apologetic hand.

“You crashed our little coffee gathering,” she said neutrally. “I was surprised to see you.”

“I had to come.”

“Why?”

“No, I mean, I felt compelled to come.” I strained to think back. “I was in my office, working, and all I could think about was that you were meeting with Emma. I was up and walking to your rooms before I knew it.”

“And who was it you came to see? Me or Emma?”

I tried to remember but ended up shaking my head.

“I just had to be there.”

She nodded. “You didn’t thank me for the coffee I handed you.”

I blinked at her. “What?”

“I was such a small thing, but looking back, it was the first time you had been less than wonderfully courteous to me. I handed you your coffee, and you just took it and drank it. No thank you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t remember.”

“What do you remember from that meeting?”

It was difficult, but I responded honestly, “Emma.”

“How lovely she was?”

“Yes.”

She nodded. “Your mother noticed.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve been obsessing about her ever since.”

“Well, yes.”

She looked down at the table. “So have I, but while you’ve been thinking about how lovely she is, I’ve been resenting her.” She shook her head. “I didn’t like what she did at the initiative meeting, but I did nothing about it. She stood there insulting me in the garden, and I just took it.”

She looked up at me again. “But Emma has just exploited the problem you have with me. It didn’t start with her.”

“No.”

She threw up her hands. “So? What is it? And don’t say you don’t know.”

I just stared at her.

“Oh, you’re up early,” a voice said, and we both turned to see the hostess standing there. She looked back at us. “Or are you up just really late?”

We all looked to the clock on the wall. It was 4 a.m. We’d basically talked the night through.

“Would you like me to leave you alone?” she asked graciously, though worry lurked in her eyes.

“We can’t interfere with your business,” Olivia said. “But do you mind if we stay here while you get started on the day?”

“It would be my pleasure to have such grand company,” she said with a simple smile. The lack of hidden meanings or resentments in that expression was so refreshing I asked for more coffee and watched idly as the hostess bustled around her kitchen.

A young beta came in with a basket of eggs, nodded to us without really looking, and then washed the eggs off before dropping them in hot water. She turned from the oven with a smile, looked at me and Elroy, and then froze.

“This is Jenny,” the hostess said. “Jenny, don’t stare.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said somewhat breathlessly, seemed to give herself a mental shake, and then went out the back only to return with bags of flour and sugar.

I realized I felt calmer than I had in weeks. Some sort of persistent strain had been eased, and I enjoyed the companionable silence of the moment as a simple pleasure that felt like a long-lost friend.

“I can’t believe I said that to you,” I told my wife quietly.

She didn’t answer, so I looked over the table at her. She twisted her lips and then murmured, “A Luna who is rejected by her Alpha does not do well in life afterward.”

I winced. “I would never do anything like that. Never.”

She tilted her head and said even more quietly, mindful of our audience. “Not even for her?”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I literally could not get the air to pass through my throat. Olivia frowned, seeing my obvious difficulty was physical, not mental.

“Elroy?” she asked.

I felt my chest hurt, and a wave of rage swept over me. I pounded on the table in my fury, and Jenny let out a yelp and dropped the pot of hot water and eggs she had been carrying from the stove. She screamed in pain as the water soaked her.

“Jenny!” our hostess shouted in alarm.

Pregnant as she was, Olivia seemed to levitate out of her chair. I saw her glow with a silver light that surrounded her, and then as she reached Jenny, the kitchen maid was swallowed up by the light. For a moment, they were both so bright I squinted. Our hostess put up her hand as though in protection.

And then the light was gone, and Jenny, though still wet, seemed fine, if a little unsteady on her feet. She stared down at herself in amazement and held up her hands to look at her pale hands, flipping the palms up and down.

“Are you all right?” Olivia asked gently. “Did I get it all?”

Jenny nodded and then burst into tears, though she managed to get out, “Oh, thank you, Luna!” between her sobs.

Our hostess rushed to the girl and looked her over before turning to Olivia. “Yes. Thank you so very much, Luna.”

Olivia laughed in evident relief. “I’m so glad I could help.”

And then it happened: a memory rushed into my mind as though released from a cage. I saw a girl surrounded by a silver light, I saw the dungeon in which I had been held for weeks, and I saw my companion.

“You saved him,” I said, barely seeing through the flash of memory as all three women looked at me.

“What?” Olivia asked.

“You saved me. You saved both of us.”

“Elroy?”

“We had been beaten, and you used your power to heal us. We were able to escape because of you, but you were recaptured.” I stood, a little unsteady on my own feet now.

A look of astonishment came into Olivia’s eyes, and I thought she was remembering the same moment I had just relived.

“How did I not know?” she asked. “How did I not remember when he told me?”

It was my turn to ask, “What? Who?”

“Denis,” she said slowly. “I saved Denis all those years ago, but I couldn’t remember the other boy with him.” She frowned. “That was you?”

I nodded. “I thought it was Emma who saved me,” I said. “But it was you.”

“Luna?” a voice asked from the doorway. Everyone looked to Jordan as she stood there. “You’re glowing.”

I looked back to Olivia, and it was true. I could see the silver light dancing over her skin.

I held out a hand to takes hers, and the silver light flowed over me as well.

A hundred things seemed to happen at once. I felt unchained, untethered from some sort of control I hadn’t realized held me in thrall. I thought suddenly of Emma and wanted to retch.

“That jackal,” I said as the silver light faded.

Olivia nodded, and I felt her clear and sweet through our mindlink, She’s been more than manipulating us. She’s been controlling us.

I responded aloud, “Just what did she really study in Albsraca?”