Chapter 97

Olivia POV

It had been months since my last visit to my mother’s side, but I could tell that Iris was right. Before, she always seemed to be sleeping. Her skin glowed, and her muscles remained taut from the ‘round-the-clock care she received.

Now, there was a yellow, almost jaundiced look to her skin, and she seemed to have shrunk down further into the bed. But it was more than that. She had always seemed so full of life force that even asleep there was a presence about her.

Now, I could barely sense it. She was slipping away.

I sat there as Iris examined her, which included taking a small sample of her blood to run through several chemical analyses—or that was what I assumed she was doing. She sorted the blood in different vials and then added little drops of different liquids into them. I was impressed with her concentration and didn’t want to disturb her.

I looked back to my mother and wished for the power to wake her up, to make her better, to talk with her and see if I could learn something from her that would help our pack and Lunaris. I wanted her to meet Elroy. I wanted her to hold her grandchild in her arms.

I thought over what Adele had said yesterday about there being more than three packs in the city. She was right, of course, over time various packs would immerge or integrate themselves into the city, as White Paw had done. Some managed to keep their identity despite their small numbers, particularly if they could promote themselves through artisans or scientists, like Blue Moon Pack, but others were just absorbed into whatever larger pack best suited their culture.

But it was basic history that Moonshadow, Eclipse, and Ravencrest had dominated the city’s power structure for over three centuries. Sometimes this was for Lunaris’s benefit. Sometimes it wasn’t.

Even more simply than that, the enmity between Moonshadow and Eclipse had directed so much of our development and our stagnation. Three hundred years ago, both packs had split from the original Stormhowl Pack. After the old Alpha died without naming an heir, his two sons, with differing views and equal strength, divided the pack along ideological lines that had never managed to reconcile.

Several times, the two packs had been on the verge of all-out war, and time had lost count of the skirmishes on the battlefield and the territorial lawsuits in the courts. Our literature was full of stories of ill-fated lovers from different packs, like Romulus and Juliet. Sometimes it seemed all on the verge of falling apart.

What had kept it all together was Ravencrest. The pack members were masters of negotiation—not to mentioned manipulation—that had managed to maintain the overall peace yet never quite calmed the conflict.

My mother had been of the opinion that Ravencrest liked it that way: balancing the demands and abilities of both sides to keep themselves in a position of power beyond what their numbers and wealth would indicate. She was probably right, but removing Ravencrest from the negotiating table would cause instant chaos, and we all knew it.

But Ravencrest aside, the differences in philosophy and just basic dogma between Eclipse and Moonshadow were so deeply entrenched in the cultures it seemed foolish to think the two packs could ever coexist in serenity.

I knew that the Moon Goddess must have her reasons for the perpetual conflict, but to me it seemed such a waste of time and resources. This was clear in the different types of technology and standards of living among the packs. No one pack was superior, but they all had their specific strengths.

And weaknesses. Eclipse Pack’s disdain of omegas, as we had just shown, was damaging society in a multitude of ways. Was Ravencrest involved with Denis?

“Ravencrest,” Iris said.

Had I said the pack name aloud? “What? What about them?”

“Claudia’s blood shows sign of acetone, specifically a type derived from Rubiaceae, which is in the bedstraw family. The only reliable source of bedstraw is a medicinal nursery specific to the deep south Ravencrest Territory.”

I looked down at Mother and again felt alarmed by her shallow skin. “Why would she have bedstraw in her blood? It is poisonous?”

“Some varieties are, though typically to livestock, not wolves—or humans, for that matter. Some are edible, such as coffea Arabica.”

I looked down and realized I had taken my mother’s hand. “Could someone have tried to awaken her with caffeine?”

Iris shot me a look. “It’s too early for me to be making guesses. And I could use an assistant in here and some more reactants.”

I nodded, put my mother’s hand back on the bed, and went looking for a familiar servant.

Inevitably, I ended up in the kitchens.

The estate for the Moonshadow Alpha was small and somewhat dark compared to the palace for the Lunaris Alpha, but I felt myself relaxing as I walked its stone hallways (that sweat a bit, it must be admitted).

For a moment, I let myself feel what it was like as a child to live here. More than anything else, home had always felt safe.

And then one day Mother didn’t wake up. The safety had been an illusion.

“Olivia!” Cook Ashton called as I walked in. I smiled at the warmth in his voice and coming from his oven on which, as always, a large pot with amazing aromas was bubbling. I gave him a quick hug, and he pinched my cheek before I batted his hand away.

“It’s good to have you back, even if just for a quick visit. And I see that pregnancy suits you,” he said as he handed me a small biscuit.

“Thank you,” I said and popped the biscuit in my mouth.

“You’re looking for Brady?”

I nodded. The housekeeper was usually near the kitchens, if not inside one of the larders counting the apples and eggs.

“She’s not here right now,” Ashton said. “Can I help?”

“The Alchemist needs an assistant.”

“Well, I don’t have a chemist on me, but Rodin over there has steady hands.” He waved to the back where a beta male in his late teens was chopping carrots and keeping an eye on some soup. “Rodin!” Ashton called.

The beta nodded, set down his knife, turned the flame off under the soup, and came over. I explained what I needed, and he seemed eager enough. When I went to send him off to my mother’s rooms, however, he hesitated.

“What is it?” Ashton demanded.

Rodin looked at me, then down at the flood. “If I may ask, Luna, my fiancé and I are having a pup. I wonder if you might ask the Goddess to bless her.”

I smiled.

“Of course, Rodin. What is your fiancé’s name?”

“Esther.”

“Have you a name for the pup yet?”

“We’re waiting for news of their ranking.” He twinkled at me, which I found charming. His fiancé was a lucky wolf. “But if they’re a beta male, we’re thinking Samuel, after my father.”

“I will ask the Goddess to bless you new family, Rodin.”

He looked ridiculously pleased. If only all my duties could be so easy.