Chapter 5

Gasps erupted, louder this time. Ayla’s face flushed red as she buried it in her hands, sobbing.

“How can you be so cruel?” Ayla whimpered in her hands.

“I’m not cruel. I’m not doing anything wrong. Perhaps you should take a look inside and stop blaming everyone else.” Elaine spoke with finality. Lucas stood frozen, eyes locked on her new form.

Everything with her has changed.

The room had gone still after Elaine’s last words, but only for a heartbeat.

The host stepped onto the stage, signaling the start of the Alpha Summit pre-conference. The crowd turned toward the front as if nothing had happened. It was as if a Luna hadn’t carved open the fragile, false order of everything with a single sentence.

Lucas sat down stiffly, jaw clenched. Ayla, eyes still damp, slid gracefully into the seat beside him, her pale hand resting on his arm. She leaned against his shoulder like a petal needing shelter.

He couldn’t help, but replaying Elaine’s actions in his mind.

When did her attitude change? It started when she claimed she was sick. She said she only had six months to live, yet she was as lively as ever, with enough energy to argue and go shopping! How was she anything like a sick person?

She just came up with a new tactic to compete with the truly ill Ayla.

This woman...

Elaine was forced to take another seat, away from her husband and Alpha. As Ayla snuggled into him, she felt the mate bond twist inside her. The sensation was tight and searing as though some invisible thread was being pulled taut around her ribs. Her head pounded. Her vision flickered. A coppery taste crept into her mouth.

She rose to her feet, heart thudding unevenly in her chest. Her pulse roared in her ears.

Lucas turned toward her with a deep frown. “What are you doing now? Leaving in the middle of this is not appropriate.”

Elaine didn’t answer him. She couldn’t. Her breaths choked as her throat constricted.

She walked away. Her heels clicked on the marble floor as she moved swiftly, too swiftly, toward the back exit. She barely made it into the private restroom before she dropped to her knees beside the marble sink.

Blood hit the porcelain in thin streams as she coughed violently, trembling. Her fingers clutched the edge of the basin, knuckles white.

She had to remind herself to breathe through each choked gasp. As her heart found a steady rhythm again, it became easier to handle.

She stared at her reflection. Her rouge was smudged, eyes glassy, and crimson stained her lips like a wound.

A bitter smile tugged at her mouth. Would she die like this? After everything she’d been through. She thought she had done everything right. She had served, endured, and been the best Luna she could be.

Was this all her hard work had amounted to? She asked, but she already knew the answer.

This wasn’t tragedy. It was liberation. Her last wish, her only one now, was to live, not for Lucas, not for her family. She wanted to live for herself.

The door creaked open.

"There you are." Her stepmother, with her father a step behind. "I knew you'd run."

“Was this your grand performance?” her father hissed. “Making a fool of yourself in front of the whole summit?”

Elaine did not turn around. She blotted the corner of her mouth.

"I'm not running. I was sick."

"You were sick because you laced yourself into something half a size too small to make a point," her stepmother snapped. “I told the maids to set up the brown dress, and instead, you show up dressed like a mistress. Do you know what people are saying?”

“You’ve become reckless,” her father chimed in with a sneer. “Now you’re dragging Lucas down with you.”

Elaine didn’t speak. Not yet.

“Do you have any idea what’s at stake tonight?” her father barked. “Lucas is on the verge of winning Alpha President, and you’re sabotaging everything. No wonder he’s turning back to Ayla. He should’ve never trusted you. Just like we shouldn’t have.”

Elaine straightened slowly, wiping her mouth with a silk handkerchief. “You don’t speak for Lucas.”

"That man," her father said, low and shaking, "is a waste, Elaine. One ballot from president, and tonight he'll lose it because of you. Walked in dressed like — "

“You’re wrong,” Elaine said softly. “Lucas is many things, but he’s not a waste. Not like you. Not like all of you who’ve lived your whole lives leeching off others.”

Her stepmother sucked in air. "You don't speak to your father like that."

"I just did."

“You’d be nothing without your family,” sneered her father. “Your husband too.”

“We don’t need a pack of greedy jackals. Now get out of here before I lose my patience,” said Elaine.

“This isn’t over.”

Her father grunted and turned toward the door.

"Don't think I've forgotten the box. I have it. I will keep it. You'll go to your grave without ever seeing your mother's things again, do you hear me. You'll go to your grave."

When the door swung shut, she let her shoulders drop. Just for a second. Just for the time it took to breathe in and breathe out. Her hand went to the edge of the basin again because her knees were not entirely sure they wanted to keep holding her.

The door opened.

She thought it was her stepmother again. She did not look up.

"Whatever it is, I don't want to — "

It was Lucas.

*

Lucas had been pacing outside the hall when he heard raised voices from the bathroom. He got there in time to hear Elaine defending him, defending them. He had never expected her to be so steadfast against her family.

All this time, he thought she was working with them and that she was as guilty of using his position as they were. Had he misunderstood her all this time?

When he saw Elaine, alone and breathing heavily beside the restroom sink, pale and clearly unwell, his heart stuttered.

He didn’t speak at first. He watched her grip the sink for balance. Something in him shifted. He swallowed hard. She looked fragile. In this moment, she seemed more vulnerable than he had ever known her to be.

He stepped forward at last. “Elaine—”

"You shouldn't be here. It's the ladies'."

"I know what it is." He took another step. "You don't look well."

"I'm not well. I told you that this afternoon. You didn't believe me then. I don't see why you'd start now."

He stopped half a metre from her. The mirror gave her both of them — him standing behind her with the look of a man trying to decide if the woman in front of him was the wife he had filed away or someone else entirely.

He reached out. Just his fingers. Toward her wrist.

She moved her hand away. "Don't, Lucas."

He pulled his hand back, swallowing his awkwardness. “You shouldn’t have to deal with them alone.”

She gave a breathless laugh, looking at the floor. “Too late for that.”

He hesitated. “You stood up for me.”

“I don’t hate you, Lucas,” she said quietly, finally looking up at him through the mirror. “Not really. I just… can’t live like this anymore.”

The bond between them flickered again. It was thin, trembling, and strained. Lucas opened his mouth. He didn’t know what he was about to say. She turned to face him, and the mask she’d worn in the hall was gone. She looked tired and bruised.

“I still want a rejection,” she said softly. “Let’s make it official.”

For a moment, he didn’t feel angry. He felt afraid. He had convinced himself he didn’t care, but each time she mentioned it, he felt a flicker of pain. He didn’t want to leave Elaine. He didn’t want her to leave him either.

He cared about her, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

To ask for a rejection again only made her bout of illness seem like an act. She wanted to seem too sick to do her duties and leave him with no choice.

“I don’t think we should.” said Lucas.

Elaine sighed, exhausted by his relentless denial, and started to push past him to head into the hall. Lucas turned and hurried after her, desperate to make her stay and talk.

Before he could say anything more, hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor. His beta Kyle appeared, panting slightly, a folder clutched in his hand.

“Alpha! I have the report you asked for... the Luna's medical report!"