Page 15 of The Barren Luna

Catherine also visited me one day, but she was much more old-school in her approach. She simply backhanded me as soon as she got close enough, and her heavy ring split my lip open. She must have been dreaming about that for years. I spat the blood in her face, wishing I had a horrible disease I could infect her with.

“The only reason you’re still breathing is that harming you would physically harm my son. You jealous bitch. You useless piece of garbage.”

Luckily, Henry never came to see me, at least while I was awake. I knew it would be difficult for his wolf to see me suffer, and there was only so much wolfsbane one could take. Judging by how often he fucked Hannah, he was playing a dangerous game with it already. Much to my relief, their bedroom activities started to decrease in frequency as she approached her due date.

During my more lucid moments, I tried reaching for the twisted sense of humor Dorothy and I had shared, and I consoled myself with the fact that, at least now, no one was trying to cause my boobs to produce breastmilk.

One night I heard soft sobbing next to the bars of my cell. When I looked up, I saw Lucy, and I was mortified.

“What are you doing here? He’ll kill you, Lucy, for the love of God, you have to leave,” I started hyperventilating and pacing.

“Ginny, please, look at me. Relax, breathe, honey. That’s right. Henry’s not in the pack, he went to Colorado. The new King is taking over.”

“King Phillip died? How long have I been here?”

“A month. It was unexpected, an aneurysm.”

“And you thought this was a good idea?” I looked at her, incredulous, and she grinned back at me.

“The best.”

She helped me clean myself up and brought in Omegas to clean the cell and change my bandages. She could only stay for an hour but promised to come back. The next night she brought Liam with her. They brought food and more clothes and for a moment we all pretended we weren’t on different sides of bars, and that we were just three friends eating dinner.

“Luna, do you want any more pasta?”

“No, thanks, Liam. As much as I’d like to, I don’t think my stomach could handle it.”

“Yeah, I imagine not,” he said sadly, and I didn’t want them to worry that I didn’t get enough to eat.

“Hey, it could be worse. They could be feeding me Catherine’s meatloaf,” I laughed weakly and they humored me by faking laughs as well.

“You guys, you know you can’t come see me anymore, right?”

Before they could protest, I soldiered on, “No. One dead friend on my conscience is enough. I know you’re on my side, and it means more to me than you’ll ever know, but please don’t put yourselves in harm’s way. You see that he’s clearly unhinged and that no good can come of it. Please, if you want to do something for me, this is it.”

“Okay, Ginny. But we won't stop thinking of something to do. We’ll file an official complaint with the Royal Court - ”

“I know, Lucy, but think of your pups. Don’t get involved in anything that could cost them their mother, be smart.”

“I love you, Ginny,” she said and squeezed my hand through the bars.

“I love you too, Luce.”

???

The visit was a sort of goodbye on my end. I became completely catatonic and unresponsive in the weeks after that. The only course of action available to me was to die on my terms. However, the bastards wouldn’t let me. There were tubes down my throat and intravenous liquids and lights flashed in my eyes. I wanted to leave this world, I wanted it more than I'd ever wanted anything. I wanted to be wherever Dorothy was, wherever my wolf was. I missed both of them. I missed the best part of myself that now no longer was. One day, maybeyears after I first entered the dungeon, I felt someone lifting my now horrifyingly frail body and jostling it as if carrying me somewhere. I sensed a trace of some familiar fragrance. Before I could get to the bottom of that thought, a strong light blinded me and I knew I was outside.

8 – Calum

Things had been going to shit for a while now, but locking my Luna in the dungeon definitely took the cake. I grabbed the first enforcer I could find and instructed him to get a message to Lucy. I then made my way to the hospital while at the same time trying to figure out what the fuck had happened.

That female. She kept showing up at the pack house uninvited and at the most inopportune times, always complaining of one pregnancy ailment or another. If my Lucy hadn’t borne two pups, I wouldn’t have been able to see through her attention-seeking behavior. The Alpha, however, bought it, hook, line, and sinker. On the one hand, I could understand him, I had also been overprotective of Lucy during both of her pregnancies. On the other hand, how he was wounding his mate with his behavior was anathema to shifters.

Even before Lucy found the Luna passed out during their first breeding session, the whole thing had made me uneasy. We took the Luna to the hospital and spent two and a half days by her side since the Alpha’s order was that he not be disturbed. He almost punched me when I informed him that his mate had been hospitalized, but I think most of that anger was misdirected. I’dknown Alpha Henry since we were pups. He used to be a good and honorable male and I had to believe that, deep down, he still was.

And now that damned female was walking around smelling like the Alpha all the time and there were some rumors going around, but I still had faith in Alpha Henry’s integrity. I attributed the smell to his pup growing inside her, and unless I saw something with my own two eyes, I wouldn't indulge in baseless gossip.

“Alpha, do you have any news?”

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