Page 30 of The Barren Luna

On December 31, the royal delegation led by King David Bell came to my home; they explained how the complaint never gotprocessed and how they had trouble tracking it down, but they were here now to look into the issue.

It was while briefing them in my home that both my mate and I experienced a sharp pang of pain, and we knew that something must have happened to our Alpha or Luna. I ran with the delegation to the Alpha’s home, where we broke down the door, whereupon the King shoved me aside and ran into the house, from where he emerged quickly, carrying a bloody Luna Regina. She was luckily unharmed, but the Alpha was dead. We quickly pieced together what had happened - ”

“Only things you witnessed yourself, Beta Phillips,” David reminded him.

“Sorry. That is all I have witnessed directly, then.”

“Thank you, Beta Phillips, you may step down. The next witness the Crown calls is the former Gamma of the Spruce Mountain pack, Liam Bidey.”

13 - Ginny

Ilooked at Liam’s determined, young face with an indescribable tenderness. I’d missed him so much.?

“Gamma Bidey,tell the truth. How long have you been the Gamma of the Spruce Mountain pack?”

“Not long, I was assigned the post in January of last year.”

“Gammas are traditionally the protectors of the Luna, aren’t they?” David asked and Liam’s eyes flashed black for a moment before he composed himself.

“Yes,” he managed to say through gritted teeth.

“Well, what a fine job you’ve done,” David was clearly needling him and Liam was losing it.

“Don’t you think I know that!” Liam jumped up, his canines descending, the guilt on his face clear as day for everyone to see.

“Calm down, pup,” David dismissed him with a wave of the hand and Liam sat back down. “I see you are guilt-ridden, but now, under command, tell me what else a young, newly minted gamma such as yourself could have done?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Liam hung his head. “I could have died for her.”

“And you still wouldn’t have saved her, so it would have been pointless,” David said almost cheerfully. Was he trying to make Liam feel better?

“Now, please tell us what happened on July 20?”

Liam blew out a breath and cleared his throat: “The Luna and I were visiting an older pack member, Mrs. Hemsworth, as part of the Luna’s initiative to provide a sense of family to those without any. Normally, we’d spend the entire afternoon with her. That day, however, the Luna started clutching her stomach and demanded that I take her to the pack house immediately. While we were in the car, she seemed to be in unbearable pain. I could just feel it radiating off of her, together with despair, and I began to suspect that it was due to her mate betraying her.”

“What made you jump to that conclusion?”

“I knew that she had collapsed from the pain during Miss Rogers’ first heat, and had to be sedated in the hospital for the second, so it wasn’t much of a leap to conclude that someone who cheated on their mate with one excuse might soon find another,” Liam said and bravely met the gaze of all the wolves in the first row.

“You said that the Luna was in the hospital for Miss Rogers’ second heat? When was that?”

“She was, I was the one who picked her up when she was discharged. It was two weeks before that day at Mrs. Hemsworth’s.”

“So it was physically impossible for Miss Rogers to be in heat again?”

“That’s right.”

“What happened then?”

“We arrived at the pack house, where a guard informed us that the Alpha was in his office. I basically had to half drag, half carrythe Luna up the stairs since she was in no condition to walk,” Liam recounted with a faraway look in his eyes. “The whole way up, I kept praying,please let it be a fluke, please let it not be true, but when we opened his office door, we saw the Alpha standing next to Miss Rogers, both of them disheveled and out of breath. He was zipping his pants up, and she was tucking her shirt back in. It was pretty clear what had happened. The room reeked of sex,” Liam said, his disgust evident on his features.

I was afraid to look at the Lunas in the audience this time, but I did. Instead of pity, most of their eyes held gentle compassion. Together with Liam’s prayer, which I didn’t know about until today, it soothed something inside me, a part of me which believed that no one cared about the pain that I went through. A part that would maybe always think I was all alone in the world.

“What happened then, Gamma Bidey? What did your Luna say to Alpha Giles?”

“She said nothing. She glared at them in disgust and we left. She then asked me to get her more poppy seed tincture syringes.”

“Why do you think she asked that?”

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