Page 7 of The Barren Luna

We were both silent for a moment.

“Do you know her? Hannah?”

“She was two years ahead of me in high school. Other than telling you she was outgoing and popular, I don’t really know much. I know her step brother better, he’s one of the pack enforcers, decent male.”

So, she was 22 and thus too young to have been an ex of Henry’s from before he met me. Hopefully. He was 21 when we met, she would have been 18, still in high school. Another thing that comforted me when it shouldn’t have.

“Well, I’m meeting her later today, and then I can fill you in,” I said sarcastically, and Liam’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Why are you meeting with her?”

“All three of us – me, my mate, and our pupmaker, have to go to Doctor Warren’s office to go over this entire dreadful humiliating process. A lot of different herbs and drugs and bodies will be involved, so, you know,” I said with an exaggerated Gallic shrug.

“Oh, wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Let me know if there is anything I can do,” he said compassionately. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

“Bye, Liam. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Any time, Luna.”

Sitting at the doctor’s office with my mate and his concubine was worse than I’d imagined. Her cloying vanilla scent and her proximity to my mate both had my wolf on edge. As we waited for the doctor to come in, she turned to me and, sweetly batting her eyelashes, said:

“Luna Regina, can I just say, what an honor it is to serve our pack. Thank you for this opportunity -”

“Don’t address her!” Henry bellowed at her while my half-shifted claws gripped the armrests.

I could feel the fur taking over my arms and, in my rage, I started turning toward her, when Henry grabbed my hand and whispered in my ear: “Don’t harm her,” leaving me stunned.

Two commands in two days. The unforgivable had apparently become mundane in the Giles household.

I yanked my hand out of his just as the doctor was entering.

“I apologize for the wait, Alpha. Luna,” he bared his neck slightly.

“The purpose of today’s meeting is to go over all the different things we'll need to do with each of the three of you to make this process as quick, painless, and productive as possible. Some of these things you two are already familiar with,” he said while looking at me and Henry, “but Miss Rogers here is not.”

“Please call me Hannah,” she said in that breathy voice that couldn’t have possibly been her everyday speaking voice. The good doctor just ignored her.

“Starting today, Miss Rogers will start injecting herself with a mixture of heat-inducing fertility herbs – chasteberry, red clover, and red raspberries primarily. The nurse will later demonstrate how you can inject yourself at home. You should go into heat after two weeks of daily injections, at which point the Alpha will use one drop of this wolfsbane tincture,” he said, taking a dropper bottle from his desk drawer and handing it to Henry, “Maybe in a glass of water. And the Luna will have the choice of coming here to the hospital to be sedated, or she can inject herself at home with these,” he said as he held up a pack of ready-filled syringes to show me.

“What is that?” I managed to croak out.

“A poppy seed tincture, very effective. We use it to anesthetize wolves when operating on them. One hundred percent pain-free,” he smiled at me but it was sad. We both knew what kind of pain I needed to be free of.

“What happens if I don’t use the painkillers?” I asked and, from the corner of my eye, I saw Henry turn towards me abruptly.

“It’s hard to say, Luna. This is not a very common scenario,” he started apologetically but I raised my eyebrows at him and he sighed. “You'd be in unbearable pain. Maybe you would pass out, maybe you would claw at yourself to relieve it...” he looked away as he trailed off.

I looked at Henry and I saw a glimmer of shame in his eyes before he schooled his features back to determined.

“We’ll take the painkillers, Doctor,” he said and took the syringes.

???

Over the next two weeks, I busied myself with work, spending time with Lucy and Dotty, and visiting pack members as usual, all the while mentally counting down the days to her heat. Lucy told me they moved her into one of the guest houses next to the pack house. It still felt unreal, and I kept waiting for Henry to change his mind, to see the irreparable damage he was doing to us, but nothing of the sort happened.

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