Page 36 of Depraved
Even though this shifter burial field is massive, and the only tree nearby is the huge ceremonial pine brought in with a crane for the shifter part of the funeral still to come, it feels claustrophobic.
My airway tightens. I can’t breathe. I open my mouth to make some excuse when an arm slides across my shoulders.
“I couldn’t be prouder,” Mother says.
Claustrophobia becomes trumped by old traumas.
Marriage to an alpha is a mistake. It doesn’t lead to happy endings. This stupid human wedding planner has dollar signs in her eyes. She has no idea what it’s like for a weak wolf to be married to a strong one. But I do. I know exactly what it’s like. I know how that story ends. Alpha wolves don’t earn their rank by showing mercy.
Look at those women back there.
Black might have a tender side sometimes. But that doesn’t trump his crueler nature. One day, I’ll push him too far.
It’s why I won’t bite Black. Why I will never mark Black. Why I choose Jonah.
Goddess, help me escape this conversation, I plead to the moon.
I smile sweetly and duck out of Mom’s hold, walking forward and grabbing a shrimp from a tray that Matthew’s just set down. I want to grab onto the old butler and hide my head under his jacket like a little girl. “Help me, I need to escape this wedding talk,” I speak to him through my teeth like a ventriloquist.
“Oh really? I thought your panicked eyes and sweat beading on your forehead meant you were having a wonderful time,” the old man says dryly as he adjusts his silver tray, the fanciest one in the potluck spread, and starts to grab an empty tray to take away.
My hand automatically reaches up to check my forehead. “I’m not sweaty.”
“Not sweating bullets? But those feet of yours are encased in blocks of ice right now, I bet.”
“I can’t believe he’s forcing me to stand here alone and do this.”
“I can’t believe that you are blind to the amazing opportunity you have here. These are alpha females. They run the pack, the social bits of it anyway. You’re the lowest-ranked member of the pack, and yet, here they are flocking around you.”
“Looking for weaknesses,” I say as I stuff another shrimp into my mouth and glare at the sight of my mother talking animatedly to the wedding planner in the moonlight. It’s a fucking funeral, bitches.
“They’re looking for approval,” Matthew disagrees with me, but he has no idea what he’s talking about. Not a single one of those alpha women wanted to be near me. “You have a lot of power right now. You need to think about what you want to use it for.”
“How about this? I want to make sure alphas never beat up on those weaker than themselves.” The line comes out hard and bitter, louder than I intend, and my mother’s eyes cut over to me.
The moon chooses that moment to grow brighter, encasing the two of us in a spotlight as we engage in a stare-off that’s as intense as the Battle of Gettysburg.
Her lips thin, but other than that, she keeps control of her face. Meanwhile, I can’t hide the nasty look that spreads across mine. My anger’s too strong.
I look away first, before I end up doing something that will embarrass us both. Unlike that Engine bitch, I didn’t mean to publicly air my grievances.
I grab a cracker and crunch down, letting the buttery salt soothe me while my eyes scan the beta half of the crowd, which appears much more docile than the alphas. There are a lot more hugs and a lot more handholding over there. The looks from their side of the crowd are much more friendly. Sometimes even a little too respectful as I catch a couple head bows.
Could Matthew be partially right? And does it even matter? What does power matter if I don’t want it?
“Don’t they want a luna who actually wants to be luna?” I ask him, grabbing onto his elbow so he can’t just walk away and leave me alone with my mother and the Crimson Horror, as I’ve decided to call the wedding planner.
Matthew halts, sighing, and letting his tray drop to his side. He stares at me patiently for a moment, as if he’s just realized that there’s more than half a century of wisdom and experience separating us. “Elena, love. They don’t get any more say in who is luna than you do. What they want—what they deserve—is a luna who cares about the pack more than herself.”
He doesn’t say it’s in a scolding tone, but my cheeks blaze with fire anyway. Because he’s right. Other than alpha rank, shifters don’t get a lot of life choices. Their wolves come in and change their lives in a blink.
Should I really mourn that my wolf was the exact opposite of what I wanted? So were a lot of people’s.
I feel guilty for being so selfish and shortsighted. I still want to run away—I think part of me will always want to run away from this life I hadn’t planned but was given.
I take a deep fortifying breath. Moon goddess, help me. I step forward in my heels, determined to learn what these betas think the pack needs.
But, as always, my good intentions are interrupted by the reverberating clang of a gong. All conversation stops. All eyes travel up, up, up, to the tip-top of the eighty-foot pine tree whose branches are decorated in garlands of moonlight.
