Two Wolf Kings, One Lie Chapter 08
Moonlight poured through the large windows of the
private hospital’s top floor, spreading silver across the white bedsheets.
I sat propped up against the pillows. A month had passed. The broken ribs had started to heal; the wound at the back of my head had scabbed over. My right hand was still wrapped in bandages – the cracked bone ached softly where it was mending.
Lucas sat in the chair beside the bed, peeling an apple. The skin came away in one long, unbroken curl, a red ribbon swaying gently in the moonlight.
“The results are in,” he said. He cut the peeled apple into small pieces and set them in a white dish on the nightstand, his voice steady and calm.
“Ryan and Luna have been found guilty on multiple
charges and banished to the Death Land for hard labor.
They will never be allowed back into either the wolf
clans or the human world.”
I gave a small nod. I didn’t say anything.
I had heard a little about the Death Land – no
sunlight, no life, nothing but endless work and bare
ground. For two people who had lived in comfort their
whole lives, it was probably worse than dying.
“As for Lucy…”
Lucas paused. He glanced at me, seeming to choose his
words with care.
“She has been placed in a human–world orphanage. Legally and by blood, she has no connection to you
anymore.”
I looked down at my bandaged hand.
The hand Ryan had crushed under his shoe – the
memory of that bone–crack pain was still sharp. But
compared to the hole in my chest that would never
close, this pain was nothing.
“I understand,” I said. My voice was very soft, as if I
was trying not to disturb something.
Lucas was quiet for a moment. He pushed the dish a
little closer to me.
“What are you thinking of doing? After all this?”
I looked out the window. The moon was big and round,
hanging over the city’s skyline – clear and cold as a
piece of jade that no hand had ever touched.
“Maybe… just go on living,” I said, I tugged at the
corner of my mouth, a bitter, hollow smile tugging at
my lips. “Alone. All by myself.”
Quiet settled over the room.
Then Lucas spoke, his voice low:
“Big sis Elara – I’ve always wanted to ask you. Why…
were you so loyal to Ryan?”
I looked at him, caught off guard.
He held my gaze, and there was something in his eyes I
couldn’t read.
“I looked into it. All those years you were married… he was emotionally abusive to you. He hurt you.”
He stopped, swallowing around whatever he was
holding back.
“And you never once thought about leaving. Why?”
I was quiet for a long moment – so long that Lucas seemed to think I wasn’t going to answer. Then, softly:
“Because he was my fated mate.”
Lucas’s pupils pulled in slightly.
I smiled a little and turned to look at the moon through the window. The moonlight was like water, washing the whole night sky clean, just like the night the divine
oracle had come.
“You know how it works. A wolf–person has only one fated mate in a whole life. The moment the divine oracle came down, I knew. Ryan was mine. If the gods arranged it, I was willing to trust it.”
I paused, my voice dropping lower.
“I kept believing that someday he would turn and look
at me. I chose to believe that Lucy truly loved me. I
chose to believe that home was real.”
The moonlight fell across my face – cool, still. I reached up to touch my cheek and found, without
knowing when it had happened, that I was crying.
Lucas was quiet for a long time.
He lowered his head. The knife he’d used to peel the apple rested on the table, the blade catching the moonlight, glinting cold and pale.
“What if…” His voice was a little rough. “What if your fated mate, from the very beginning, was me?”
I stared at him – then laughed, in spite of myself. The
laugh pulled at my half–healed ribs and sent a dull
ache through me, but I couldn’t stop.
“Lucas, we grew up together. More than twenty years.”
I shook my head.
“The divine oracle never came for us. It’s impossible.”
His lips moved – but he said nothing.
I reached for a piece of apple from the dish. My fingers
had barely grazed it when his hand came forward too.
Our fingers touched – lightly in the space above the
dish.
His hand was warm. The palm was rough with thin calluses nothing like the hand of the small boy who
used to run after me everywhere.
He didn’t pull back.
Instead, very gently, he turned his hand and folded it
around mine.
Palm to palm. The roughness of my bandages and the
warmth of his hand came to me at the same time. His
hold was light, but his fingers curled just slightly – as
if afraid I might slip away.
“Elara.”
His voice was barely there, as soft as moonlight on
snow.
“If it’s all right… can I ask for a chance?”
I looked at his hand resting over mine. At his long
fingers and clean nails. And suddenly I felt something
sharp and tight at the back of my nose.
I wanted to say no.
But then I caught a scent.
Very faint. Like the warm smell of deep–autumn forest
wood after a long afternoon in the sun. Or rainwater
caught in pine needles, blown loose by a passing wind.
Dry and steady and deep, with the faintest trace of
something sweet – barely there.
Where was it coming from?
Without thinking, I turned my head. My nose nearly
brushed the collar of his shirt.
It was coming from him.
That warm, woodsy scent wrapped around me, and something stirred a string deep inside my chest that had been still for a very long time.
Thud- thud- thud
My heartbeat, loud in the quiet room.
Faster with every beat. Harder. Like someone
drumming inside my ribs.
I went still.
That scent… that feeling…
It wasn’t possible.
I looked up quickly, and found myself caught in Lucas’s
gaze. He was watching me from just above – his eyes
full of hope and nerves, and something held back very
carefully.
Moonlight fell through the window – onto his
shoulder, across his brow, over the hand holding mine.
My heart was still racing.
As if it wanted to break free of my chest.
I opened my mouth. The words stuck in my throat. I
couldn’t say anything at all.
He only watched me, quiet and still – and slowly, the corner of his mouth curved into the faintest smile.
“Elara.”
His voice was so soft, as if afraid of breaking
something.
“You caught it, didn’t you?”