Page 1 of The Barren Luna
1 – Ginny
Iwas sitting in front of my vanity, looking at myself in the mirror while sucking in my cheeks theatrically and then blowing raspberries with my lips, reminding myself of a particularly foolish horse. I urgently needed to relax my jaw, especially today. Both my mate and his mother had repeatedly pointed out that I tended to clench my jaw in a very obvious way in stressful and tense situations. And today was going to be both.
The pack had been blessed by another pup, and as the Alpha and Luna, Henry and I needed to go to the hospital to visit the new mother and bless the newest member of our pack. It used to be my favorite Luna duty, but now, four years into our pupless union, it had become a painful and uncomfortable experience for everyone involved.
My mate would be standing there looking frustrated and angry, I would be clenching my jaw, trying not to sob while smelling the pup, and the new parents would alternate between fear, pity, and saying mindless, empty phrases such as: “May you be blessed next!” or “May you also experience joy like this soon!”
The pity was the worst. The condescending well-wishing was a close second. I felt my whole face tense up again and reminded myself to relax my damn jaw if I wanted to keep my originalteeth in old age; shifter or not, they wouldn’t last me if I continued grinding them like this. Unfortunately, there were so many things to grit your teeth about: my infertility, my deteriorating relationship with my mate, his awful mother, the future of our pack, the Council of Elders constantly pressuring Henry to find a she-wolf to breed – and yet they all boiled down to one singular thing – my inability to give my mate (and our pack) an heir.
And it was universally agreed upon that it was my inability – it couldn't have been their Alpha’s fault! Besides, he'd had a pregnancy scare with an old lover once – an anecdote that never failed to make my old nursemaid scoff. She and Lucy were the only ones on my side. Even my own mother threw subtle jabs at me during the rare times I saw her, which made me see her even less. The distance helped – my old pack, Allegheny, was in Pennsylvania, and I was the Luna of the Spruce Mountain pack in West Virginia.
I’d met Henry when I was 20 years old when he came to our pack with his father on official business; I’d come to the Alpha’s office to bring some files that my dad, the gamma of the pack, had left at home, and it was instant fireworks for the two of us. Our wolves went crazy over each other, and we both followed very soon. I packed my things and I was in Spruce Mountain with him not even a week later, marked and mated. He was the only male I’d ever been with, and it still stung a bit that he hadn’t waited for me, although everyone explained it away by saying that he was an Alpha and thus had appetites larger than regular wolves.
I sighed and started getting dressed. I chose a dark blue conservative dress that I often wore for official visits and pack functions. It was one step away from black, so I could still express my mood without disrespecting the happy new parents.
I honestly wouldn’t have minded not having pups if I'd been mated to a lower-ranked wolf – I could see myself accepting my destiny, overcoming that hardship with my mate, and living our life within the limitations our bodies had. But not in this instance; now, this one thing was infesting and eating away at everything else.
Henry and I barely talked anymore. All we did was try to breed. And that was truly what it was – forced breeding. The pack doctors and healers kept feeding me a mixture of herbs that would increase my fertility, which resulted in me having heats every two months for the last year and a half. It was exhausting, humiliating, and fruitless.
I bit my cheek from the inside to unclench my jaw again. I was surprised at how much I was noticing it now. Perhaps Catherine had been right to criticize me, for once. Clench. Oh. So thoughts of my mother-in-law were detrimental to my teeth, who’d have thought, I scoffed to myself.
A bit of mascara and some lip balm, and I was ready to go. Punctual as always, the car picked me up in front of our house for the short drive to the hospital, during which Henry and I exchanged exactly zero words. The silence between us would probably have bothered me a year ago, but now I pretended to look out the window while he caught up on paperwork.
Even though Henry kept wounding my feelings with his militant insistence on breeding, I understood his position in a weird way – he was under pressure as the leader of the pack, and he probably also felt like less of a male at times, although he'd never admit to it. I just hated how everyone else had a say in our mating and future, but I guess that was a part of being pack leadership.
I had made a deal with myself: I would see these fertility procedures through for the sake of my mate and our pack, andonce they all realized that it was all for nothing, they would leave us in peace and we could start repairing our relationship to get it back to the point we were at two years ago when we were happy and enough for each other. It would be fine, I just needed to hold on a little bit longer.
We exited the car at the same time, and then my mate came over and held my hand. Despite the fact that I knew it was only for show, I let myself enjoy the warmth and tiny sparks that accompanied his touch.
My wolf basked in his closeness, the animal not understanding the intricacies of politics and mating strife. For her, things were clearer than for me – Catherine was disrespecting us? Attack. My wolf was a fighter through and through. Our mate was close to us? Good. No pups? Sad. Need mate for comfort. The pack had a new pup? Protect. And that was that. At least one of us would enjoy today’s visit.
The hospital room was filled with flowers, balloons, and various pink items. The tiny bundle in the new mother’s arms released some of the loudest wails I’d ever heard, and I couldn’t help but smile at her, which was immediately wiped off my face when I saw how the mother’s shoulders relaxed. Did wolves think I hated them for having pups? My mate certainly looked like he hated them. I squeezed his hand in warning and he ironed out his frown.
“What a blessed occasion this is,” he said in his deep baritone to the beaming parents.
“Welcome Alpha, Luna, it's an honor,” the father responded, baring his neck slightly in submission.
“And who is this wonderful little female?” I asked in the gentlest tone I could muster, not approaching the new mother just yet. I waited for her signal instead, recognizing how charged this situation might be for her wolf.
“This is Ileana,” the proud mother said, holding the pup out slightly to indicate it was fine to touch her. I approached and took in her scent – it was lovely, a mixture of new life and wolf, smelling faintly of blueberries like her mother. Pups smelled like a mixture of their parents until they got their wolf during their first shift at eighteen.
“May she live a long and happy and blessed life with her family,” I said while putting my hand on her head, feeling just a tiny pang of envy, not at the pup they were blessed with, but at the adoring gaze the male was directing at his mate as if she had hung the stars and the moon; as if she was all that mattered in their universe. When was the last time Henry had looked at me like that? Clench. Stop it! I ran my tongue over my teeth.
“Isn’t she adorable, Henry?”
“She is, indeed, my Luna. May she be blessed and long-lived.”
He also touched the pup briefly.
“Well, we’ll let you all rest, I’m sure you need it,” I smiled my best smile at them, the one I put on in all the official photos, and in a matter of seconds, we were out of there.
“That went well, don’t you think?” I didn’t know why I even attempted to make conversation with him, but I needed some sort of reassurance after the visit.
“Mhm,” he hummed absentmindedly.
“Are you going back to the office or are you coming home for lunch?”
“Office. I’ll be home for dinner. I have a meeting with the Elders immediately after lunch.”
