Chapter 187: Back To My Old Self?
Lucian’s POV
I arrived late for the burial ceremony of the late Alpha Roran and his Luna, Sienna.
Maybe that was why I didn’t see Selene. I was told she had been around, had given her speech, and had left immediately.
What a Luna. Somehow she had managed not to lose anything: not her husband, not her business, not her life. She was extremely lucky, and I was the one left to mourn.
I hadn’t even gotten over Celeste. We had just put her in the ground, and now I had to rush down to Bloodmoon to represent Winterwood at the burial of a great alpha. Roran was someone I had considered a brother and a mentor. He had been in all of this long before the rest of us, so it was only right to give him his respect.
The third night of that mating festival would be remembered as the night of many deaths.
The calibre of people we lost... great people. It was a loss I didn’t think the whole of Morvaine would ever recover from. Selene would eventually have to add it to her newly released Morvaine digital library, and I wondered how she’d ever find the words.
Fuck. It was chaos. It was massive destruction.
We cried. We shed tears.
Mine came from two graves at once: my Luna’s and Alpha Roran’s. I didn’t hold back. I cried it all out, and Valerie stood right there with me. She held me through all of it, and I let her.
That day, I made myself a promise: I was never going to marry anyone again. Whatever I had to face from now on, I would face it alone.
After the procession, I went home.
My people received me with joy. They clapped hard, louder than I deserved. I did my best to hold in the tears and smiled just enough to let them know I appreciated the warm welcome.
My eyes were covered with sunglasses, though. They didn’t need to see what was behind them.
The elders stood right in front of me. I walked straight past them. I couldn’t afford another stupid meeting that would only end with someone dying.
"I’m not in the mood for any meeting. I need to be on my bed now," I said as I passed.
"We’re so sorry for everything. Take your time, Alpha," they said.
I didn’t want to believe they loved me or cared about me. They were just doing their fucking job.
Valerie followed me up to my room. My personal assistant. She opened the door for me and helped me out of my garments, and I didn’t know what I would have done without her. I was lucky she was around, because I had never felt more alone, and she was the only one trying to fill that void.
Fuck.
"I have some news for you, Alpha." Valerie was careful with every word. I’d been angry and unpredictable, and she had learned to tread softly around me.
I walked up to her, and something in my chest softened for a second.
"I could never hurt you. You’re family now," I said, though the anger was still burning inside me like a fire I couldn’t put out.
"Oh... okay." She swallowed. "Selene is mobilising an army to get revenge on the people who did this to Morvaine."
"What? And she didn’t ask for any help?"
"She said that she, on behalf of Icefang, wanted to take full responsibility for bringing us justice and making them pay." Valerie added that Selene had said all of this in a public announcement.
"That serves the humans right. If I had the strength and energy, I would have joined the fight, but I don’t. I just want to rest."
Valerie brought me a duvet, and I climbed into bed and tried to sleep. I thought it would numb the pain, at least for a while.
It didn’t come. I tossed and turned, over and over, with Celeste’s face behind my eyelids every time I closed them. Roran’s voice echoed in my head. I was vexed, and in a burst of anger, I threw the duvet off the bed.
"Fuck everything!" I screamed.
I stood up. Valerie tried to hold me back, but I was already scattering things and punching the wall like it was a punching bag. I couldn’t feel a thing. I wanted the pain to reach a peak, though I didn’t know what that peak looked like.
"Please, Alpha, you need to pull yourself together!" I didn’t listen. I kept trading blows with the wall, breathing hard.
"Alpha Lucian!" This time Valerie shouted my name with so much intensity that I stopped and turned around.
And whoa. She was almost naked, with her top gone and everything exposed.
"You need this to ease off. I’m more than willing to give it to you." She slid her pants down, ready to go all the way for me.
"No. Stop!" I said, and she halted immediately.
She had been my breeder, my whore, before all of this. But I wasn’t going to fuck my Beta. The grief hadn’t erased all of my reasoning.
"I won’t fuck you, Valerie," I said, my voice rough. "But I could use relief from one of them." She knew exactly what I meant.
She put her clothes back on and went downstairs to make the call. I stood there panting, my knuckles bruised, still wanting that relief. Seeing her bare body had reignited the urge in me. I needed it now. I needed to feel something that wasn’t grief.
𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
Gladly, she didn’t keep me waiting long. She came back with one of my breeders and closed the door behind her almost immediately.
"Aria," the girl said softly.
Fuck. I hadn’t known her name, but I remembered being with her several times.
"Ohh, that’s good."
Her dress fell from her body. She had already unzipped it on the way up, and she was ready.
I took her in my big, bruised hands and pushed her down on the bed. I kissed her neck with force and intent, and I might have even left a love bite. She was soft and warm against me, and for a few minutes, the rage in my head went quiet. I was breathing hard against her skin as my mouth traveled down her body, and damn, she responded to me in all the right ways. I flipped her over, and the room filled with our heavy breathing and the sound I wanted to hear, her moans, pleased and sated.
Our bodies clenched and moved together with force until the tension finally broke and I collapsed over her.
Ohh, yeah. I felt the relief. My breathing changed after the encounter with Aria, and the knot in my chest loosened.
But then I stared at the ceiling, and the silence settled back in. The warmth was already fading, and I feared I was going back to my old self: the man who used his body to drown his pain, the one Celeste had worked so hard to change.