Chapter 3
Skylar.
Audrey called two days after the mating announcement, her voice pitched somewhere between amusement and disbelief.
“You will not believe what happened at the ceremony.” She started.
“What now?”
“A truckload of white funeral lilies showed up at the pavilion an hour before it started. A truckload, Skylar. Nobody could figure out who ordered them, and the delivery man swore up and down the payment cleared under some account nobody could trace. Who even does that? It was funny though, I can’t lie.”
I sat back in my chair. “Funeral lilies. At a mating ceremony?”
“Half the guests thought it was a death omen. Capri cried in front of everyone, I almost felt bad for her. Almost, but she deserved it. Jameson had to give a speech assuring everyone the mating wasn’t cursed.”
“Who sent them?” I asked, genuinely curious despite myself.
“No idea.” Audrey said, but I could hear the smile creeping into her voice even through the phone. “But honestly? Knowing him, it’s probably his own fault somehow. That man collects enemies the way other people collect firewood. I wouldn’t be surprised if he offended someone big.”
I laughed loudly, before turning back to the proposal spread across my desk. “Tragic.” I said. “Anyway, I have a shipment to sort. Let’s talk later.”
She let it go, still laughing when she hung up.
***
Five months later, I gave birth to my daughter in a Ravenshollow healing house with Audrey gripping one hand hard enough to bruise and a midwife counting breaths I couldn’t keep steady. Giving birth had to be the hardest task I had ever done in my life.
Labor lasted eleven hours, and somewhere around hour nine I stopped caring about anything except getting through the next contraction alive. I named her Isla, after my grandmother, because she’d meant so much to me, and I hoped she’d grow up to be just like my grandma.
Audrey went quiet the moment the midwife set Isla in my arms.
“What?” I asked sharply, tired and frustrated.
“Nothing.” Audrey said. “She just has his eyes, and his nose, that’s all.”
I looked down at my daughter’s face, still scrunched and new, and saw exactly what Audrey meant. His jaw, unmistakable, even on a face this small.
“She’s beautiful.” Audrey added quickly, like she was worried the first comment sounded horrible. “I just meant, wow. Genetics really didn’t leave you any room to lie about who her father is.”
“I never planned to lie about it.” I said, brushing a finger along Isla’s tiny fist. “I just planned to make sure he never got close enough to find out.”
The years after Isla’s birth moved faster than I expected. Moonveil Remedies grew from a two-room office into a supplier trusted by packs across four territories.
I hired healers, chemists, wolves who’d been turned away by their own packs for daring to specialize in shifter medicine instead of pack politics. By the time Isla turned three, we held exclusive contracts with half the allied territories for wolfsbane antidotes alone.
Audrey kept me updated on Thornwood, it was usually brief and mostly bad. Jameson ran for a seat on the Alliance Council when Isla was five and lost badly enough that the story made it all the way to Ravenshollow’s trade papers.
The general consensus, according to Audrey, was that Capri’s standing within Thornwood had done more damage to his campaign than any actual policy failure. Nobody trusted an Alpha whose mate had a reputation for picking fights with every wolf who so much as looked at him.
“Apparently she cornered a Council delegate’s daughter at a dinner last month over some perceived slight.” Audrey said. “She threatened to have the girl’s family removed from the trade registry, in front of witnesses. What an idiot.”
“That tracks.”
“It gets better. The delegate’s family sits on the vote that decides Jameson’s Council bid.”
“She dug her own grave.”
“Karma has a sense of humor.” Audrey said over the phone the day the results came in.
“Karma had help.” I said, and left it there.
“What did you do?” She asked excitedly.
“Nothing much.” We both laughed and ended the call.
By the time Isla turned six, Moonveil had a staff of forty and an assistant of mine, Genesis Berg, who'd made it her personal mission to drag me out of the office at least once a season.
“The Moonlight Alliance Gala is next week.” Genesis said, dropping the invitation on my desk without asking. “You’re the lead sponsor this year. You have to actually show up this time.”
“I sponsor things so I don't have to show up to them.”
“That’s not how sponsorship works, and you know it.” Genesis crossed her arms. “Every major pack in the alliance will be there. It’s good for the company. It’s good for you. And Isla’s been asking to wear the dress you bought her for her birthday for weeks now. She’ll be crushed if it just sits in the closet. Let her have fun for once.”
I opened my mouth to argue and thought better of it. Isla had, in fact, asked about that dress three separate times this week alone.
“Low blow, using my own daughter against me.”
“I learned from the best.” Genesis said, and didn’t even try to hide her smile.
I never intended to hide Isla from the world, I just wanted to keep her away from the negativity of this world. I guess it was time to change that.
“Fine.” I said. “But we are not staying past the closing toast, and you have to watch Isla.”
“We’ll see.” Genesis said, already gathering the invitation off my desk to add it to the calendar, humming something to herself as she left me alone with a stack of contracts.