The Alpha Heir’s Candle Game Chapter 09
The Gifts He Repaired
I noticed everything. I was considerate. I was good at reading a room.
The Grand Luna took to me fast.
Bit by bit, my place changed. Attendants who used to walk past me now bowed as I went by. Council wolves who came to pay respects to the Grand Luna started asking after me by name. Hoping I might put a good word in for them.
I didn’t have to watch anyone’s face anymore. Only hers.
I could come and go from the sanctuary and the pack house as I pleased. No token. No pass. No candle.
The retired Pack Alpha, Ethan’s father, stopped me once in a corridor and smiled at me the way an uncle might.
My father’s standing on the council rose. My mother wrote me letters full of thanks that we had been spared. That they hadn’t fought me when I chose this.
I thought Ethan had finally understood.
He hadn’t come back to the sanctuary. He hadn’t sent word.
Then the gifts started.
Every few days a wrapped bundle would arrive at the sanctuary gate with my name on it.
Every one of them was something I loved. Something that had been shattered in my room the day he ordered his attendants to strip me.
The bracelet I’d used as a step-stool as a pup, until my mother caught me and scolded me raw.
The white porcelain cup he’d made for my sixteenth birthday, the first year I’d entered his wing.
The clay figurine we made together.
Every piece had been broken. Every piece had been put back together. Some so carefully I couldn’t find the seams unless I turned them in the light.
He’d repaired them himself. I could smell his scent on the lacquer.
Each one came with a small note in his hand.
[Do you remember this cup? I made it for you the first year you came to my wing. You said you’d keep it your whole life.]
[Don’t be angry with me anymore. I was wrong. Come home.]
[I asked my father for the blessing. He said you belong to my grandmother now, that I need her word. She won’t give it.]
[If you’re willing to come back to me, I’ll send Clara away. One life, one mate, you and me only.]
Too much. Too much promise for a wolf who had rigged a candle so I would lose seven times running.
I didn’t take the gifts. I didn’t write back.
Then, one afternoon, he came.
And he brought Clara.
Maybe he was angry that I hadn’t answered his letters. His face was colder than it had been at the gate.
“I’ve come to spend a few days with the Grand Luna. Councilor Whitmore’s daughter will see to our quarters.”
I bowed. I saw the quarters made ready. I didn’t ask why he’d come.
The Grand Luna didn’t say a word about it, so neither did I.
That evening, he and Clara arrived at my table for the meal.
“I hear the mushroom broth on the ridge is worth the trip. Clara, love, try some. Slow down. It’s hot.”
He fed her a spoonful himself. Careful. Soft.
Clara looked awkward enough that I almost felt sorry for her.
I stood up before he could look at me. Took my bowl. Ate in my room.
The next morning, I was in the courtyard waiting for the Grand Luna’s rites to end.
Ethan came past with Clara on his arm.
He stopped near me. Not close enough to speak. Close enough to be seen.
He unfastened his own cloak and settled it around Clara’s shoulders.
“It’s cold today. Don’t get a cold outside. You’re a she-wolf with a pup. It’s different now.”
My eyelashes flickered once.
A pup.
That was good news, I told myself.
That was a good and healthy thing.
I kept my head down. I didn’t move.
Then his scent hit me.
Pine and cold cedar.
His hand closed around my wrist. His eyes searched my face. “She’s carrying my pup. You have nothing to say to that?”
I met his eyes. Kept my voice light. “Should I have the priests pray over her, Alpha heir?”
He went still.
Then something dark moved through his eyes and he dropped my wrist like it had burned him and walked out of the courtyard.
Clara stood there in his cloak, watching him go.
She let out a long breath.
“Jade. You really can’t tell? He was trying to make you jealous. He wanted you to fight with him. The way you used to. I’m not carrying his pup. He isn’t good to me either. In the days since you left the pack house, he hasn’t been sleeping. He hasn’t been eating. He stayed up night after night gluing your things back together. He wants you to stop being angry.”
I didn’t hate Clara.
I still felt for her. An orphan she-wolf who had clawed her way with nothing but her own spine. I still respected that.
So I asked her softly. “And what does any of that have to do with me?”
She didn’t answer for a long moment. Like she hadn’t expected me to be so cool.
Then she told me anyway.
Every one of those seven times he’d refused me a pass. Every candle. Every rigged flame. He’d done it to break my temper. To grind me down. So that when I became Luna, I wouldn’t be difficult.
I looked at her.
Then, before I could stop it, I laughed.
“If the male you loved treated you like that. To make you softer. To make you listen. What would you feel?”
Clara opened her mouth.
She closed it.
She didn’t defend him again.