The Rejected Envoy of the Moon Chapter 10

The Rejected Envoy of the Moon Chapter 10

The first snow of winter was falling the day I went to the mall to pick out a birthday present for my son.

He was obsessed with dinosaurs lately.

Zephyr said one model would be plenty.

I looked at the entire wall of dinosaurs and bought every single one.

Zephyr stared at the receipt for three silent seconds.

“You can never accuse me of spoiling him again.”

I handed my card to the cashier.

“You can accuse me instead.”

We were heading down to the parking garage when someone lunged out from behind a concrete pillar.

The bodyguards closed in instantly.

The person hit the ground and looked up.

Patricia.

Her hair had gone grey. She was wearing a dirty, threadbare coat, and she was clutching a plastic bag half-full of crushed bottles and scrap paper.

The moment she saw me, her eyes lit up.

“Claire!”

She crawled toward me on hands and knees and threw her arms around my legs.

“Mama finally found you.”

I stepped back.

The bodyguards pulled her away.

She wept, snot and tears streaming down her face.

“Claire, Grace isn’t human.”

“She stole my money and sent loan sharks after me.”

“Look at what they did to Mama.”

She shoved her sleeve up, exposing bruises in shades of purple and green.

“Mama is paying for everything now.”

“Please help Mama. Please.”

“You’re the only one I have left.”

I looked at her.

This woman once wore designer gowns and stood in the pack hall sneering that bringing me back from the

orphanage was bad luck.

She said my hands smelled like poverty.

She wouldn’t let me touch Grace’s piano.

She wouldn’t let me eat at the same table.

And on the night I knelt in the rain with a fever that could have killed me, she sat inside peeling shrimp for

Grace, complaining that the veins weren’t cleaned properly.

I took out my phone and opened an audio file.

It was the last recording I had made the night the Virethorn Pack threw me out, seven years ago.

The rain was deafening.

My voice was so hoarse it didn’t even sound like mine.

“Mom, open the door.”

“I have a fever.”

“I really didn’t push her.”

Patricia’s voice came through, crystal clear.

“Ignore her.”

“Let her kneel.”

“A child like that won’t learn unless she suffers.”

Then Grace, wheedling.

“Mommy, I want shrimp.”

Patricia’s tone melted into warmth.

“Okay, sweetie. Mommy will peel them for you.”

The expression on Patricia’s face locked in place, mid-sob.

I looked at her.

“That night, I nearly died outside your door.”

“Did it ever once cross your mind that I came from your body?”

Her lips trembled.

“I… I was fooled by Grace.”

“Fooled?”

I put the phone away.

“Did she fool you into thinking I had a fever?”

“Fool you into knowing I was kneeling in the rain?”

“Fool you into refusing to open the door?”

Patricia couldn’t answer.

After a few seconds, she lunged for my phone.

“Delete it!”

“You can’t keep that!”

The bodyguards pinned her immediately.

Mall security arrived, took one look at her, and started hauling her toward the exit.

Patricia fought them every step, screaming.

“Claire, I’m your mother!”

“How can you be this cruel?”

I watched her being dragged away.

Then, suddenly, she clutched one side of her body. Her mouth twisted. Her whole frame crumpled to the

ground.

Security panicked and called an ambulance.

Later, my assistant told me Patricia had suffered a stroke.

Paralyzed on one side.

No one came to pay the medical bills. She ended up on a waiting list for a bed in the hallway of a county

hospital.

Grace never showed.

Thorne was in a psychiatric facility.

Edward was in custody.

She finally had no one left to choose over me.

Zephyr picked me up in the car.

I got in. Outside the window, the snow was falling harder.

He handed me a cup of hot cocoa.

“Hands cold?”

I wrapped my fingers around the cup.

“No.”

He glanced over at me.

“How about your heart?”

I watched the steam rise from my palms.

“Not anymore.”

He kissed the top of my head.

“Then look forward.”

I murmured a quiet mm.

But that was the moment my phone lit up.