I Was Only His Backup Mate, His Second Choice Luna Chapter 14

I Was Only His Backup Mate, His Second Choice Luna Chapter 14

Something behind his eyes went sharp and then went still.

He thought about the tea. About his mother turning the lock.

And he finally understood that he had never known the girl he grew up with at all.

It took him a moment to get the words out.

“I knew she leaned on me. I told myself it was a girl’s crush and she’d grow out of it. I thought if gave it time-”

He stopped and started over.

“I was wrong. I’ve told her plainly. There’s no contact between us from now on.”

He was talking faster, laying it all in front of me like a man emptying his pockets.

“I’ve dealt with my family too. I warned Sunna. You never have to see any of them again. Never set foot in that pack house, never sit through another dinner, never manage another one of their

moods.”

His voice caught.

“We can start over. We can be what we were.”

He looked at me so hopefully that it was almost hard to do.

I shook my head.

“Magnus. There’s no version of us that goes back.”

There was a time I couldn’t let any of it go. I explained myself until my voice gave out. I fought with

him for months trying to make him see what she was.

Standing there in my mother’s front room, I found I didn’t need him to believe me anymore. I didn’t need him to think anything of me at all.

I looked down.

“I want to be with Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood right now. Please go, and please leave the three of us

alone.”

He started to say something else. The Blackwoods came in from the garden and began herding him

toward the door.

He wouldn’t risk hurting either of them, so he let himself be moved, all the way out into the yard.

Having come this far, though, he wasn’t leaving quietly.

“Estella. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Because of him I slept badly all night.

In the dream I was going down the stairs again with Aelia’s hands on me.

The pain in my stomach, my fingers closing on the hem of his trousers.

“Save our baby. Magnus, please, save him-”

And every time, he pulled free, and picked her up, and left.

And every time, all I had left of my son was a handful of ash.

I went out alone at first light to visit him.

He never got as far as being born. He never got as far as a name.

There’s a small plot at the edge of the pine woods with a stone marker, and carved into the stone is a

crescent moon with no name under it.

I sat there long enough to run out of tears.

Footsteps came up behind me, uneven, more than one set.

I turned and two men were already on me, pinning my arms.

“Who are you?”

A car door opened down the track. Aelia got out and came toward me across the grass, taking her

time.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“Aelia, what now? The bond is severed. What is left for you to take?”

She looked at the state of me and smiled.

Her eyes went over the little cemetery with open distaste, and then came back to me.

“You severed it. He still won’t marry me.”

She stopped a few feet away.

“I have done everything there is to do. And he’s still fixated on a piece of equipment the Blaze family manufactured. He flew out to this godforsaken place to beg you to come back.”

Her voice climbed.

“You took my blood, my title, and every ounce of respect that was supposed to be mine. And as long

you’re breathing, he will never look at me.‘

She started laughing.

“But that’s fine. He can’t let you go now. How long do you think he’ll remember you once you’re

dead?”

She turned to the two men.

“Take her to the Frostmere Reservoir.”

They dragged me down to the water and I fought the whole way.

“Aelia, you’re insane. Kill me and the sheriff will have you inside a week. The Elder Council will have you inside a day. You won’t get out from under this.”

She leaned in close, smiling.

“You just lost a baby. You had a breakdown. You wandered down to the reservoir and you slipped.” She tilted her head. “What does any of that have to do with me?”

My eyes went wide.

Then she kicked me in the stomach.

I screamed going in, and the cold closed over my head and took the sound with it.

My arms and legs turned to lead. I came up twice, swallowed water both times, and couldn’t find the

bank.

The despair arrived before the drowning did.

I was going down when someone tore my name open across the water.

“Estella!”