My Pack Killed My Daughter While I Served the Moon Goddess novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Pillar
Linnea's necklace shatters on the mountain and she sees her daughter die in a vision. She breaks the Goddess's pillar, runs down to find Tilda's body, and carries her into the feast hall.
The silver necklace around my neck cracked in half while I knelt at the crystal pillar.
Every Luna of our pack wore one half, and her daughter wore the other.
If the mother's half breaks, the child has died.
The pieces dropped into my palms, and the moonstone between them went cold.
Then I saw her.
Tilda lay facedown on a stone floor with her ribs showing through her torn dress.
She was saying the same thing over and over.
"Mom, it hurts so much."
Wolves stood around her, and they were laughing.
I knew every one of those voices.
"Poor thing," a woman said. "Her mother has been gone five years, and nobody even brought her the antidote."
"She can't carry a pup," a man said. "She can't give the Alpha an heir, and she can't keep her own mate."
"The Alpha's line can't end on a barren girl," a third voice said. "His niece has the same blood. Her mate will take the niece, and the pack gets its heir."
"Honestly," the woman said, "the wolfsbane is a mercy."
I saw a pair of boots in the cellar doorway.
I had polished those boots for twenty years.
Gareth did not come in.
Then Tilda's wolf went silent in my chest.
I felt a second life go out with hers, a pup I had never been told about.
I stayed on my knees on the mountain with her necklace in my hands.
Five years ago, Gareth asked me to come up here.
He said the pack needed a Luna's offerings to fill the pillar, and that the Goddess's shield over Redfern Pack land would hold for a hundred years once it was full.
He swore on our mating bond that he would look after our only daughter.
I told Tilda I would be home before she knew it, and that I might come back a grandmother.
Gareth had missed Tilda's birthday twice in those years, and he had never missed Cora's, and I had always put that down to an uncle's soft heart.
Instead he called my daughter barren.
He looked away while her mate slept in Cora's bed.
He stood in a doorway and watched her die.
I got up and put both hands on the pillar.
It was almost full.
Five years of my blood and my prayers were in it.
I did not ask the Goddess's pardon.
I broke it.
The crystal cracked from top to base, and the light that had been stored in it came into me.
It went through my chest and down my arms until my hands shone silver in the dark.
I ran down the mountain without feeling my feet.
At the bottom of the stone steps, someone had left a bundle in the mud.
I fell beside it and turned it over.
It was my daughter.
Her body was cold and her cheeks were hollow from hunger.
She weighed less than she had at nine years old.
I pulled her into my lap and could not make a sound.
The last time I saw her alive was five years ago, at her mating ceremony.
Gareth had already told me I was going up the mountain, and I had to fight him to be allowed to stay for her wedding.
She did not know until it was over.
When she found out, she held on to my hands and cried until her face was wet through.
"I'm grown now, Mom. I can help you and Dad protect the pack."
"Please don't go."
It was hard to leave her, but Gareth had said she was only safe if the pack was safe.
So I pried her fingers off mine, one at a time.
"Don't be sad. I'll be back before you know it."
"Maybe you'll have made me a grandmother by then."
I did not know it was goodbye.
Now I rocked her in the mud and said her name.
A lantern came down the path, and I looked up.
It was the Great Elder, the only wolf who had ever told Gareth no to his face.
He stopped when he saw what I was holding.
"Linnea."
His old voice broke on my name.
"Who left her here?"
"The Alpha's guards, at dusk," he said. "I followed them out. I was climbing up to find you."
"What killed her?"
"Hunger first," he said. "They kept her in the cellar for months. Wolfsbane a week ago, in her tea."
"Did Gareth know?"
The Great Elder looked at the lantern, and he did not look at me.
"He gave the order for the cellar."
I held my daughter tighter.
"Tonight the pack is feasting Cora's naming," he said. "She is to be Emmett's new mate."
"Tilda is not even buried."
"No," he said.
Tilda's necklace half was still shut in her cold fist.
I did not take it yet.
I slid one arm under her knees and one behind her back and stood up.
The silver light ran down my arms and lit the mud around us.
"Linnea, what are you doing?"
"Taking her home."
So I carried her home.
The feast hall windows glowed gold at the top of the hill, and I could hear the whole pack singing Cora's name.
I walked in through the front doors.
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