The Eclipsed Life of Luna Mischa novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Empty Chair

Clive taunts Mischa on the terrace and Duncan won't hear it, so her friends move her into the boathouse at midnight, and at dawn Duncan tells her the council waived the year rule without her.

Clive didn't wait to be asked.

Duncan's chair was empty. Duncan was halfway down the hall, introducing Bethany to the Harrow Fell table.

Clive pulled the chair out and sat in it.

He set his glass beside my plate.

"Lovely lamb," he said. "Our lamb, I should say now."

The Coldwater Alpha stopped chewing.

I laid my knife across my plate, very straight.

"You're in my mate's seat."

"Am I?" He patted the arm of the chair. "He seems to have found another one."

Paul started to rise. I touched his wrist, and he sat back down.

"Excuse me," I said to the table. "I need some air."

I took my wine out to the terrace.

The lake was silver under the moon. Some pup had left a plastic bucket on the steps.

Clive followed me out, as I knew he would.

He leaned on the stone rail beside me and breathed in.

"You've done well with the place, girl."

"Did Bethany know who I was before tonight?"

"My girl knows everything I know." He smiled. "She caught his scent at a council meeting in March. Across a car park. He never even saw her."

"And she ran home and told you."

"Course she did. Who am I to stand in the way of the Goddess?"

My wolf lifted her lip inside me.

"Your year rule," he said. "Clever. Very you."

"It's the charter."

"A year's nothing. I've waited twenty for this view."

He waved his glass at the lake, the pack house, the lit windows of the great hall.

"I can wait twelve more months to see the books."

"You'll never see the books."

"I'm her father. Families share."

He tipped his glass to me and went back inside.

My hands started shaking then. Out here, where nobody could see them.

The French doors opened again, and Duncan came out.

"There you are. Sweetheart, that was a lot, in there."

"Do you know who her father is?"

"Clive. Nice enough fellow. Bit loud."

"He lent your parents six hundred thousand pounds at forty percent. I took him to the council when I was twenty. You held my coat."

Duncan's face went still for a breath.

Then he shook his head.

"The girl isn't her father."

"Her father just sat in your chair and called our lamb his."

"He was joking. You never like jokes when you're upset."

"Duncan."

"She's my mate, Mischa. The Goddess chose her. I won't punish her for something her dad did when she was a baby."

He kissed my forehead.

"Come back in. Please."

I didn't go back in.

At midnight Paul backed the pack van up to the pack house kitchen door.

My four office girls came down the back stairs in their party dresses and trainers, each with a box.

"What's in this one?" Paul said. "Bricks?"

"Ledgers. Two thousand and nine to two thousand and fourteen."

"So, bricks."

My payroll clerk had a bottle of red under her arm.

"I took it off the top table," she said. "Technically you paid for it."

"Technically I paid for everything in that hall."

"Then we've only stolen from you. And you won't press charges."

We drove round the lake with the boxes rattling and the windows down.

The boathouse cottage hadn't been lived in since the old Alpha's time.

It smelled of lake water and varnish. There was one single bed and a sofa with a tartan rug.

My bookkeeper opened a cupboard and screamed.

"It's a mouse," Paul said.

"It's a rat."

"It's a big mouse. It's a mouse that's been to the gym."

We stacked the boxes against the wall.

Paul lit the wood burner on his knees, swearing at the damp kindling.

The invoices girl found mugs and rinsed them, and we drank the wine out of them on the floor.

"Right," Paul said. "Why did the accountant cross the lake?"

"Don't," I said.

"To get to the other side of the balance sheet."

Nobody laughed.

"I'll work on it," he said.

"Please don't."

My payroll clerk put her head on my shoulder.

"He didn't even look at you," she said quietly. "All night. He never looked once."

"I know."

"Does it hurt?"

I thought about it, honestly.

"No," I said. "That's what's strange."

They left at two. Paul was last out.

"I'm across the water," he said. "Shout and I'll swim."

"You can't swim."

"I'll learn quick."

I slept on the sofa in my navy dress with the rug over me.

The knock woke me at dawn.

Duncan was on the step. He hadn't shaved, and he was still in last night's shirt.

Her scent was all over him. Sweet, young.

My wolf didn't even raise her head.

"Can I come in?"

"No."

He rubbed his neck. "The council met at breakfast."

"I'm on the council."

"You weren't at breakfast."

"Nobody told me there was a breakfast."

"Mischa, the elders thought it was cruel. Making my mate wait a year, like she's on probation."

I went cold from the feet up.

"What did they vote?"

"They waived the year rule. Four to two." He made himself meet my eyes. "Bethany co-signs the treasury from today."

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