The Last Tail Of The Fallen Luna

CHAPTER ONE

The Seventh Loss

Seraphina's POV

I sat on the ground in my little garden behind the palace, pressing seeds into the soil as I had countless times before. The healers did not like my coming out here. They told me I should be in my bed, that a woman four months pregnant shouldn't be kneeling in dirt. But my hands had to be occupied, and my mind to be diverted from the same fear.

"You're going to destroy that dress," Mira said as she set her basket down beside me.

I didn't look up. "It's an old dress, it's already torn."

She knelt beside me, snatching some of the dead leaves from the mint before they could strangle the healthier ones. "I know that the healers will scold me if they discover you again here."

"Who will tell them? You or i?" I teased.

Mira huffed a small laugh and then, when I finally looked at her, her eyes were studying me too much. "How're you Luna."

I sat down on my heels and let the question sink in my chest before I responded to it. "Terrified."

She didn't speak for a while. Just waited, like she did always when she knew there was more coming.

"I'm scared."I said. "Every time I learn that I am carrying a child, there is this rush of hope, but I hate it now, Mira, I hate feeling it, because I know how that ends. Carrying them for weeks, sometimes months, and then they're gone before I even let myself imagine holding them."

"Seraphina-"

Before she could soften it, I said, "I'm tired. I'm over the hope feeling."

Mira extended her two hands and gripped mine in both, which was covered in dirt. " but we can't let negativity take over."

"I know."

"Then that shall be sufficient for this day. Let's go in... you need to rest." Mira said with a smile.

I wanted to. I really wanted it to be good enough. Rather, my mind drifted to something darker, something I hadn't spoken of with anyone. "Do you ever wonder if the Moon Goddess is punishing me for something? Some crime I did and can't remember it at all?"

Mira gripped my hand in a firm, almost crushing, grip. "Don't think that, don't blame yourself for this."

"Then why me?" My voice was softer than what I'd hoped. "Why is it that it continues to happen to me

"No," she replied, "I don't know. But it's not punishment. It's not something you did."

I didn't believe her, not completely.

We worked for awhile more, but not a lot of words were used. I only got to grab a pair of shears, and then I knew.

"Mira. Where is Kael?"

She blinked as if she was surprised that I didn't know already. "You didn't hear? The king left two days ago, to broker peace between the northern and eastern territories. He's expected back today."

Two days. My own mate had been two days gone and I'd never noticed! It was an unexpected feeling of guilt that came on top of me, but I swallowed it before it hit me in the face.

I said, "Yes, that's right. "I remember now."

I didn't remember. I said it so she would not be worried about me anymore than she was already.

The horns blared and before we could complete the line of seedlings, they sounded, loud and triumphant, rolling out over the courtyards and gardens.

In one swift motion, Mira was on her feet. "It is the victory call, he's back."

Servants were running from the garden gate before I could get up off the ground, calling out for the preparations to be made for the feast, for the musicians to be brought to join in the festivities. It was all played out in front of me and I made my choice in a flash. I wouldn't run out to meet him in all the chaos!

I asked Mira to help me with the bath, "Help me bathe. "And bring me something appropriate for tonight."

When my maids were done with me I hardly recognized the woman in the mirror – silver hair parted from my face, a gown as deep as dark frost blue, my skin washed of garden dust. Once I touched the curve of my abdomen, gently, before I departed from my chambers.

I discovered Kael in his private rooms, dressed, one of his men helping him to tie the ceremonial clasps at his shoulder. When I entered he turned and for a while we were silent.

"Seraphina.... How are you?" He asked after taking a good look at me.

"Well enough." Came my short, polite reply.

"And the baby?" He asked.

"The baby is well too." I smiled.

He nodded, and that was it; we didn't know what to say after. This had been the case for months now – careful questions, careful answers – nothing below them. I looked in his face for something, anything but he gave me his arm.

"They're in the waiting room in the Grand Hall."

I took it, and we walked in silence.

By the time we arrived there was already a celebration going on in the Grand Hall and golden light was pouring down and wine flowed freely, the smell of roasted meat thick in the air. I sat down next to Kael, who was seated at the table's head, and I sat up straight and smiled when I should have.

The War General stood and lifted his cup aloft. "Two warring nations at the borders, and our king brought them peace-without a drop of blood! Just the mention of his name was enough to make them fall down to their knees!"

There was a great applause from the hall, fists pounding wooden tables and glasses held high for Kael.

I joined in with them in clapping. Then suddenly, the room tipped over.

The golden light that filled my eyes was distorted, and my vision was blurred. I held the table with my hand to steady myself and then, in my own hand, I saw my fingers closing into claws, black-tipped and scuttling, before they snapped back into their normal shape, as if nothing at all had occurred.

My heart was pounding in my ribcage.

I didn't wait. I didn't even look at Kael when I got up from the seat and silently scurried out of the hall, not looking back at the curious eyes that were staring after me as I ran towards the doors.

I walked all the way to the palace hospital.

When I finally spotted the royal healer, I said, "It's happening again," in short, panicked gasps. "I believe I've lost another tail, please please look at me, look at the baby as well."

He didn't ask questions. He simply guided me into the examination room and began his work while I was left outside, pacing the corridor, my arms wrapped around myself as if that alone could hold everything together.

Minutes passed. Each one longer than the last.

Then the door opened, and the healer stepped out, his eyes finding mine with an expression I already knew I wouldn't survive.

"The baby is dead," he said. "And you lost two, not one, tail."

Chapter 2: The Papers Beside Her Bed.

Seraphina's POV

I felt the ache first in my chest, dull and hollow, as something had been dug from me, leaving a hole. The second thing I felt was the stiff, hospital sheets against my skin in the palace hospital. I closed my eyes for a second longer, my hands gripping, my mind saying, "When I open my eyes Kael will be there. He always was. After the third defeat, after the fifth, he had been the first face I saw.

I opened my eyes.

A stack of papers was placed on my seat beside my bed, and Elder Magnus Voss was seated in the chair, sitting on his knee.

Not Kael.

I tried to stand up quickly and the room spun. "Where is Kael?"

Magnus folded the papers over his hands. "The king is in a meeting of the council."

"A council meeting." I waited for him to say more; I waited for the rest of the sentence to make sense! It never came." I lost another child, Magnus, my seventh. And he's in a meeting?"

"It's a significant meeting," Magnus said.

"Is that meeting more important than his mate? "My voice cracked on the word mate and I hated myself for it.

I did not get a response from Magnus. He just looked at me, as he does to all of us, calm and unreadable, as though we are all problems in need of a solution, the right paperwork.

"I didn't come here to talk about the King's time," he said. "I came to serve one purpose."

He took the papers off his knee and placed them on the blanket in front of me.

"Sign these."

I glanced at them but didn't touch them. "What are they?"

He smiled and said, "read them and you'll understand".

I took the first page up. My hands trembled, but I am not sure if it was from the exhaustion that still weighed on my bones or the cold that was creeping over my stomach as I saw the lines and lines of people below me. I read the words twice before they really made it to me.

The abdications of the title of Luna was a voluntary act.

I looked up at him. "It's forcing me to resign," he said.

"Yes."

"Why?" I already knew why. I had to hear it from his mouth.

"You understand why, Seraphina." Magnus' voice was even and patient, as one might explain to a child. "A Luna that gets weaker with each season; a Luna that does not carry the line can not stand beside the King; the council has made its decision."

"The council's decision." I put the papers down and wrapped my fingers around the blanket. "Not mine. Not Kael's."

"Kael has already said 'yes'."

The words made a deeper impact than they were meant to. "I don't think you're telling me the truth."

At his side he took out another page, and held it toward me without speaking. I could tell it was the one I was looking for from the bottom of the signature. I had seen that hand sign on my wedding contract 5 years back. I had seen it sign declarations of war, treaties, trade agreements. I was familiar with Kael's signature as I was with my own.

It was there. The Council has approved this at the bottom and Kael had signed.

I shook my head, "No. No, I want to hear it from him, not from you, not from a piece of paper. I want Kael standing in this room telling me himself.

"Seraphina-"

"No Magnus, bring him to me. " My voice rose and I didn't mind if anyone heard it through the walls of the hospital. "Or else I won't sign a thing."

For a long, weary time, we did this back and forth, with Magnus saying exactly the same thing to me, and me refusing to listen unless Kael was brought to me.

"Very well," he replied. "I will fetch him."

I sat there, in that too-white room, alone, with the papers on my blanket, as if they might change if I looked at them long enough, and he left.

The door opened again, and then it was Kael who walked through.

A hundred different ways I'd imagined this moment but none of them had been as perfect as it was. In each version, Kael walked across the room and took my hand and said it was a mistake, he would fix it, that the council could not do anything about it. I didn't trust him in all of these versions.

Instead he stood by the door. He didn't come closer.

"Kael." I looked for some expression, anything, in his face. "Please, tell me, it is not true."

"Seraphina." He called my name softly, I barely heard it. "The council has decided and I have agreed with them."

"You've agreed with it." I said it back to him very slowly, like it might be easier for him if I said it slower. "Kael, look at me, look at what I am now."

"This has taken its toll on you." He said . "I see that."

"Do you?" I rolled the blanket back , and shifted to my wolf form so he could see what was left of my tails, they were thinner than before, and only after did he avert his gaze did I shift back to human form. "I lost six of these to try to give you an heir, Kael. Six. I've shed blood for this kingdom, I've buried seven children that never took their first breath, and the one time I need you to stand beside me, not behind that council table, you send Magnus with papers."

"It isn't personal." He says.

"It isn't personal?" I laughed aloud, a crackling sound. "I am your mate."

"I love you." It was a straightforward statement, devoid of any sentimentality, as though love were an external reality to each of his decisions. "That's never changed, but love isn't the answer to what the kingdom needs, Seraphina. I'm the king. I have to think of what my people need. What the future of my line is."

My chest froze, colder than even when Magnus was first sitting beside my bed.

"So that's why, that's why," I replied. "My years, my body, my tails, and I am being exchanged for your line's future."

Kael didn't answer. He didn't need to. He never spoke a word that was louder than his silence.

I picked up the papers that were on the blanket, and I signed my name at the bottom, without giving it a second thought, because if I did think about it I knew that I'd break down before I even left this room. I signed it quickly, my hand making hard marks on the parchment, and when I had finished I collected the sheets, and I got up from the bed on legs that barely supported me.

I walked over to Kael and shoved the papers into his chest with such force that some papers fell on the ground between us.

"There," I said. "You have what your council is looking for."

Then I walked past him out of the room, out of the hospital wing, out through the palace halls where servants lowered their eyes, not even looking at me. I didn't look back. Not once. I walked on through when the corridor opened up to the courtyard and when the courtyard opened up to the gates and when the gates opened up to open road and when the open road opened up to trees.

I don't know how long I walked. Grief has no clock. I only know that at some point, as I walked, the palace was behind me, swallowed by the dark line of the forest, and I didn't care where my feet were taking me as long as it was away.

I didn't realize that I had wandered till the trees were unfamiliar, till the air itself seemed to change, thinner and wrong.

Rogue territory.

When the thought came to me, it was too late.

I heard them first, heard the low growls, heard the shapes moving quickly and near, in the shadows between the trees. My body was exhausted, I started to run, but it wasn't going to happen. Three tails and a heart broken by grief were too slow for rogues bred for the hunt.

Before I had taken twenty steps they surrounded me.

I felt the impact on the back of my head.

"Take her" was the last thing I heard.

Chapter 3: The Highest Bid

Seraphina's POV

When I woke up there was the smell of damp concrete and another metal scraping underneath, perhaps blood, dried and old to the floor. I could feel the pain in my head where he hit me, and for a split second I forgot why I was lying on cold ground rather than a hospital bed.

Not too long after, it returned to me. The papers. Kael's silence. The trees. The rogues.

I opened my eyes against my will.

It was a dark room with just a few dim bulbs hanging on wires above and it took me a few moments to see the shapes around me. Cages. They all were silent and still, some holding two or three bodies at once. Wolves. Dozens of them were chained or caged, none of them moving more than they needed to.

I woke up too quickly, and my head whirled.

"Where am I?" I could only croak out my voice. No one answered. "Please. Someone. Where is this?

A woman with empty eyes and a ripped dress turned her face away from me, the nearest wolf,

I scooted up to the bars that divided us. "Talk to me, please. What's happening here?"

She said nothing.

I went back to a man a couple cages further away, then a boy who must have been about sixteen years old, then anyone with eyes I could see. Each and every one of them recoiled or simply looked through me as though I were not there. Some of the things they had been made to do, some of the things they had already had to experience in this place had taken the words out of their mouths.

I stopped trying. I just sat back against the cold bars and waited as there was nothing else to do.

The doors of the warehouse opened sometime later, and two men came in, broad-shouldered, with the ease of the men who owned everything they looked at. They began to file down the rows, and without a word of explanation they pulled cage doors open, dragged out wolves and pushed them into two lines.

When they arrived at my cage, one of them knelt and grabbed my chin and turned my face side to side, as if checking a cow.

"This one!" he replied to the other. "Get her out. - Now."

Before I could fight back, strong arms grabbed me. "Let go of me!"

They didn't. They dragged me out of the cage and into a corridor to a smaller room where two women stood with basins of water and folded cloths. They stripped me and bathed me and put me in a plain white slip, all without speaking a word to me, as if I was furniture being cleaned rather than a person.

At the end one of them tied a wooden tag around my neck. I scanned the number on the wood.

"What is this?" I reached out to get the tag. "What is this for?"

One of the old traders stood leaning against the door, watching. He laughed, as he did, softly and with amusement.

"You should be honored."

"Honored?" I stared at him. "For what?"

"A nine-tailed wolf...well...three tailed wolf." He looked at my 3 tails that were curling weakly against my back. "There are still just a handful of them remaining, but you're going to make us a fortune tonight."

"Please." I didn't like my voice breaking, how fast my anger turned to begging. "Please let me go, I don't belong here. I have a home-"

"No more, you don't," he said, and turned away.

I begged anyway. I pleaded with the people who put me in my clothes; I pleaded with the guards who escorted me out of the room; I pleaded with everyone who came close enough to hear me; and no one heard me, no one looked at me.

We were put in the back of a covered transport and the doors opened once more and I stood behind a stage in a huge underground hall that I couldn't see the end of. There was a lot of noise in the air, and occasional, low, grumbled voices from a crowd I couldn't see, but they were interrupted by an occasional crack of the auctioneer's gavel every few minutes.

Behind the curtain I could see wolves dragged on and on to a lit platform, paraded before the buyers who numbered like they were bargaining over cattle. I saw a young woman dragged off the stage sobbing, sold for a not insignificant price. I saw a man who was an older man standing there frozen and silent and men with fancy coats yelling bids over his head.

I pressed my hand to my mouth, because if I let myself make a sound I thought I might scream and never stop.

Then I heard it.

"Lot Forty-Seven."

A hand was thrust into my back, pushing me forward.

"That's you," whispered the guard behind me. "Move."

I walked out on the platform, hit by the light, had to blink it out of my eyes, and when I came into focus, there before me were rows and rows of faces that I couldn't see in, all staring at me as the traders stared at them.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," the auctioneer roared. He was like a lion roaring over me, as if I were a prize animal. "This is not just any offering, it is a nine-tailed bloodline that was once nine tails strong, but now has only three tails, but that doesn't mean it is weak, does it? Think of what this bloodline could do for your pack, your line, your future."

There was a lot of laughter in the crowd. To my left, a man shouted out a number and right away, another man joined him.

I stood there, embarrassed, my arms around myself as if I could embrace what little dignity I had left, and men who didn't know my name discussed my value.

"Do I hear more?" said the auctioneer. lThis blood line is rare; it doesn't come twice in a generation-l

Another number. Higher. Then another.

"Going once-"

One of the voices in the rear of the room rose from among the others, and the room went silent as they listened.

"Going twice-"

I closed my eyes, I couldn't bear to see the gavel fall, couldn't bear to know which stranger now believed he owned me.

That's when the gavel failed to hit the ground.

The rear doors of the hall burst open into the hall.

The sound of screaming and the bodies rushed for the exits, overturned chairs and the lights above the stage swinging wildly on their chains. As the shapes crashed through the smoke and shattered glass, wolves in their fighting form tore into the guards around the platform, I stumbled backward.

But again, the men who dragged me here seized my arms and pulled me away from the stage and from the chaos in the crowd, but before we could move more than a few steps, we were engulfed by the fighting.

Around me snarling and yelling started to go up and up. I was pushed in one direction and then pulled in another and found myself stuck between people I couldn't see clearly enough to tell whether they were friend or foe. I felt my hand on my wrist and felt it pulled and I lost my balance completely and ended up in the center of the battle, it was impossible to determine direction.

Wolves were more numerous and stronger than the auction house guards could handle and they tore the rogues apart, one by one, until the last of them was ripped out of my presence. Roughly I was hauled up by some hands, strong, firm and before I knew what was going on, I was being carried away from the collapsed stage and out into the open air.

I lifted my gaze to the strangers around me – their faces still in shadow, their bodies still morphing from wolf to man – and I didn't know whether I'd just been rescued, or just taken by another stranger.

"Who are you? What's happening?"