The Luna's Bodyguard [a mature werewolf romance]

Ch 44: Backstabber

OPHELIA

Fallon didn't pick up on the second ring, which was unusual.

He didn't pick up on the third ring, either.

I almost gave up on the call altogether, about to resign myself to fishing cash from the tip jar at the dingy bar and hailing a cab, when something changed. Every hair on my body came alive, my attention crackling just like the speaker.

The bodyguard's breathing was hoarse on the other end. "Where are you?"

Had Fallon been running? Panicking?

"A small bar," I said, nervously stirring the toothpick in my gin. I'd already eaten the cucumber. "It's called The Backstabbing Bitch. Weird coincidence, huh?"

I could have sworn I heard his breath hitch. Mine did, too. I'd completely screwed him over in that maze, taking advantage of his hard-earned trust to get what I wanted.

Now the Fates were rubbing it in my face. I should have been more careful of what I wished for.

"Ophelia," he growled, a warning in his tone. "I need your real address. We're coming to get you."

I shuddered, still trying to reconcile all that I'd learned before Evergreen dumped me up here, courtesy of another spelled object. It was only away from my mother that she dared to speak freely, and bid me to help my sister. Judging by the overlapping circles on Evergreen's forearm, usually hidden by a modest sleeve or a pair of gloves, the Fates had some kind of religious significance to her.

Aurora was made, not born, I remembered, grimly confident in the assessment. It didn't diminish her as a person in my eyes, but it did make sense. And she's one of three Fates steering the world towards rebellion.

Well, one of two. Apparently the hag in Reginald's throne room — Minuit — was hopelessly in love with the Crown Alpha and desperate to earn his approval. He'd urged her to come into her full power too soon, hastening the aging process. Still she slaved under him, a twenty-six year old woman in an eighty-year-old's body, plucking strings of fate that would reverberate through the world and ensure the Crown's supremacy.

I didn't want that for Aurora — a life in service to the Crown or the rebellion. Not because I thought she'd make the same mistakes as Minuit, but because she hadn't had a choice in the first place. We'd both been funnelled here, to this moment, though I had to be brutally honest with myself and admit I'd come willingly in the end.

"Where are you?" Fallon roared on the other end. I flinched at the raw emotion in his voice, wholly unlike him.

"Is she safe?" came a second voice. More distant than the first, distorted, but unmistakable all the same.

"Nate," I breathed, guilt mincing my guts. "Put him on."

I'd told Fallon I loved him first, even though I knew how deeply insecure Nate could be. How desperately the Pendragon prince needed to hear his name from my lips — that breathy reassurance that he mattered, that I was his.

And then I'd screwed up Fallon's trust and tossed it in the trash. Would he even believe the truth I'd spoken tonight? Would he believe anything I said ever again?

Why couldn't I come up with a convincing lie?

I'd betrayed them both with the little stunt I'd pulled tonight. It was gut-wrenching to realise I might lose them both for it.

Fuck.

The thought was echoed by Fallon's voice, and I winced. There was a crackling sound as he passed the phone over, no doubt nursing this newest rejection, unintended as it was.