The tension in the room was a living thing, thick as a winter fog and twice as cold. Selene leaned back against Leo's broad chest, the golden light of the afternoon filtering through the high arched windows of the office, catching the pearlescent sheen of her hair.
"The King, of course," she said softly. The words were a balm. Leo's posture, which had been as rigid as a mountain crag, finally broke. He exhaled a ragged breath, his fingers splaying protectively over her waist, pulling her flush against him with a possessiveness that made the air hum.
But the peace was short-lived. Christian, never one to let a sleeping wolf lie, leaned forward, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why were you fated to two then? If he's the 'perfect man' you designed, why keep your options open? Seems a bit calculated for a Goddess of Love."
Selene didn't flinch. She met Christian's demanding tone with a steady, ancient calm. "I do not control the rules of the Earth, Christian. I am bound by the same physical laws I helped breathe life into. While I was still in the Heavens, the Law of Dual Fates was passed by the High Circle. Each deity was assigned two paths- a light and a dark. It was a deterrent, meant to keep us in the Heavens. The Fates wanted us to fear the 'bad' choice so much that we would never descend and disturb the balance of the universe with our selfish desires."
"But you made a selfish choice anyway," Christian snipped, his lip curling.
"I did," Selene agreed, her voice dropping an octave, carrying the weight of centuries. "I chose to fall. But I ensured my choice would not fracture the universe. I took the burden upon myself. I can't say the same for the others. If my brothers or sisters fell, they wouldn't have the clarity I did. They would be at the mercy of the first soul they encountered, light or dark, and their power would follow that soul into the abyss."
"Nik saw you first," Christian countered, relentless. "And he didn't claim you. If the 'bad' choice was supposed to sway you, it didn't work very well."
"Correction," Selene said, her eyes flashing with a brief, violet spark. "Nik smelled me first. I hid the essence of my soul from him because, deep down, the divinity within me knew he was the rot, not the blossom. I resisted the pull until I could find the one I had watched for four hundred years."
The conversation drifted, Leah asking about the omniscience of a Goddess with a twinkle of curiosity that bordered on vanity. Selene confirmed it with a weary sigh: she knew every breath, every heartbeat, every secret from birth to the final shroud. Mack, shrouded in his corner, watched Christian squirm. It was a rare pleasure to see the notorious heartbreaker of the Seven look so transparent. Selene knew every bed he had climbed into, every promise he had broken, and the weight of that silent judgment clearly made his skin crawl.
"Who is getting their mate first?" Megan blurted out, her excitement practically vibrating the chair.
Selene let out a small, musical giggle, but there was a hint of sorrow in it. "Getting and meeting are two very different things, Megan. But I cannot speak of specific timelines. To voice a fate while walking the Earth is to risk snapping the thread. It is out of my hands now."
Mack's mind caught on those words. Get and meet? The distinction felt like a riddle wrapped in a warning.
Christian stood abruptly, his chair scraping loudly against the marble floor. "If that is all, I'd like to go. I've had enough 'divine intervention' for one morning."
"One last thing," Leo interjected, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling warning. "Selene is Lycan now. She hasn't experienced her first heat yet, but when she does... don't bother the Royal Wing. And don't worry about the noise."
A stifled silence fell over the room. Christian vanished out the door without a word, the rest of the Seven following in a blur of movement, eager to escape the suffocating intimacy of the King's office.
"Mack? Hold back a moment, please?"
The request was soft, but it carried the weight of a command. Mack stopped at the door, his heart hammering against his ribs. He closed the heavy oak doors, the click of the latch sounding like a guillotine. He bled back into visibility, his tall, lean frame casting a long shadow across the rug.
Selene stood up from Leo's lap, moving with a grace that was both ethereal and profoundly grounded. She walked toward him, her blue eyes shimmering with a light that made him want to hide.
"I know you have something you want to say... or write," she said, her voice dripping with a kindness that felt like salt in an open wound.
Mack's jaw worked. He felt the familiar, hot prickle of rage and dejection. He pulled out his weathered notepad, his pen scratching furiously, the ink bleeding into the paper as he vented his agony. He stared at the words for a second- Why did you let her die?- before heaving a jagged sigh and ripping the page to shreds. He shoved the crumpled remains into his pocket.
"How could you?" he spoke, his voice a low, broken rasp. "You're the Goddess. You're the one who is supposed to be 'Love.' You watched me from the sky for centuries, watched me be an assassin, watched me lose Lydia... and then you give me Taylor, only to snatch her away in an hour? How is that love? That's cruelty. That's a game."
"It was a part of your story, Mack," Selene said, stepping closer. She reached out as if to touch his arm, her expression deeply, painfully motherly. It wasn't the look of a peer; it was the look of a creator grieving for her creation. "I am the Moon, Mack, but I am not the hand that cuts the thread. I do not control the timing of death. I am so deeply sorry for the loss of Taylor- "
"Don't speak her name!" Mack roared, the sound tearing from his throat. He slammed his fists onto Leo's mahogany desk, the wood groaning under the impact.
"Never speak her name! You don't get to say it! You sat on your throne in the clouds and watched her bleed out! You could have stopped that wolf! You could have stopped the war!"
Leo was on his feet in a heartbeat, his Lycan aura flaring like a localized sun. "Don't yell at your Queen, Mack! It was not her fault! Control yourself!"
Mack didn't back down. He stood his ground, his pitch-black eyes fixed on Selene, his chest heaving with the weight of three hundred years of unanswered prayers.
"Leo, stop," Selene said softly, placing a hand on the King's forearm. The golden fire in Leo's eyes died down instantly, quelled by her touch. She turned back to Mack, her gaze softening into something so tender it was almost unbearable. "I know you lost faith in me a long time ago, Mack. I know the dark places your mind goes when the invisibility takes hold. But I promise you... you will find your happiness in the coming months. The Fates are shifting."
"I doubt it," Mack spat, the words bitter as gall. "Happiness is a lie told by people who haven't spent their lives in the dirt."
He didn't wait for a rebuttal. He turned on his heel and stormed out of the office, the doors slamming behind him with a force that rattled the frames on the walls.
He was so consumed by the red haze of his anger that he forgot his primary instinct. He didn't turn invisible. He stalked through the palace corridors, a visible, vibrating mass of fury. He passed servants who scurried out of his way, their eyes wide at the sight of the Ghost-General in such a state.
Every footstep felt like he was trying to crush the world beneath his boots. Months? she had said. Happiness? How dare she. How dare she offer him crumbs of hope after serving him a feast of shadows for three centuries. He was a man who had buried his heart in a forest glade; there was nothing left to bloom.
He burst through the palace gates and headed toward the tree line, the familiar scent of damp earth and pine failing to soothe him for the first time in history. In the distance, he could hear the faint, sharp screeching of Kristie. She was likely in the middle of her own tantrum, probably railing against the news of Selene's divinity in a meeting with her own minions.
Mack rolled his eyes, a sneer twisting his features. None of the Seven truly liked the King's sister. She was a jagged piece of glass in a world of smooth stones- spoiled, problematic, and perpetually convinced the world owed her a debt it could never pay.
Usually, Mack would have used his power to blink out of existence the moment he heard her voice, drifting past her like a cold breeze. But today, he just kept walking, his heart a heavy stone in his chest.
He reached his cottage, the small, grey structure looking more like a prison than ever. He stepped inside, the silence of the house rushing to meet him like a familiar enemy. He slammed the door shut, leaning his forehead against the cool wood.
Get and meet are two different things.
The words echoed in his mind. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the flickering hope Selene had planted. She was the Goddess of Love, sure, but she was also a woman who had just admitted she was "selfish."
Mack sat down in his armchair, the shadows of the room lengthening as the sun began to set. He didn't pick up a book. He just sat there, visible in the dark, waiting for the months to pass so he could prove her wrong. He wanted to be right. He wanted to stay broken, because if he was broken, at least he knew who he was.
But as he stared into the gloom, he couldn't shake the feeling of Selene's gaze- that motherly, knowing look. It felt like a promise he wasn't ready to keep.