Luna Forsaken (Arya and James) novel Chapter 262

262 Under Briarwood Lights 2

Lev’s POVO

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Hearing the knock, Arya stepped back at once, and I let out a quiet curse under my breath.

The knock came again, followed by Tamara’s voice.

“If either of you are in there doing something that will delay us, I need warning so I can decide whether to be scandalised now or later.”

Arya actually laughed.

I went to the door and opened it with less warmth than Tamara deserved.

She took one look at my face and grinned. “Ah. Later then.”

She stepped in wearing the royal blue dress Arya had picked for her, and I had to admit the choice had been a good one. The colour made her look brighter, sharper, alive in that way she always was. She twirled once for Arya immediately.

“Well?” Tamara asked.

Arya smiled properly. “You look beautiful.”

Tamara sighed in satisfaction. “I knew trusting your taste was the correct decision.”

Then she looked between us. Then at Arya’s mouth. Then at me. Then back at Arya.

“Oh,” she said, delighted. “I interrupted something useful.”

“Tamara,” I warned.

“What?” she asked, shameless. “You were brooding less when I walked in. I approve.”

Arya turned away under the pretence of fixing her face at the mirror, but I caught the smile she was

trying to hide.

That alone improved my mood more than it should have. We left soon after.

Arya sat beside me in the back of the limo, Tamara opposite us, and I spent more of the drive than I should have watching the lights slide over Arya’s face whenever we passed through gated roads and tree-shadowed bends. She stared out the window for part of it, calm on the outside, but I knew her scent. I knew the tension in her shoulders now. I knew when she was preparing herself to walk into a room full of wolves ready to test her.

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I wanted to put my hand over hers. I didn’t.

GW 16>

MATO

Tamara, sensing too much as usual, filled the space with mocking commentary about who would be there, who was sleeping with whom, and which old Alpha had recently embarrassed himself by getting

too drunk at another gathering and falling into a decorative koi pond.

Arya laughed softly at that.

Worth it.

By the time we reached Briarwood, the house was lit from the ground up, pale stone glowing under the evening lights. Cars lined the front approach. Footmen stood near the entrance. Music drifted faintly from somewhere deeper inside. Elegant and controlled. Exactly the sort of event that pretended it was

a dinner and not a political market.

We had barely been announced when one of Countess Vanessa’s attendants approached and bowed.

“Lord Lev,” he said. “The Countess will see you in her chambers.”

His eyes flicked once toward Arya and Tamara.

“She requests that only you attend.”

The room around us seemed to sharpen.

Arya’s face did not change much, but I saw it. That small stillness she got when she smelled insult

and chose not to bleed in public.

I looked at the attendant. “Then tell the Countess I do not enter places where my companion is

unwelcome.”

The attendant visibly stiffened. “My lord, those were the Countess’s instructions.”

Before I could answer, Arya touched my sleeve lightly.

“Go,” she said, tone calm. “It’s fine.”

It was not fine.

I looked at her.

Her gaze held mine steadily, and there was something in it I understood at once. Do what you came here to do.

Tamara stepped in too, more cheerful than she actually felt. “We’ll survive the wolves, cousin. Go and

get this over with.”

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I did not like it.

But dragging Arya into a hallway argument with staff would have helped no one.

I bent slightly toward her. “I won’t be long.”

Arya gave the smallest nod. “I know.”

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That settled nothing in me, but it had to do.

The Countess received me in a private sitting room rather than a bedchamber, which was at least some improvement on the attendant’s wording. Vanessa Valemonte sat near the fire with the sort of

posture old noblewomen wore when they had spent decades learning how to rule rooms without standing up. She was elegant, silver-haired, and still sharp enough in the eyes to make weaker men fidget. Mary sat nearby in pale blue, arranged beautifully and stiffly like she had already decided she

was wronged.

So.

That was the shape of this.

“Lev,” the Countess said as I entered. “Come.”

I inclined my head respectfully. “Countess.”

Mary looked at me like she wanted apology first and affection second.

She was getting neither.

The Countess studied me a moment, then motioned for me to sit. “You have caused quite a stir,” she

said.

“I’ve done little,” I replied. “Others attached their hopes to it.”

Mary’s face changed at once. “That is unfair.”

I did not look at her.

The Countess did. “Let him speak.”

Mary went quiet, but only because Vanessa told her to.

The Countess folded her hands. “You know why I asked you here.”

“Yes.”

“And yet you arrive with another woman.”

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“Yes.”

Mary inhaled sharply. “You say that with no shame.”

That got my eyes on her at last.

“Should I feel shame for honesty?”

Her mouth parted. “You humiliate me publicly and call it honesty?”

“I promised you nothing,” I said.

Her cheeks flushed. “Everyone knew what this could have meant.”

“What you hoped it meant,” I corrected.

(*) GR 15/

Memp

The Countess sighed softly, not tired, just measuring the room. “This is precisely why I dislike matters of mating and succession becoming gossip before decisions are made.”

Mary turned to her quickly. “Godmother, you know I would serve both Blackbirth and Briarwood well.”

“I did not say you would not,” Vanessa replied.

There was a difference. Mary heard it too.

The Countess looked back at me. “Then let us speak plainly. Why are you refusing Mary?”

Mary went still. The room did too. Because that was the only real question under all this. I answered it the same way I had answered it inside myself a hundred times already.

“I am fated to Arya.”

Mary let out a bitter laugh. “To that woman?”

The Countess’s head turned sharply.

“Do not speak so little of people,” she said, and the quiet force of it cut deeper than a shout.

Mary blinked, shocked.

The Countess’s gaze remained on her. “Especially not when your own father was once a rogue I took

pity on.”

That shut the room completely.

Mary’s face drained of colour. “Godmother…”

Vanessa lifted one hand. “Enough.”

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Mary looked wounded and furious all at once, but she had no answer to that. None. Because it was true, and truth sounded cruelest when spoken softly by the only person in the room with enough rank

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