The Luna Queen's Rebirth (Ellie and Dominic) novel Chapter 436

Chapter 436

Ellie’s POV

Word of the Alpha King’s visit reached my father on a Wednesday, and by Thursday morning it felt like the whole village had gotten the memo.

The pack was practically in a frenzy by the time the news came out. This was a huge deal, since Goldenveil had only recently been reinstated as a pack. Everyone was rushing around, ensuring their homes and shops and their neighbors’ homes and shops were utterly perfect, not a single speck of dust on anything, wanting to make a good impression for the Alpha King.

My father, for his part, took it in stride. He had a list that he was working through methodically accommodations for Monroe’s party, a formal dinner, a tour of the village, a review of the pack’s recent census data.

The clinic was especially quiet with everyone too busy preparing for the party to care about sniffles, so I made my way up to my father’s house that evening and asked him what I could do to help.

He looked up from behind his desk, where he was currently surrounded by paperwork. “How are you with logistics?”

“Decent enough.”

He pushed half the list across the table.

I decided, as I got to work helping my father prepare, that I was not going to think about the fact that Dominic was on the tour. I was going to be practical and useful and focus on what actually needed doing, and I was absolutely not going to count the days between now and the last stop on the schedule.

I counted them anyway. Twelve days, give or take, depending on travel conditions.

Bastian found us the next morning in the meeting house, going through the seating arrangements for the formal dinner. He walked in, looked at the papers spread across the table, and then looked at me.

“What’s she doing here?” he asked my father.

“Helping,” Terence said, without looking up.

Bastian pulled out the chair across from me and sat down. “I already started on the seating plan last night.”

“So did I,” I said. “We can compare.”

We compared. They were nearly identical, except Bastian had put Monroe at the head of the table and I’d put my father there, where the host belonged. I pointed that out as neutrally as I could, and he looked at both versions for a moment, said nothing, and wrote my father’s name at the head of the table on the final copy.

It wasn’t an apology or anything close to one. But I’d take it.

We were almost done when Eli appeared in the doorway in his coat and boots with a drawing clutched in both hands.

“For the King,” he announced, and held it out to my father.

Terence studied it with great seriousness. “Ah. This is excellent work.”

“I know.” Eli turned and looked at me. “You can have one too if you want.”

“I would love one.”

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He grinned, flashing two missing teeth right in front, and climbed up into the chair beside mine and pulled a folded piece of paper from his coat pocket. He smoothed it out on the table in front of me. It was a drawing of what I assumed was the village: a large yellow circle overhead, a building, and several stick figures standing outside it.

“That’s you,” he said, pointing to one of them. It had a scribble of dark hair and was notably taller than the rest.

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