Chapter 176: A Perfectly Normal Family Dinner

"We’ll settle the wedding colors once she arrives," the High Luna announced to the room at large, dabbing her mouth. "I’m leaning toward a winter palette. Silvers. She has the coloring for it."

The table kept eating around the hole where reality should have been.

Partway through, the High Luna turned the full weight of her attention on Maverick.

"You know, Alpha Emberclaw." She tilted her head. "You strike me as a sensible one. Play your cards right this evening and you could walk out of Thunderfang with Nancy on one arm and a princess on the other. A man of your standing could absolutely manage two. Your grandfather managed a household of considerably more, if the stories hold."

"I appreciate that, High Luna." Maverick set his glass down with the smooth ease of someone defusing a live thing. "But I couldn’t in good conscience leave Thunderfang without a Luna."

He didn’t specify which woman he meant.

The High Luna took it as agreement and beamed.

Then she rose, glass lifted, and the table went quiet.

"A toast."

She held the glass aloft and surveyed them all with the fond, faraway look she wore for a future only she could still see.

Everyone raised their glass with her. Several glasses went up the way white flags go up.

Dante raised his glass and looked at Freya. Freya raised hers and looked at the ceiling. Both of them had heard enough toasts from this woman to know a storm was brewing.

"I have survived deaths, Landon’s current emo-grunt phase, and Derek’s adolescence. None of those things have required as much composure as this week has demanded from me. To this family. To the union that is coming, as unions do, in their proper and ordained time. To the ones that arrive at our door at dawn without credentials or a surname and sit at our dining table wearing jewelry from the gift shop."

The High Luna tilted her chin upward a fraction, her face finding the light. She held the position for a moment longer than comfortable.

Tavian looked like he had indigestion from focusing on something so hard.

Alpha Thunderfang’s wolf made another noise like a cartoon confused puppy. Nova definitely heard it that time. She was not imagining it.

"My grandson has made more unilateral decisions this week than most Alphas make in a year," the High Luna continued. "I know this because I was informed of none of them. I was told to apologize tonight. I did. Multiple times. In multiple drafts. Each one was rejected and revised like a contract negotiation with my own grandson. Then I watched my grandson taste her wine before he let her drink it. As if I, the woman who raised him, would serve something improper. The offense is noted. After being nothing but supportive of his sexual health this week. He won’t open up to the one opening her legs for him and could give him an heir. He opens up to the other one."

"Gran," Alpha Thunderfang cut her off.

The High Luna lifted her hand. "But I got through it. I did it. That Goddess bear witness. My favorite grandson went into a coma and my other grandson has been grunting at me all week. I do not care for it. I told him this. Somewhere in this keep, there is a brave princess crying her eyes out because an Alpha has rejected her and now she is too afraid to show for dinner. Somewhere in a hospital, my grandson is in a coma. And here I stand, giving a toast, holding a glass, wearing a smile, because that is what High Lunas do when the building is on fire. Metaphorically. And also literally. Because the east wing is still being repaired."

The High Luna’s eyes drifted to every face, turning the one minute intermission during a toast into a two minute intermission, while everyone held up their glasses and waited patiently.

"Some paths to a thing run straight," the High Luna continued. "Others take a great many unexpected turns along the way. Turns no one invited and no one planned for. Turns that test a grandmother’s patience and her hearing in equal measure. Turns that cost money. Specifically, bail money. Which I am told was considerable. Turns that require an Alpha to carry a woman through a public street at dusk while his grandmother watches from a window and considers retirement."

She shut her eyes and took a serene breath, during which Dante’s shoulders shook once, but no sound came from him. When she opened them, she smiled the specific smile of a woman who had arrived at the part of the speech she was most proud of and was savoring the delivery the way a chef savors a plating.

"But the Goddess keeps a design. She always has. And I have faith this house will land exactly where it was always meant to, whatever surprises arrive uninvited between here and there. To the Goddess. To destiny. To whatever is coming next, because I clearly have no say in it. To twisted fates that were never meant to be. To the extraordinary adventure of learning to tell the difference. May the Goddess grant me the wisdom and the wine to survive it."

Nova thought that was the end. It was not the end.

The High Luna’s free hand came to rest over her heart, briefly while she looked up at the ceiling, as if addressing the Goddess.

"To random bloodlines that cross our paths. To surprise marriages thrown on a grandmother without any form of notice. And to the Goddess, who is either testing me or entertaining herself at my expense. Either way, I am still standing. Cheers."

Everyone drank in silence. Nova had never heard a speech like that. That was a lot. It was a little entertaining if she were being honest but she needed to keep a straight face.

"If that last part was about Nova, Elizabeth, you can rest easy." Freya swirled her wine, unhurried, pleasant as a knife wrapped in silk. "There’s nothing random about her bloodline. Quite the opposite. I’d put it against anyone’s at this table."

The High Luna’s glass stayed exactly where it was. "I’m not sure what you mean by that, Freya."

"Nova is Starborne blood. Celeste’s sister, actually."