Chapter 161: Preservation

Selene’s POV

My pussy was drenched in cum ... the cum of the one man I could never have imagined myself fucking. This was unconventional sex. Unexpected. Unplanned.

On any ordinary day, I would never have fucked William.

But for some reason, that sex had driven out every strange feeling coiling inside me. I felt normal again. I could see myself clearer now, like fog had lifted off a mirror I’d forgotten existed.

The both of us lay gasping on that bed after he’d taken me from behind, and William turned to me and asked, "How are you feeling now?"

"I feel better. Thank you for asking," I replied.

I got up from the bed and began to dress. It was only when I was pulling my clothes back on that the weight of what I’d done settled over me. I felt irritated ... and I hated that I did. I had no right to feel that way. He was my husband. We were legally bound. What we’d done was permitted in every sense of the word, and yet I didn’t want to look at him.

"It’s strange that we could only do this when something felt off in your body," William said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Now that we’ve fucked, what happens next time? For both of us, as a married couple?" he asked.

He wanted a taste of me again. I could see it in the way he watched me.

"Leave that for next time," I said flatly, and walked out.

I knew he had enjoyed it. But the truth was, Lucian was the one who had stretched me like that. William was a reminder of what I no longer had ... and what I was still pretending I didn’t miss.

I walked out of the room and picked up the books I’d brought back earlier, settling in to continue my research. It was strange, how a person could be fucking one minute and reading the next. My pussy had been stretched that far, and still I sat down and opened a book like nothing had happened.

I continued making discoveries and penning them down. It wasn’t until I checked the calendar that I saw it ... the mating festival was around the corner.

My stomach turned.

That festival. The one that had signalled my betrayal, my heartbreak. The one where my parents had made it clear they didn’t love me, that I had never been a priority to them. Everything had unravelled at a mating festival once before.

And now another one was coming.

I wasn’t looking for a mate anymore. I had long moved past that. But the young ones were ... they were anticipating it more than anyone else in Morvaine, and I had no right to take that from them. If not for them, I would have found a way to cancel it entirely. But it was a traditional ceremony. It had to be held.

As I read through the historical records of the festival, I found things that unsettled me further. Mates had been switched at those festivals. Manipulations of every kind had taken place ... exactly the kind that had been done to me. The Moon Goddess had never intended any of that when she first breathed life into the ceremony. But wolves had corrupted it with their greed, their scheming, their rotten hearts.

That was when the idea struck me.

I was going to use the mating festival to release something new to all of Morvaine. I was going to digitise the entire Morvaine library and make it accessible to everyone ... stored in the cloud, downloadable through an app, our history preserved in a way no one could burn down or bury. Physical libraries could be destroyed. A digital one? They wouldn’t know where to find it.

I knew not everyone would appreciate it. Most wolves didn’t care about history. Most people didn’t care about books. But I did, and I saw that as exactly why the project needed to exist. We had six days to the festival. It was time to get to work.

I reached out to the head manufacturer and asked him to connect me with anyone he knew who had a strong background in tech. The project was to begin immediately, and I was prepared to pay generously for it.

I lost track of the hours. An absent wife all night ... I stepped back into the room at almost midnight, barely registering the time until I saw how dark it had grown outside. I didn’t even stop to wonder whether William had eaten. The maids were there. I trusted he’d managed.

"I’m sorry for coming in late," I said. "I wasn’t keeping track of time."

He was understanding in a way that still surprised me sometimes. With someone else, my disappearing all day might have looked like something else entirely. But he only looked at me with that quiet patience of his.

"How was your research?" he asked.

"It was good. I actually have an idea ... I thought I’d share it with you before I move forward with it tomorrow," I said.

"Alright. Let’s hear it," he said, settling in to listen.

I told him everything ... the digital library, the cloud storage, the app, the purpose it would serve for Morvaine’s future and its memory.

"Wow." He was quiet for a moment, then he smiled. "That’s beautiful, Selene. Is there anything you don’t create?"

I smiled back at him. It came naturally, which was still sometimes a surprise.

He was supportive. Genuinely so. He also told me about the mating festival arrangements ... that he and the elders had already been planning to host it in Icefang this time. The last one had been held in Bloodmoon. Icefang was still a relatively new territory, and it deserved the recognition, the respect of hosting something this significant.

"Are you sure it can hold everyone?" I asked. Bloodmoon was the largest by land mass. Winterwood led in innovation. Icefang was rising, but I had to be certain.

"Of course it will hold, Selene," he said. "And it’s the perfect place to launch what you’re building. Six days. I’ll do it with you."

I stared at him for a moment.

As a small offering in return, I stayed with him on the same bed that night. He moved to face away from me out of habit, but this time I reached over and drew his arm around my waist.

Even he was shocked.

I couldn’t help it. I was drawn to people who treated me right ... genuinely, without an agenda behind it.

The next morning, work began immediately.

The manufacturer had come through and connected me with someone well-versed in tech. He arrived ready and eager, and I walked him through exactly how I envisioned the digital library should look and function. He drew up a blueprint on the spot. I began securing all the necessary copyright ... both to access the authors’ works and to make them available across all of Morvaine.

Every one of those authors was long dead. But I was certain that wherever they were, they would have been glad ... deeply glad ... that someone was carrying their work forward, back into the lives of the young and the old alike.

That was why people like me existed.