Chapter 89: Fix Your Face. Then We Ride.

"I know I am a slave. I am not expecting the royal treatment. I wasn’t expecting the High Luna to greet me any differently than she did. Then I saw Derek’s reaction and it gutted me. All of his reactions are gutting me because he’s hurting and I’m the reason and I can’t fix it."

She took a breath that was supposed to steady her and instead opened the last door.

"And Celeste said she was going to order new cuffs and I don’t want to put them back on. And I’m just having a bit of a hard time."

Nova was full-on crying now. The tears were falling fast and quiet, the kind that don’t make noise because the girl producing them has had years of practice crying without sound. Her hands were shaking. Her chin was doing the thing. The mascara Maria hadn’t put on her yet was the only casualty she had been spared.

Maria was silent. The silence from Maria Emberclaw was so rare it qualified as an endangered species and Nova was currently witnessing it in the wild.

"Apologies." Nova wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, a gesture so practiced it was almost graceful. "Contrary to the last few days, I am usually not a cryer. I think I’ve cried more this week than I have in my entire life combined. I’ve exceeded the quota. The quota is finished. I’m embarrassing myself."

Maria put both of her hands on Nova’s shoulders. The grip was firm and warm and carried the specific weight of a woman who had decided this conversation was going to have a different ending than the one Nova was writing for it.

"Deep breaths." Maria inhaled slowly, deliberately, filling her lungs with the exaggerated patience of a woman demonstrating the concept for someone who had forgotten.

Nova inhaled, copying her. The air came in shaky and went out steadier and the second breath was better than the first.

"First off." Maria held up one finger. "Point this Carmen woman out to me if you see her. I just need a visual. For reference purposes."

Nova let out a wet laugh.

"Reference purposes, Nova. That’s all I said." The finger stayed up. "Second." A second finger joined it. "You are doing just fine. Better than fine. You are doing incredible and the fact you can’t see that is the only thing about tonight that is actually wrong."

She squeezed Nova’s shoulders once.

"Derek is wearing his emotions on his sleeve and doesn’t know what to do with himself. The man walked into the Moonfire with zero plans to come home with a mate and is now trying to build a life around a woman he’s known for less than a week while his grandmother rearranges closets behind his back and a Starborne princess calls you names in his parade. He is overwhelmed, Nova. He’s not upset at you. He’s frustrated at the situation. You’ve done nothing wrong."

"But—"

"Nothing." Maria said the word like a full stop on a highway. "Wrong. You saved a child. You stood in the front because his brother told you to. You dipped for the High Luna with more grace than Celeste managed to fake and you did it with genuine respect that I could see from three people back. You handled Celeste with more composure than anyone in this pack could have and you did it while recovering from silver poisoning and a coma. That is not misstepping. That is a woman doing her absolute best in conditions that would have broken anyone else on day one."

Nova’s chin trembled. She pressed her lips together and held them there.

"Carmen is a servant who is protecting her territory. You’re new. You’re beautiful. You arrived on the arm of a prince who has never brought anyone home and she’s decided you’re a threat before she’s decided you’re a person. That is a her problem. Not a you problem. The thing she said about Derek growing tired of women? She’s describing him before he met you. Before he had a mate. He has one now. That changes the math and she hasn’t caught up yet."

Maria tilted her head and looked at Nova with the expression of a woman delivering the final point of an argument she had already won.

"And you are not putting cuffs back on. Do you hear me? Celeste can order whatever she wants. She can order a fleet of cuffs. She can order cuffs for every wrist in Helix. Those cuffs are not going on you. Derek will burn them. Tavian will help. I will provide the fire personally and it will be the most satisfying thing my wolf has ever done. That is a promise from me to you and Emberclaw promises come with a warranty."

Nova wiped her eyes one more time. Her breathing had steadied. The shaking had eased. The stone in her chest, the one labeled temporary, was still there, but it was smaller now, reduced by a woman who spoke at the speed of light and loved at the same velocity.

She knew all of these things. Or she sort of knew them, the way you know something intellectually but can’t feel it until someone else says it out loud and the saying makes it real. Maria hadn’t told her anything new. But she said it in a voice that believed it, and the believing was the part that Nova had been missing.

"Thank you, Maria," she said softly. She meant it with everything she had.

Maria gave her shoulders one final squeeze and released them.

"You’re welcome. Now fix your face because you look like a beautiful disaster and dinner is in twenty minutes and I refuse to let Celeste Starborne be the prettiest woman at that table."

Maria grabbed a bottle off the minibar in the room that Nova hadn’t spared a glance at.

She poured an amber liquid in a glass.

"You are a queen. Say it."

"Maria—"

"Say it."

"I’m a queen."

"Louder."

"I’m a queen."

"Now drink this."

She handed the glass to Nova.

Nova took a sip and spit it right back into the glass.

"What is that?"

"Courage," Maria snapped, pouring herself one.