40: A Feast for the Fallen

Quincy St. Martin

I rip the baguette with my fingers and dip it into the remaining beef stew before cramming it in my mouth. I miss boeuf Bourguignon, and this one tastes almost like the one Nana used to make. Besides, I’m hungry.

I couldn’t believe it when Enzo woke me up and escorted me down to the dining room with food and everyone waiting for me.

Everyone at the table is staring at me. By everyone, I mean Luna Bianca, my uncle’s wife, Maria, my cousin Joelle and a few of her friends, a few other women from the pack, my sister, Caitlin Rose, and last but not least, my mother dearest.

It was made very clear right from when I was just a little girl that I am far beneath them. So far beneath them that I am not worthy enough to sit at the same table as them.

So why am I sitting at the pack’s dinner table now?

Frankly, I have no idea. It feels like a last supper to me. You know, the meal they serve prisoners just before their execution?

They are all smiling, except for my mother, but even the widest fake smile cannot hide the deep-seated disgust that they feel for me. There’s surprisingly a flash of pity in one of the woman’s eyes. I do not like pity, but anything but disgust and hostility is surprising to me.

“Joelle, why don’t you take your cousin out for a walk after she’s done eating, honey?” suggests Luna Bianca sweetly.

“Of course, Luna,” replies Joelle, sounding very eager and pleased to do so.

I look at them both suspiciously. I have been looking back at all of them very warily.

The pack house is guarded like a fortress. I realized that as soon as I stepped out of the bedroom, which I come to understand is old Mr. Maddox’s bedroom.

My walk with Joelle and her friend Kelly only reinforces what I already know. The whole house is heavily guarded. The ground is crawling with Loup Noir Pack warriors.

Now I understand the look of defeat on my cousin’s face. Jorden knew there was absolutely zero chance for us to escape. We’re both are as good as dead even attempting to escape.

“Now let us take you back to your room. I bet they have the bath ready for you,” says Joelle after she dragged me around the outside of the pack’s house.

“Don’t they have a shower or a bathtub where you went off to?”

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that,” comes a response from her clone, Kelly.

Joelle covers her nose with her fingers, and both of them laugh like hyenas.

I know I stink because the last shower I had was a couple of days ago and the car I’d been in for the last two days stank to the highest heavens, but I’m tired of their games.

They’ve been sickeningly sweet but condescending. Ridiculing me with their backhanded compliments.

“At least I’ll smell better after a shower. You two are so full of BS no amount of bath could mask the stench.”

Joelle gasps. “Goddess, Quincy! How rude! We’ve been so nice to you.”

“Yeah, we’ve been so nice,” agrees Kelly. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Nothing can cure bad breeding,” announces Joelle.

“But I thought she’d changed after she became Mr. Maddox’s mate,” says Kelly to her as if I wasn’t there.

“I am not old Maddox’s mate!” I say.

“Oh, please! You should feel so lucky that he claimed you are,” says Joelle with a sneer. “Let me be honest with you, Quincy,” she leans in and whispers in my ear. “Nobody else wants you here. You’re so useless. More useless than the omegas. You’re so pathetic, but you don’t seem to get it. You don’t know your place no matter how many times we try to tell you.”

She straightens up. There’s so much hatred in her eyes.

She’s right. I don’t get it. I don’t understand where all the hatred came from. I don’t remember doing anything bad to her or anybody in this pack, at least not something that would warrant such loathing and contempt.

She smooths her dress and takes a deep breath, the ugly scowl on her face now gone.

“We were planning on getting rid of you,” she continues casually as if she’s talking about the weather, “but Mr. Maddox said you’re his second mate. So we’re going to be nice to you.”

She smiles at me then Kelly smiles at me. I think I prefer their hateful glares than the smiles. I think I will be pulling bloody knives out of my back very soon.

I’m being led back to old Maddox’s bedroom. Two big burly guards escort us. Don and Enzo are stationed at the door.

Three women are waiting for me inside the room. One of them ushers me through the door of an ensuite bathroom where another two women are waiting for me.

A bath is ready. Steam rises, and the smell of lavender fills the air. It reminds me of the late Judith Maddox. She smelled like lavender. I feel sick.

I feel the beef stew that I ate earlier rise in my stomach. I turn, fall on my knees, and hurl.