Read Chapter One of Moon Cursed

Calla

They say sometimes a child embodies a name given to them by their parents because they grow up believing their name is their destiny. As if the gods themselves inspired the word the child would respond to, every utterance reminding them of their calling, their power. Yet, there were always instances of the opposite. Names that seemed to be given in irony, for the child rebelled against it with every breath. 

I was one of those children.

A Calla Lily was the furthest thing from my personality, or at least I thought so. I was headstrong and dependable, not a wilting lily that curled in on itself until the next year brought weather it deemed reasonable. I was more like a rose. I tried to be beautiful and sweet and representative of the softness, strength and resolve only a woman of my kind could exhibit, but I was also covered in thorns, and those who thought I was easy to dismiss found themselves bloody and cursing.

As the daughter of the only woman alpha, it was my duty to be more resistant, more powerful, more confident than other girls. Especially now that I was of age and my responsibilities in the clan were even higher and more difficult. The pack relied on me to follow through. To support my mother as she hosted the council during the upcoming clan conference, and to show the rest of our world that our pack was as strong as it ever was under my father.

My mother didn’t care for my rose analogy. She and I compromised that, for her, I was an oak. Strong and sturdy. Weathering all storms and staying true to our kind. I was okay with that. Even if she seemed to be forgetting recently.

“We only have a week, Calla,” Mother said, closing one massive book and pulling down another from the ancient bookcase along the wall. 

The books contained the family names of every clan, and Mother was checking them off a list. Each name needed to be accounted for, each family having received an invitation. Many were no longer with us, victims in wars both against each other and others. Genocides against our race by terrified people had wiped out many, and hunters seeking revenge for perceived attacks riddled our families’ histories. 

Still, we persevered, and under the light of the moon, we rose. Again and again. Once a year, we gathered, a tradition going back to when we could only gather once a decade before modern travel made things so much faster. It would be there that grievances would be aired, treaties would be sought, power would be exchanged… 

And marriages would be decided on.

“I know we have a week,” I said. “I just think we should really take the time to reconsider this idea. You’ve run the Naphe clan as the alpha for so long and now it’s normal to them. If we give that up, then all that work, all that struggle for equality, everything you’ve fought for, what will it have been good for?”

Mother stopped in her tracks, book open but standing upright on the table, her thumb marking a page nearly a third of the way through. The first third of that book didn’t need to be referenced. They had all died long ago.

Her eyes burned into mine and, for a split second, I felt the same twinge of fear, of fire and ice in that gaze, that every other clan leader felt when she turned it on them. It was how she survived. It was how she thrived. No one dared to cross Violet Lyons. She was a lion among sheep and they all knew it. Hardened by being an alpha’s wife and then watching him die in battle over what amounted to nothing, she had led the pack with an icepick spine and lava in her glare. 

Her constitution had brought her to where we sat now, on opposite sides of a table, knowing the way forward was two possible paths. One led to our clan losing much of our land and heirlooms, and the other led to losing the hand of the most eligible female in the clan.

Me.

“What was it good for?” Mother said, her voice low and with an edge that could cut through steel. “My sacrifice was good for everything, Calla. You most of all should know that. I brought you up in riches, with the best education, the best clothes I could give you. I sacrificed everything about the life I should have been living to ensure you had everything.”

“I understand that,” I said, not backing down, “but what about my duty to the clan? If I marry another, then I’ll be a part of their clan.”

“Your duty is to carry on the line,” Mother said dismissively. “The way that works, the way it has always worked, is for you to find a suitable mate. An alpha. Someone who can provide for you the life you deserve, the life you have lived up to now. That is why you lived it, Calla, so when suitors came calling, they would have to match that.”

“It’s unfair,” I said. “I don’t want to be married off to another alpha. It’ll cost me everything I’ve worked for myself. All the trust I’ve built up, all the loyalty and willingness to fight under my name. All that will be gone when I kneel to another. You can’t honestly want that. It’ll weaken the entire clan! I should stay here, with my own clan, where we can make real change together.”

“No,” she said coldly. “I will hear no more of it.”

“But, Mom,” I began.

“Don’t ‘but, Mom’ me,” she said. “You are far too old to act so petulantly.”

“I’m eighteen.”

“Exactly,” she said, shutting her book and sitting back in her chair. “Too old to act like a child, old enough to take on the responsibilities of an adult, and yet… yet, too young to understand the importance of the decisions your elders make. You are too self-centered, too childish to know why your place in this world is what it is. You think you are better than all of us. That you are better than me. When you are older, you will understand. Gods help me, you will understand.”

“Mom,” I said again, about seven different arguments forming in my head, almost all of them concerning how much I hated when she belittled me over my age.

“Enough,” she said. “I have work to do. Surely you know what work is. Go away.”

There was no more talking to her. I could yammer on until I was blue in the face and it wouldn’t matter. Her eyes were on the book, where her attention was. I could swear, when she did things like that, she could un-hear anything. The world could be exploding outside her door and if she decided it didn’t matter, she could happily continue reading while the fire fell and everything around her was destroyed.

I got my bullheadedness straight from the tap, as they say. There were many qualities I got from my father, some good and some bad, but my determination was all Mom. Only, I wasn’t as good at using it as she was, and when it came to us butting heads, she always won. 

For now.

Sighing probably too loudly for someone trying not to sound like a petulant teenager, I turned on my heel and headed for the door. I was halfway down the street before I realized where I was going. It was the same place I generally went when I needed space from Mom, although in recent months it had become a more difficult place to be. People talked. People whispered. People judged.

“Open up, Nikki,” I said. “I brought chocolate.”

“Milk or dark?” came the voice from inside the house. It sounded like it was near the door, but if I knew Nikki, she was probably on the couch. 

“Both,” I said, pulling out the handful of expensive candies I’d snatched while in Mom’s office. She always had them out for visitors and, ever since I was a child, I always grabbed a few. 

Today was more than a few. I had nearly a dozen assorted ones in gold and silver wrapping in both pockets. 

The door opened and Nikki’s face appeared in the doorway. My eyes, unable to help themselves, went straight to her stomach, which was poking out farther and farther with every passing day.

“Girl, you look ready to pop,” I said.

“Hush and get inside with that chocolate,” she said, ushering me through the door and shutting it behind me. 

I held out my hands and Nikki gleefully took most of the candy and bounced back along to the couch. It was a misconception that our kind couldn’t eat chocolate. It digested just fine, actually, and as long as we weren’t shifted, it was one of the best delicacies in the world. Our sense of taste was a touch more complicated than others, and dark chocolate was especially yummy.

Still, you had to watch it or else you’d end up sick. If you were shifted, it was best to avoid it altogether. It could interfere with everything. 

“Ooh, I love these,” Nikki said, unwrapping one. “I don’t know when she switched to that cheap crap, but I’m so glad she started buying these again.”

“She never switched,” I said, flopping down on the easy chair where the cushion was starting to deepen where Nikki spent a lot of time in increasing weight. “It was that old bat, the one who does the shopping for the maids. She bought the chocolates and switched because she didn’t think anyone noticed. Mom doesn’t eat them.”

“So how did you get her to change back?” Nikki asked, already on her second candy.

“I not-so-subtly threatened her if she ever brought the cheap crap back in again,” I said, shrugging. 

“Neat,” Nikki said, not really paying much attention to the complicated web of soap opera stress that was living under an alpha and being responsible for guests’ experiences. “You look like you’re pissed at something. Your mom again?”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh.

“Want to talk about it or turn on something stupid and eat ice cream?” 

“Ice cream?” I laughed. “After all that chocolate?”

She patted her tummy and grinned. “You trying to shame a pregnant lady for wanting sweets?”

“Gods no,” I said. “You’re liable to bite off my head.”

“Not unless you cover it in butterscotch,” she said. “So, what did your mom do today?”

I sighed again. “I just can’t figure out what changed,” I said, standing and heading into the kitchen. I opened the freezer door and pulled out the pint of ice cream inside, suddenly hankering for some myself. “She used to respect my independence and my desire to make the clan better, but now?”

“She’s all about marrying you off?”

I nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s just upsetting me. I feel like she set me up for this life of taking over for her as this proud woman alpha, and now she just wants me to be some dude’s wife.”

Nikki shrugged and popped the last of the chocolates into her mouth, crunching loudly. 

“Mmm, peanut,” she muttered. “Maybe she’s just stressed. Being an alpha is hard, for her especially so. This whole conference mess is bound to be driving her insane.”

“Maybe,” I said. “I mean, I’m sure that’s part of it, but she’s been so pushy about me getting married for the sake of helping the clan. I don’t get that. I could do so much more as her right hand. Like I always have been.”

“Well, look on the upside,” Nikki said. “If you get hitched, you get to have pups! We can raise them together!”

I smiled weakly at my dearest friend. It was a scenario we had talked about since we were little children. How could I tell her that her accidental pregnancy and my betrothing, while technically fitting the fantasy, was the absolute last way I would have wanted it to come about? 

I couldn’t. It would break her heart. More than the shunning our clan had given her already had done.

Shrugging, I brought her one of the two bowls I had made and sat beside her on the couch.

“Yeah,” I lied. “That would be an upside.”