#Chapter 28 Aftershock

Third Person POV

The bank has grown used to the sight of the Queen Luna since her account opened a few months ago. The manager recalled her rushed sense of urgency to open an account, to have the top banker manage the finances and send her a report by the week as money flowed seamlessly in and out of her account.

Of course the tellers had seen the receipts. Money and checks written out by Alpha Herold, by the King Alpha and by countless other Alphas, only spreading more rumors than the tabloids have been running with lately. She returns to the bank anyways, filing more bills, more gold coins, and stacks of personal checks by Alphas, betas, and common wolves alike.

The Royal pack has seen her glide through the palace, walking alone on the sidewalks and making deposits at her bank on the regular, before returning to the hospital to visit a new intake wolf into the pack. If anyone caught a glimpse of her, they would think she is strong-willed and determined.

Deep down, she feels mournful of her brother and mediocre in her work.

After the bank, Olivia strides purposefully to the hospital, dodging the running nurses and the familiar receptionists. She feels at home in this sterile, chaotic environment, even on the top floor where Reese hasn’t been removed from his intensive care just yet.

Olivia settles into her typical seat beside her unconscious brother, the machine that keeps him breathing still pumping air in and out of his lungs, the noise redundant as she pulls out her laptop to check her account for the new changes.

Sixteen million dollars sit in the new transaction from this morning. She can hardly blink at the sight, afraid the minute she looks away, it will vanish. This would have never been possible in her last life, and she looks up at the ceiling, picturing the sky above where the moon goddess is hopefully watching with pride.

“Thank you,” Olivia breathes, her eyes misty with tears.

Reese groans a noise, jolting her back into the present, seeing her brother blink alive while his fingers curl into the sheets of his bed. He is aware of the tube in his throat, the one thing that saved him from his last crashing spell of illness, and he is hardly bothered by it.

He instead is focused on the sight of the Queen Luna, a sparkling, fresh tear trickling down her blushing cheeks. If Reese could speak now, he would utter out a million thoughts that run through his mind right this second.

He finds the Queen Luna beautiful, as all wolves do, but he can feel the difference of attraction between wanting to court the woman and wanting to protect her like she is family. He can’t make sense of this weird, nagging sensation that taunted his unconsciousness for so long during his medicated sleep.

He saw Olivia, his dedicated sister, and he sees the Queen Luna, the two of them synonymous to one another. If he could form the words, he would try to dig deeper into this nag of a feeling he has, but their time together is cut short.

His doctor, Eugene, barges into the room with countless other nurses and doctors. Reese has been thankful that his physician from Alpha Herold’s pack has followed his transition into the Royal pack. It doesn’t appear that the Queen Luna feels the same appreciation though, shaking her head as she pulls away from Eugene, leaving his side at once.

The photographers surround Olivia at once, the remaining hospital staff and security trying to throw them into elevators for the lobby, but they flash photos anyways, scurrying off only when they each get the perfect angle, shooting off emails to their editors.

It takes about four hours for the gossip columns of the tabloids to hit the internet, and about twelve hours to be print and mailed off to every newspaper, to every magazine subscription, in every pack that exists.

Eugene sees the article first on his phone, leaning back in his office chair, still reeling from the emergency surgery he gave to Olivia’s brother, removing the tubing from his lungs when he woke up unexpectantly. He is stable in breathing now, and that should sooth him, but seeing this article does little to appease the good doctor.

Reese is the second to see it, his eyes still fuzzy as he meanders through the newspaper brough to his room in the morning, trying to make sense of the time lost in his coma. He still struggles to sit up straight, sore to the bones, and his mind runs laps as he shifts through the scandalous article over the Queen Luna.

The King Alpha has a less graceful way of seeing the news, one of his warriors bringing Gabriel a cut out portion of a magazine from the warrior’s mate, the King Alpha grumbling into his cup of coffee while he sits in the personal dining room alone. He had preferred his mate’s company since her cold backlash at the gala the day before, but now he is thankful for the seclusion away from the Queen Luna. He skims the article with mild frustration.

As always, the news takes longer to reach the packs further away, like that of Alpha Herold. He reaches for his damp newspaper on his front porch, hating his house ever since his world fell apart. He can only picture Olivia on the couch he sits on now, after climbing out of her bed this morning, hoping her smell clings to him like she no longer can. He opens the paper, frozen at the article.

Olivia couldn’t care any less about frivolous gossip, but Gabriel barges into his office anyways, sliding the column over to the space beside her laptop as she works on managing the new funds and tunneling them into the charity’s most needed infrastructures.

“What is this?” Olivia hums, picking up the flimsy, shiny paper. “I never pegged you as a gossip magazine subscriber, Gabriel.”

The King Alpha is at least thankful that she is speaking to him again, her ferocity so palpable at the gala when he simply kissed his wife. He could tell it meant more than that to her, and he felt a little guilty for taking her by such surprise.

Especially after the photos it staged for this article.

Olivia’s lips tighten, her throat seizing shut for a second as she reads the headline out loud. “The Queen Luna and her suitors, all four of them.”

She process the photos carefully, seeing her new form being savagely kissed by Gabriel at the gala. Besides that, she is posed dancing with Eugene, his name listed under the photo, along with his profession at the Royal pack hospital.

It’s not as gruesome as the pain she feels when she sees a photo of her and Herold at the hot spring party from her first week reborn. She is shoving him into the springs, his face still slightly amused as her figure is carved into a scantily bikini. Olivia covers her mouth to keep from screaming or vomiting, she can’t decipher.

The last photo is of her bent over, brushing Reese’s face tenderly, her fingertips grazing his pale cheek as he suffers to stay alive in his hospital bed. The insinuation is tragically misinterpreted but she couldn’t possibly tell anyone the truth for her affection toward Reese without exposing her old life. The interpretation must stay.

“Anything to say, my dear wife?” Gabriel asks, his tone accusatory.

Olivia shakes her head, too stunned to even plead her case.

“The other packs can speculate on my love life all they please,” she says at last, tossing the article in the trash bin under the desk, “it’s not in my vocabulary anymore.”

“What?” Gabriel asks, “the speculation?”

“No, King Alpha. Love.”