“Miss Luna!” Ivy shrieked when she saw me drop the hood onto my back. “What in the Spirits are you doing down here?”
“Ivy, I’m so glad you’re here,” I said as I rushed over to her. “This is Micah. He’s our previous stable keeper’s son, who is in desperate need of help. He’s needs a proper meal and a warm bed to sleep in until I can figure out a more permanent solution. Can you assist me in this?”
“Of course, Miss Luna.” She smiled as she glanced over at Micah.
“Why don’t we start by getting you a bath and some clean clothes,” she suggested as she reached a hand out to him.
“Who is this?” a cringing voice came from behind Ivy. I was really hoping I wasn’t going to run into Helga, the head maid, but when going through the tunnels the odds were pretty high. I explained to Helga that Micah would be needed our assistance for the time being and the look on her face told me she wanted nothing to do with it. “Unfortunately, Miss Luna, we do not have any available beds at this time.”
“He’s my guest, Helga,” I snarled. “Why would you put him in one of the beds down here?”
“You’d like a guest room made up for him?” she asked, annoyed that I was inconveniencing her. She had a lot of nerve questioning me at all. I wasn’t sure how she became head maid, but if it were up to me, she wouldn’t be a maid in the castle at all. She didn’t treat our maids well, and I’d honestly never seen her do any work. She just critiqued everyone else’s.
“Yes, I would,” I told her. “He is to be catered to like a guest, because that is what he is.”
“Miss Luna, with your extended family here we’re already short-handed,” she reminded me.
“Well then, I guess you’ll have to get your hands dirty and help for once.” I smirked as I turned away from her and faced Micah and Ivy. “Ivy will help you find some clothes and a warm bath. By then, your room should be made up and a hot dinner will be waiting for you.”
I said the last part as loud as I could without being dramatic just so Helga understood what I expected from her. I heard her footsteps stomping away from us, telling me she’d heard me loud and clear.
“Thank you, Miss.” Micah smiled just before Ivy took him.
“Thank you for your help, Ivy,” I called after them. She turned back at me and mouthed “of course” before disappearing around the corner.
Now that that was taken care of, I needed to find a way to the tavern without the guards at the gates catching me. It might be late, and I might be stupid for leaving the castle again, but I couldn’t go any longer without speaking to Declan. I needed to fix this and hope that we could at least still be friends.
Chapter Ten
I wasn’t going to leave the castle grounds without the help of my sisters. Kota hadn’t mastered the portal yet, but she was going to have to figure it out, because I needed to get to Declan. I ran back up the stairs of the tunnel and rushed down the hallway, stopping at Kota’s door, hoping she was back from dinner. I only had to knock once before the door opened and the redhead wrapped her arms around my neck. I was a little confused because I didn’t know where the hug was coming from, but I didn’t push her away. I didn’t know I needed this until now.
“Where have you been?” she asked after letting go of me. I looked past her and saw the rest of our sisters sitting on the couch looking just as relieved to see me.
“I don’t understand,” I told her. “I’ve been in my room this whole time. Actually, I was just in the stables, but that wasn’t more than thirty minutes.”
“Your father said you weren’t in your room when he went to check on you,” she told me, her eyes suspicious of what my father told them.
“He never came to check on me,” I laughed. “He and my brother pitted Declan and I against each other, but those cowards never showed their faces. They did it all in secret.”
“What are you talking about?” Juda asked as she glanced over at Nova and Deja. Deja looked tired from her injury, but I was just glad that she was awake. The last time I saw her, she looked lifeless in her father’s arms. She would need a few days’ rest before she was back at full strength.
“The alphas have the journal,” I told them as Kota and I walked over to the couches. Kota’s room was set up similarly to mine, but the color scheme was different. Mine was full of blacks and grays while hers was full of browns and neutral colors.
“How the fuck did that happen?” Juda yelled, glaring at me as if protecting the journal was my one job.
“They tricked me. And they used Declan to do it, which is why I’m here.”
“What do we have to do with Declan?” Nova wondered, looking around as if she’d missed part of the story.
“I need Kota to open a portal,” I said, turning to Kota, knowing she would tell me it wasn’t possible.
“We’ve talked about this, Luna,” she reminded me. “My portals are not stable yet and I will not risk your life just because you and Declan had a fight.”
“It wasn’t just a fight, Kota,” I attempted to explain. “Our fathers used him to do their dirty work, and for a minute I believed he knew about it. I need to make it right, but I will never make it past the gates if you don’t help me.”
“If I thought for a second that my portal would be safe for you to use, I wouldn’t hesitate to open it,” she spoke genuinely. “But I’m not going to risk losing you. I’m just not going to do it.”
“What do you mean by dirty work?” Juda popped up again, either ignoring what Kota and I were talking about or she wasn’t listening.
“Levi told Declan to distract me so they could steal the journal, but they didn’t tell Declan about that last part.” I sighed as I thought about what Levi had done to Declan. “Levi told him that he needed to calm me down because I was going to be upset.”
“That is kind of shady,” Deja mumbled as she leaned deeply back into the couch, her eyes shut as she spoke.
“You should really be resting right now,” I told her. “You don’t need to be bothered by this.”
“I’m fine,” she assured me. “I’ll sleep later.”
Kota caught my attention again. “Look, Luna. Execution Day is in two days, and Declan will be there. Why don’t you take this time to think about what happened and the things you said to each other? It’s not good to go into something with your emotions this high.”
“I know you’re right,” I told her. “But I’m not going to be able to sleep until I apologize to him.”
Juda rolled her eyes. “Then you don’t sleep for two days.” She was supportive but had a hard time showing it. She masked it all with humor and sometimes anger. It really just depended on the day.
I sat down on the couch next to Deja, who still had her eyes closed, her hand draped over the area of her stomach where the hole used to be, but she didn’t appear to be in pain. It was like she was protecting it from any further damage.
“What did they say after I left?” I asked, after finally accepting I wasn’t going to speak to Declan tonight.
“A lot of the usual,” Nova replied. “We never should’ve left the castle, we could’ve been hurt, we put each other in danger. The typical speech.”
“I got the disappointment speech when we were still at the cottage,” I revealed to them, remembering that most of them had gone through the portal already when my father had given me the damaging speech.
“Ouch,” Juda sighed. “That’s harsh.”
“Did any of you notice that the assassin’s eyes glowed just like ours did?” I asked, trying to forget about the moment I had with my father. It wasn’t one that I wanted to remember.
“I’m trying to figure out why ours glowed in the first place,” Kota said. “I’ve only ever seen the alphas eyes do that, but the color of their eyes change to gold. I’ve never seen anyone else do that, not even the elder sorcerers.”
The elder sorcerers were strong magic users with deep connections to the Spirits. The alphas were directly connected to them since th
ey were created by the Spirits, but the elders had to work for their connection. I didn’t know all the details, but there was a very long period of meditation involved that I wouldn’t have the patience for. Luckily, vampires did not have elders. I don’t think you had to be old in order to be an elder, it just turned out that way because it took so long to establish a connection with the Spirits. Most of them were within a hundred years of dying age when they finally reached it. When you only live around five hundred years and you spend most of it trying to connect to the Spirits, it seemed to me like you wasted a lot of your life. Kota told me the elders believe it was all worth it, but it just didn’t sit right with me.
“Did anyone tell the alphas about it?” I asked next, wondering if Kota had told her father more about our adventure at the cottage after I left.
“No,” they answered together.
“The only thing I told them about was the dark magic.” Kota looked at me apologetically. “I wanted to keep my mouth shut, but dark magic isn’t easily defendable, and the more time we have to prepare ourselves the more likely we’ll all be able to make it out alive.”
“I’m not mad at you, Kota,” I assured her. “I think you made the right call. After everything that’s happened tonight, I feel like we should’ve told them what we knew and let them do what they want with that information.”
“That doesn’t sound like you at all,” Nova said, glancing over at me from the other side of the couch.
“Had Declan not been involved I don’t think I would care about whether or not the alphas got what they wanted,” I told them, avoiding eye contact on purpose. My sisters knew me better than anyone, and they would be able to gather all the information they needed just by looking into my eyes. “I’d do anything to take back the pain my family caused him today.”
“I didn’t realize you cared this deeply about him,” Kota said. “I knew you were friends and you had a connection, but I didn’t think it went any further than that.”
“It’s recent,” I told her. “I’m not even sure I understand it all, but I know he didn’t deserve the way he was treated by my family, and I realized today that I don’t like seeing him in pain. I want to protect him the way he’s always protected me.”
“You love him,” Juda declared. She wasn’t making fun of me or making me feel like I was crazy for caring for him this much. She was acknowledging the change in our relationship and at the same time approving of it.
“I think so,” I admitted. “I don’t really know. It’s all really new and I don’t understand most of it.”
“You’ll work it out,” Nova assured me. “If he feels half of what you feel for him, he’s not going to walk away from you that easily.”
The room grew quiet, all of us feeling the exhaustion we had been fighting since returning to the castle. I excused myself from the room, needing to go lie down on an actual bed instead of a couch. No one argued. Most of them did the same as me anyways. Juda helped Deja to her room and then we all went our separate ways. I rushed back to my chambers with the hopes I wouldn’t have to face my brothers. Liam was not as much the problem as Levi was. If I was mad at Liam for anything, it was that he went along with the plan. He could try to deny it, but he always did what Levi told him or agreed with whatever he said. He definitely played a part.
I heard footsteps coming towards me. I sneaked into my room as quickly and quietly as possible and shut the door, backing away from it as I waited to see if anyone was going to knock after hearing me. When they passed my room, I started to breathe again, only to stop once more when I turned to find my father sitting on the couch.
Is it common knowledge that anyone can come in my room when I’m not here?
Rage began to fill my chest. Now was not the time to talk to me. After what he and Levi did to Declan, he had a lot of nerve showing his face in front of me.
“Get out,” I told him as I walked across the room towards the bathroom. I wanted out of these clothes and I wanted to go to bed.
“We need to talk, Luna.” His voice echoed through the room and I stopped in front of the bathroom door.
“I don’t want to talk to you.” I turned so he could see the anger in my eyes.
He didn’t say anything, giving me the opportunity to slip into the bathroom and change. I heard his heartbeat coming towards me, which meant he was about to let himself into my bathroom as well. I kept moving into the closet, keeping the door open so that I could change while he talked. I didn’t want to respond, but he made it clear that he wasn’t going to leave until we had this conversation.
“Are you seriously still mad because I told you I was disappointed in you?” he asked. I heard the legs of the chair scoot out from under the counter and then I heard the loud sigh after he plopped down. He appeared to be rather dramatic at the moment.
“If you honestly think I’m mad about that, then you clearly feel no guilt at all,” I yelled from the closet. My voice was muffled as I slipped the nightshirt over my head, but his hearing was better than most. I knew he heard me.
“I didn’t come here to talk about that,” he huffed, picking up on what I was talking about much quicker than I thought he would.
“Well, we’re not talking about anything else until you fix it,” I told him as I walked out of the closet. I stopped at the mirror and fixed my hair band, before leaving the bathroom with him still in it.
“Stop walking away from me,” he demanded as he pushed the chair back into its place under the counter.
“Stop wasting my time,” I countered as I crawled into bed. I suddenly didn’t want to be anywhere near my bed after seeing the wrinkles that were created by Declan and I earlier. The guilt overcame me, forcing me to leave the bed and sit on the couch. I sprawled out so that my father knew he was not welcome to sit on the same couch as me, forcing him to find somewhere else to sit. He rolled his eyes when he realized what I was doing but he didn’t fight me. He sat down on one of the chairs sitting at the end of the two couches.
“We need to talk about what you girls found at the cottage today,” he started again, his voice calm. I could tell he wanted to be angry with me, but he also knew he wasn’t going to get what he wanted out of me if he came in here yelling at me from the start.
“Not until we talk about what you and Levi did to Declan,” I repeated. “Those are my terms. If you can’t agree to them then there’s the door.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he said with a straight face.
I could not believe he said that. He’d always been kind to Declan, even treating him like his own flesh and blood, and now he was just going to sit there as if he didn’t break his trust? I didn’t know who my father was anymore.
“How do you sleep at night knowing you break everything you touch?” I asked, my dramatic accusation hitting him harder than either one of us anticipated. I don’t think he thought I would ever say something like that to him; I didn’t think he would care about anything I said to him. He never had before. He usually listened to what I had to say and then waited for me to leave, doing nothing with what I just told him.
“You gave us no choice, Luna,” he spoke sternly. “You weren’t going to give us any information after we discussed the mistakes you made today, so Levi and I came up with a backup plan.”
“That’s just it…” I pushed myself forward. “I didn’t make a mistake. I got more information in two hours than you and the other alphas got in eighteen years, and because you didn’t get your way you went and used Declan, who has been nothing but loyal to our family.”
“Even though you denied the connection between you and Declan, Levi and I knew he would be the only one to calm you down enough to get some information out of you,” my father admitted. “It’s true, we didn’t tell Declan the entire plan, but it was need-to-know. All he needed to know was that you would listen to him.”
“Did you think at all about what it would do to him?” I asked him, shaking my head at all the things he was admittin
g. “Did his well-being once cross your mind?”
“Yes, it did.” His shoulders drooped as he acknowledged what he had set in motion. “As alpha, I need to make hard decisions sometimes. This was one of them.”
“Shame on you,” I snarled through my teeth. “He didn’t deserve that, and because of you and your shady ways, he’s not even talking to me. He blames me just as much as he blames you, and I can’t be mad about it because for a short time I did believe he knew of your scheme and went along with it anyways. You wanted us to be bound, but your actions today sealed our fate. He’ll never bind with me now.”
“He will if I demand it of him,” my father said confidently.
“You would actually do that to him?” I asked. “You would actually force him to bind with me even though he wouldn’t be happy…”
“In our world, Luna, it’s not about happiness,” he answered. “It’s about power and protecting what is ours. Everything I do is to protect and prepare you and your sisters for what’s coming.”
“I won’t help you until you make things right with Declan,” I said, staring into the eyes that matched my own. “He doesn’t need to bind with me, but you do need to apologize to him and promise that you will never do anything like that again.”
He laughed. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“Then you don’t get the information that I possess,” I responded just as quickly.
“Fine,” he agreed.
“Great, we can pick this up when I talk to Declan and he confirms that you apologized.” I smiled as I motioned for him to leave my room.
“That’s not how this works, Luna,” he said angrily.
“It’s how it works now,” I informed him. “You see, what you did today didn’t just lose Declan’s trust, it lost mine as well. I don’t trust you, and in order for you to get the information you want from me, I need to see that you made good on your end of the deal.”
Rise of the Assassin (Child of an Alpha Series Book 1) Page 16
