Peace
Simon’s POV
“What is going on here?” A voice thundered from the door, and Ashley instantly flinched in fear. Our lips parted from each other, and I turned to see Lucas’ face, which was filled with a lot of questions. Could I even be surprised he was looking like that? Obviously not!
“Ashley? Simon? Is anyone going to say anything to me?” I turned to face Ashley, but she had a very unreadable expression on her face, and I honestly couldn’t tell what she was thinking. For a second, I thought she was genuinely scared, and the next, it almost seemed like she didn’t care in the world about what was going on. Looking once again, it looked like she didn’t even know what was going on, and I just kept getting more confused the more I tried to understand what she was thinking.
“Did I just walk in on you kissing Ashley?” Lucas said, letting out a mocking laugh. I frowned at him, but hearing Ashley let out a chuckle from behind me on the bed where she was still seated, I instantly felt like I was really the odd one in the room.
“And why are you laughing about that? Is it a crime for me to kiss my mate?” I said, letting my thoughts get voiced out before getting the chance to filter them first.
“Hmm, mate? I like the sound of that! Took you long enough to finally admit that,” Lucas continued, and I rolled my eyes at how teasing his tone was.
“Just don’t let your loving Veronica hear this, or she’s gonna rip all three of our heads off,” he joked, and this time I just couldn’t help but laugh myself. It was so funny because right before this, Veronica had actually come in to question my sudden changes towards Ashley, and also to demand an answer as to why Lucas and I hadn’t marked her yet. Well, those were obviously things I just could not respond to yet because I also didn’t have answers to each of them whenever I asked myself as well. Lucas sniffed the room for a while, and I raised a brow as I watched him.
“What happened? Why is she hurt?” He asked, after sniffing the place. Turning to face Ashley, he walked closer to the bed, and then sat on it.
“How did you hurt your leg? I can smell the pain-relieving balm in the room, and King Simon over there obviously looks fine,” he said, and I placed both hands in my pockets to relax.
“Oh it’s nothing, I just slipped and…”
“She’s lying. Veronica thought she was listening in on the conversation we were having and so she pushed her to the ground. She landed on her knee and so, here we are!” I said, shrugging my shoulders as I went on.
“But why did you let that happen? Couldn’t you have stopped Veronica from hurting her? What if she had gotten even worse?”
“Well, I didn’t just stand there. Of course, I stopped her, if not only God knows what she would have done actually.”
“Well, she didn’t…”
“But she could have? You just stood there watching them without doing anything.”
“Well, of course, I stopped her. You know how fiery Veronica can be. Though she was still quite adamant about it, I still found a way to stop her.”
“Well, clearly you didn’t do an amazing job because she ended up getting hurt in the knee.”
“Whatever.”
“Um, I think I’ll just go to my room now, thank you,” Ashley said, slowly scooting off of the bed.
“Do you need help getting to the room? I can help you, Ashley.”
“No, I’m totally fine now, thank you.”
“Are you sure? I can seriously help you get to the room, it’s not a bother at all.”
“I know, Lucas, but it’s fine. I even want to go myself so that I get myself used to handling situations like this when there’s no one to help.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely!”
“Alright then, careful,” Lucas said, as he helped her get up from the bed. I had my hands still in my pockets, and I stood quietly while this went on, having my back faced towards them. All through, the only thing coming to my mind was how Lucas actually permitted her to call him by his name. Wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of reference to his authority or something? It just didn’t make any sense just thinking about it.
When she was finally up standing on the ground, she walked towards the door, and right when she got close to where I was, I turned to face her. The moment she turned to face me as well, her gaze met mine, but even before a split second, I immediately looked away. She walked a bit slower, but the limping wasn’t as prevalent as it was before, and I watched her retreating figure as she got to the door and finally left the room, shutting the door to leave just Lucas and myself there.
“So, what was that about?” Lucas said, as he stood up from the bed and walked towards me.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I responded, turning away from him even more, as he was obviously right about to bring up what was happening between Ashley and I when he walked in.
“Oh, why do you keep hiding your face from me, brother?” He teased, laughing out loud like a maniac. “So after all that had been said and done, you have finally accepted Ashley as our mate. That’s honestly the best thing this season has brought about in the house despite the fact that it just started. Good choice, bro, I’m so glad about this, to be honest. You’ve taken the first step to restoring back the long-lost peace we deserve in this house.”
“Long lost!?” I exclaimed, laughing out loud as I watched Lucas’ dramatic facial expressions while speaking. “Come on, stop exaggerating. It’s not like we didn’t have peace in the house.”
“Oh really? Are you, of all people, saying that? Well, I’m not so surprised this is coming from you. After all, you were the root cause of everything.”
“Me? How’s everything my fault?”
“When Mom and Dad were busy betrothing us to Veronica, you willingly agreed despite all of my protests.”
“Come on, we were kids, and Veronica was my best friend as well back then, so of course I accepted.”
“So what happened when we were teenagers, getting ready to enter adulthood, huh? Didn’t you think that time as well?”
“Oh, well, Veronica and I were still really close friends, so what do you expect?”
“Oh, please, spare me those fake lines! Friends? Simon, are you seriously kidding me right now, friends??”
“Yup.”
“Liar! Everybody in the kingdom knows you have always had a huge crush on Veronica. Don’t try to pull out that ‘we were just friends’ card because I know you too well.”
“Well, whatever. That still doesn’t make me the reason why there has supposedly been no peace in the house.”
“You announced her as our mate during the moon festival. You invited not just her but also her entire family over for dinner here as well. And then you brought her into the house to stay despite the fact that this year’s mating season would be completely different now that we have Ashley in the exact same house with us. All through, our wolves would be moving at a high level of frequency, especially with our true mate here. What do you think is going to happen with Veronica? She’s obviously going to lose her mind.”
“Well, she already is,” I said, letting out a chuckle, as I sat on my desk.
“What do you mean?”
“This morning, right before you showed up, and even before Ashley even showed up in fact, Veronica had come in to question me about everything going on in the house.”
“What, question you? What was that all about?”
“Well, she basically went on and on about how I have changed towards our slave, and we haven’t marked her yet, it’s just…”
“Hold on, wait a minute, did you just say she complained about us not marking her?”
“Yeah.”
“And what does she mean by us? Shouldn’t it be just a you thing? I really do not understand when I gave her the impression that I wanted her to be our wife or the future queen of the kingdom. The last time I checked, it was you that kept feeding her such a mindset, so why is she involving me in the whole thing?”
“Oh come on, Lucas, like you don’t know that we both have to be in agreement with things like this. You, of all people, should know that with something like this it doesn’t just pertain to me but also to you as well. We’re twins.”
“Oh wow, how could I forget such a thing? I have honestly forgotten that we are twins, I didn’t know,” he said sarcastically, and I frowned at him.
“Well, all in all, she is complaining, and I have started running out of things to say to her.”
“Oh, I have an idea.”
“Hmm, let’s hear it.”
“Why don’t you just give her what she wants?”
“What?”
“Yeah, it would be extremely nice because everybody would end up getting what they want all together.”
“So what are you suggesting that I do?”
“Why don’t you just mark her like she wants, marry her, and stay with her, and I’ll just stay with Ashley?”
“What the heck, what are you even saying? You know that’s not possible! Lucas, are you trying to get the people revolting, or even worse, do you want the moon goddess to end us both?”
“Hahaha, just kidding,” he said, laughing, and I frowned at him.
“Don’t make such jokes, I value my life if you don’t value yours.”
“Calm down, none of us is going to die, but we will be close to it if Veronica keeps coming here. We have Ashley; she’s our mate, and let’s just stick to her if we want peace,” he said conclusively, resting back on the bed while I thought about what he had said.
Was I having second thoughts about Veronica now? Yes! Did I use to be in love with her? Yes! But are those feelings still there? That was the exact thing I was struggling to answer at this point. There is no arguing that Veronica was never even going to be in the picture if I hadn’t pushed for her back then, but now that everything had started changing, it seemed like I had actually shot myself in the foot all this while. Has my countenance towards Ashley changed? Yes, absolutely! Has she managed to get my attention diverted towards her? Yes! But was I in love with her? There it was, the exact spot I had been stuck in for a while. I couldn’t say that I loved her, but I also couldn’t say that I didn’t.
Although my mindset towards her has changed from the time she first got into the house, saying that I was in love with her just yet was probably going a little bit too fast already. I was undoubtedly attracted to her physically, but love is definitely way too strong for me to say just yet.
“Well, no matter what happens, all I know is that I am not tying myself for life with Veronica, and that is it,” Lucas finally said, standing up from the bed and making his way out. I remained seated where I was, and flashes of myself doing things with Ashley kept coming to my mind. For some time, I didn’t bother trying to fight it, as I enjoyed the thoughts for a while. As soon as it, however, dawned on me what exactly I was doing thinking of such things, I quickly snapped out of it. I laughed at myself for brooding on such thoughts, but the more I tried to ignore it, the more curious I got about how it would feel doing it in real life with Ashley. The mating season had just started, but as time would go on, the resistance we had all been keeping would soon break in submission to the will of the Moon goddess, and that was something I could not deny as well.