Maya’s POV
I couldn’t find Liam. He was nowhere to be found in the whole house and vicinity and I was worried. He hadn’t dropped a note. I hadn’t seen him after that other day that Ella had been around at her house and I had excused them. I didn’t think that he had gone to war either as I could still see the other soldiers around. Everyone of them was around except my own brother.
I wondered if Kevin had given him an assignment that he didn’t want anyone else to know about.
I decided that enough was enough and I was going to find out what was going on. I wasn’t going to be kept in the dark anymore about the whereabouts of my brother.
I got dressed and moved out of the house, heading towards the palace. I needed to see Kevin. I had to ask him the mission Liam was on that he couldn’t bother to bid his sister goodbye before leaving. I wondered how important the message was that he didn’t think of me. I felt neglected in the pack and hated how I felt.
It was bad enough that my social circle had drastically reduced after Ella got married to Kevin. All of the friends I thought I had had avoided me when they realized that I wasn’t going to be the Luna of the pack. It was almost like they had decided that I wasn’t of any use to them anymore and shunned me out of their circle.
I felt awful that my brother wasn’t concerned about me as well. It was bad enough that my friends did this to me.
My heart started beating fast as I got closer to the palace and I was nervous of seeing the royal family. I was more worried of seeing Kevin than I was of Ella. I hated that I still had a twinge of affection for him after all these years and everything he had done to me.
I felt like a loser.
I never used to stick around anytime that the royal family had to take a walk in the streets. I didn’t want to see Kevin and remember how close we used to be and how good we were together in my dreams. I couldn’t afford to think of all that right now or then. I didn’t want to see his kids walking with him. I didn’t want to see too much of those kids who looked so much like him, kids he should have had with me. I didn’t want to see Ella walking by his side, waving and smiling at the crowd of werewolves who seemed to love her. I didn’t want to see her standing in the spot where I should have been. I didn’t want to see her beside the man that should have been mine.
As I got closer to the palace, I reminded myself that I was going to see them all now. I was going to see Kevin, Ella and the kids I had tried so hard to ignore and considered what to do. I shrugged, deciding I was going to go inside. My curiosity for where Liam was was greater than my aversion towards the royal family.
I was going to meet with Kevin and ask him where my brother even if the meeting was as awkward as nothing I had ever experienced before. Even if Ella was there with him, I was going to stand there and do what I was here to do. I was a werewolf on a mission and I had never been one to shy on a mission.
The first thing I noticed got me feeling strange and more unsettled than I had been before leaving home. The palace was silent, eerily silent as if no one lived there compared to the flurry of activities that I knew was always dominant here. I hadn’t been to the palace numerous times but I knew that what I was looking at wasn’t the way the palace used to look.
The maids were always busy, going up and down, beyond and across to deliver messages but I couldn’t see one soul at the moment. I wondered if I had come during their break but I doubted that. I had never heard of them having breaks in the palace for the workers. Rather, they would have shifts so there wouldn’t be any delay in assignments. Moreover, I had left the house early so even if they had breaks at the palace, they couldn’t be having it at this time.
I had heard a lot of how hyperactive Kevin’s kids were and how they made their nannies work for every penny of their salary. I strained my ears to hear the sounds of children running around and playing while their nannies shouted in exasperation but I didn’t hear anything. No matter how much I tried to pick up on a sound, I couldn’t detect anything.
I wondered if the kids were still in bed asleep but I doubted that, shaking my head in denial as soon as the thought popped into my head. I didn’t think kids who were reported to be hyperactive would be asleep in bed by ten in the morning.
I kept on walking, going deeper into the palace and not feeling discouraged by the strange silence in there. It was as if everyone had packed out or had stopped breathing.
“Finally,” I breathed as I saw a maid walking towards me.
She paused to a standstill as she saw me, her expression seeming surprised as if she wasn’t expecting anyone.
“You shouldn’t be here. The palace isn’t entertaining any visitors for now.” She said and walked off before I could say anything. She didn’t even give me a chance to respond.
Her attitude made everything seem stranger and I almost laughed out there. I would have if I wasn’t confused by her comment. What did she mean by the palace wasn’t entertaining any guests? I snorted. As if there had ever been an official time that the palace was open to guests and wasn’t. The palace wasn’t a tourist centre or a museum. Why did she have to say that?
The more I thought of it, the more I was convinced that there was something going on here.
I was a bit annoyed that the maid had referred to me as a guest. I wasn’t one. I was Kevin’s friend. Well, I used to be. We used to be more than friends. Did the maid not know who I was or my status had sunk so low in the pack that she no longer cared? I wasn’t one to be classified as just anybody. Even if I didn’t get mated to the alpha and didn’t become the Luna of the pack, I was still the sister to the general of the pack and nothing was going to change that.
Unless something happened to Liam or had happened to him.
I paled as that thought raced through my head and quickly reminded myself of why I was here. I needed to find out where Liam was. I couldn’t afford to have something happen to my brother or I was going to be doomed in the pack. I didn’t think I could live with myself if my social status crashed lower than it already was.
Fueled with more determination, I continued moving, walking at a faster pace than I was before and breathed in relief when I saw another maid. I called out to her and quickly raced to her side before she could avoid me, placing myself directly in her path.
“What is going on?” She frowned, arching her eyebrows at me. “Why are you in my way?”
I breathed, out of breath from the race I had done to get to her. “I only need you to answer a question. I will let you go if you do that.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “What is the problem?”
“I need to see the alpha. Do you know where he is?”
A strange look filled her eyes but it was quickly gone and replaced with a blank look that I wondered if I had been the one to imagine that previous look. I couldn’t read her and I hated not knowing what she thought of that time.
“You should leave.” She said instead of telling me where Kevin was. “You shouldn’t be found here.” She walked away without another word or looking back at me.
I sighed as I watched her walk away, wondering what was wrong with everyone and why they were obsessed with chasing me out of the palace like it had suddenly become a forbidden ground. No one had announced in town that the palace now had an early morning curfew.
Bullshit. The palace never had a curfew and I was going to find out what was going on and making everyone jumpy even if I had to walk the whole grounds of the huge building to find out what it was.
I hadn’t walked more than two meters before I saw three guards walking towards me. Unlike the others who avoided me when they saw me, these ones moved with purpose towards me and I swallowed nervously, my tongue suddenly going dry when I realized that they were here for me.
I shook my head, hiding a smile as they got to me, feeling it in my guts that I was in trouble for trespassing. I wondered if they knew I had been warned twice already to leave the palace premises but didn’t listen. With how angry they looked, I didn’t doubt that they knew.
I sighed. News indeed traveled fast in the palace. It would have been nice if they had used that same energy to tell me where Kevin was. I wouldn’t have had to resort to this and would have been out of the palace faster than they could blink.