Hope
I dropped the book on the chair and stood up.
“Hello, is anyone there?” I called out, walking around the room. The chiming noises continued but I didn’t hear any voices.
Was I imagining things?
“Hello?” I called out again, only to be met with silence this time. Maybe I was imagining things. There was no one around.
I went back to my chair, picked up the book, and resumed reading. I didn’t hear the chiming noises again after that till I finished the entire book. By the end of the reading, I had learned a whole lot of things that I never imagined before. A whole lot of vulgar things but who would know?
Certainly not my mother who always chastised me about filling my head with romantic tales of nonsense. Here, there was no one to watch me and lock me in a room when I read such. Maybe staying in this palace wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.
I decided to leave the place. The sun was almost down and the sky was darkened. Funny enough, finding my way back to my room was easy. It was the person who stood outside my door that had my heart racing.
It wasn’t the first time that I had seen the commander with an intimidating scowl on her face, but something told me that her scowl of today had to do with me.
“Commander?” I called out to her, and she turned her gaze to me.
Her eyes widened in surprise for a few seconds before they drew into angry narrow slits. With one long stride, she stood a few inches from me and wrapped her palm around my forearm, squeezing me tight.
“What are you-”
“Where were you?” she asked, cutting off my sentence.
I puffed out my chest as my lips quivered. Would she get mad at me if I said that I spent my entire day in the library, reading the most obscene things? Even saying it inside my head didn’t sound right. Of course, she would get angry.
I pressed my lips tightly against each other before I shook my head. “Nowhere, I was just taking a stroll around the palace and I got lost somewhere.”
I was terrible at lying. I hoped she couldn’t tell that I was terrible at lying.
“Whatever. Darius summoned you for dinner.” She shoved me away, and I stumbled, then soothed the spot she gripped earlier. I saw that a red mark had already been plastered on my skin, and I felt like crying but I didn’t.
If I did, Darius and whoever we were to have dinner with would make fun of me for crying.
“Okay,” I mumbled, and then the commander led the way.
I felt anxious as I was walking down the stairs. Why? It was not like I did anything wrong. No one ever went to the library. Me reading that book didn’t mean that I was depraved or anything close to that so why did I feel caught?
We got to the dining room to see that only three people were seated at the long table. They were Darius, Orion, and Annalise. I thought of the last person with spite. She wasn’t doing anything to me, yet I couldn’t stand her.
She was only seated by Darius’ left-hand side, flicking her nails like she was waiting for something to happen. Commander announced our presence by saying, “Good evening, everyone.”
The three Lycans turned their attention to us, and none of them smiled when they noticed that I accompanied the commander. But Darius’ frown seemed like it had more depth and hatred to it.
“Good evening,” I whispered to anyone who cared to be greeted, then sat on the furthest chair from the rest of them, which happened to be at the other end of the table, directly across from King Darius.
“Let us eat.” Darius said with a distracted tone, then began digging into his food. I followed suit, not minding if I was the oddest one out.
“Hope, right?” Annalise spoke to me with that weird smile on her face. I nodded my head in response.
“How are you liking Moratia so far?” she asked with a genuinely curious tone, and I bit my tongue hard to prevent myself from spewing out the first thought that came to my mind-horrible.
Everything about this kingdom was horrible. I shouldn’t think that but it was the truth. The skies and the plants might’ve been incredibly beautiful but the people made up for the negative part of the kingdom.
They all acted like I was the sole cause of all the things that went wrong in their lives. Was it my fault that my sister was accused of a heinous crime and that I had to take her place to uphold my family’s honor? I didn’t think they were aware that getting married to their king was not my choice.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t say that out loud. During the short time that I had stayed in Moratia, I had gotten more threats about my death than in my entire life in the human lands. I couldn’t risk myself so much by spewing nonsense.
“It’s nice. Peaceful.” I answered, using a deliberate tone.
Orion choked on his food a bit, and he received concerned comments. The smile on Annalise’s lips faltered but she didn’t take it off. She hummed quietly before she spoke up again.
“Really?” she prodded.
It was my turn to choke on my food but I didn’t get any reaction from anyone. I took a few sips of water from my glass, then nodded my head frantically.
“Yes. It’s very… peaceful.”
Peaceful meant lonely. I had no maids to chatter and gossip with. No worker would talk to me. No lake to swim in. No friends. No shopping. Nothing. I hated it here.
“Ahh. If you say so.” Annalise clamped her mouth shut knowingly.
I covered the frown on my face before it appeared. What did she know? Darius and Orion started talking about something concerning the kingdom. I tuned out the world around me and focused on one thing.
The library I found. I would go there again tomorrow and read another book. But that chiming noise. It didn’t last for long but what was it? Could be that someone had been watching at the time, then ran away when I stood up?
Unlikely. The only people who lived in the palace were Lycans and if ever they were to catch me alone, they would probably rip my head off my body. So what was the chiming noise?
The food in front of me disappeared and I saw that I was done. I was standing up to return to my chambers when I saw that Darius and Annalise were doing the same thing.
She quickly wrapped her arms around his neck and went in for a kiss. No, don’t kiss. Like he heard my thoughts, Darius’ eyes immediately darted toward me and he stared at me with an emotion that I couldn’t decipher the meaning of. Annalise indulged him in the kiss but his eyes still rested on me.
The scene was so vulgar. Orion and the commander weren’t even paying attention to the show that was taking place in front of them. Instead, their attention was on the food they were eating. Annalise kissed Darius as if her life depended on it, and he held onto her passionately.
I couldn’t tear my gaze away from them. And he couldn’t tear his gaze away from me.
He was kissing her but he was looking at me.
Somehow, that made me feel slightly comforted. I didn’t know the reason why.