Kyle
I hated this.
I thought I had escaped this life of war when I had been assigned as my lady’s guard. But I was back to it. After a hard day of training, there was ale and forgetting all the worries of the day.
Things were a bit different. Now, I wasn’t friends with everyone and wasn’t allowed to lose myself in the safety of my friends. As I took a swig of ale from my glass, I noticed a few of the men in the barhouse were staring at me with malicious intent clearly written behind their eyes.
“Don’t pay them any mind, my friend,” Soren threw an arm over my shoulder, laughing a bit. I used my free hand to pull his sweat-soaked arm off my shoulder, all while he was still laughing, along with the other guys who had noticed our interaction.
“Why are you in such a sour mood?” Kirk asked, raising brow as he took a swig of his ale.
“I am supposed to be on duty.” I said with a gruff tone.
It took them all three seconds to burst into a unified laughter at my expense. I didn’t know what they found so funny. While I was here, forcing myself to drink in the company of idiots, what if something happened to my lady? And I wasn’t be there to protect her.
The thought of that caused a chill to run down my spine. I wouldn’t be able to evade punishment this time. One more mistake and the king was going to kill me. No one was going to save me if one more thing went wrong.
“You heard the woman, you got the night off. She can take care of herself.” Vidin, the youngest of the group, said with a lax look on his face.
“She is the wife of the king. You will not refer to her as ‘woman’. You will call her-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We understand, soldier of the Almighty Vitalis princess.” Soren said sarcastically.
I frowned. “This is why I don’t like having drinks with you people.”
They laughed at my predicament. I took a swig of my ale, finishing my glass and setting it down on the table loudly.
“So what? You’re now too good for us? After hanging out with the precious human princess?” A new voice piped up.
I turned around to see no one other than the commander’s son herself. The frown that was already on my face deepened. Though he shared no drop of blood with the lady and her husband, he got both of their personalities perfected to a fault.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Thomas,” I said, hoping that he would take the hint that I was not in the mood to engage in anything that had to do with him. Unfortunately, he did not take the hint well.
“But I’m talking to you. You think we don’t know the real reason why you don’t want to be here?” He raised the pitch of his voice and suddenly, a bar house that was supposed to be so loud that you couldn’t even hear what your mates were saying, somehow went silent.
Men behind the boy laughed, keying into his insinuation. Blood rushed to my head, almost blinding me. The only thing that was keeping me seated and sane was the fact that if I did anything to cause trouble, it was really my lady who would bear the consequences of my actions.
With that thought in mind, I took a deep breath in through my nose and exhaled through my mouth. “I don’t know what you’re trying to ignite, Thomas, but go do it elsewhere. This is a time and a place for merry. Don’t go barking against trees that have been in the forest longer than you.” I said with a cool voice.
Thinking that was the end and turning my head back to face my mates, I heard; “Funny how after you started fucking with the princess, you changed sides so easily.”
On reflex, I kicked back my chair and my curled fist made contact with the young boy’s jaw. All hell broke loose. I only saw red and black after that.
*****
Hope
Why would Light write to me? How did she even get to write to me? But what if it wasn’t Light? What if I was just overreacting? What if it was just a prank played by someone who wanted to mess with my head in the castle?
Deep down inside me, I knew that wasn’t the case at all. I doubted that the Lycans were so petty to play mind games with me. They were better off physically hurting me than using the love I had for my sister to their advantage.
And there was no one else who signed the letter L the way Light did. Her calligraphy when it came to that one single letter of her name was the most beautiful thing a person could ever set their eyes on. So many people had tried to recreate her letter L but none have ever been successful, not even me.
But apart from that, the entire letter was written in the same penmanship as India. I knew Light’s handwriting and it wasn’t even close to India’s. But it couldn’t be India who sent the note to me.
She was long dead and we didn’t even know each other in the first place for her to miss me. So what was going on? A note with the writing of a dead queen and the signature of one which belonged to my sister. What did this mean?
If I were to think logically, the letter was sent to me by Light. But that would counterbalance everything that I had believed to this point. It would mean that Light was not captured by someone who wanted to frame her as the Morati knife’s thief.
It would mean that she was not in danger. It would mean that she had the means to come to this castle, to meet me, to be with Darius, but she chose not to. It would mean that she was somewhere doing something with a knife that she stole from a dangerous king.
A knife that could kill the only living bloodline of the Moratis family. A knife that was never meant to be in her hands in the first place.
There is nothing more your sister wants than to kill me.
Was Darius right? Did my sister really have plans to kill him all these while under the guise of being in love with him? If that was the case, then why? Why? Where did that leave her? Where did that leave the treaty between the humans and the Lycans?
Where did that leave our sisterly relationship because she has been lying to me all my life? Where did that leave me?
Where did I stand in the grand scheme of everything that was happening? What side was I on? I was married to Lycan king and my sister was probably rebelling against my husband somewhere out there. What was I left with? What was there for me to do?
But wait…
There was always the slight chance of me being wrong. That small sliver of hope that told me that maybe I was judging my sister too quickly. My sister who has always been there for me. Supporting me and fighting for me whenever need be.
Light had always been on my side for as long as I could remember. Why couldn’t I be on her side? Why wasn’t I trusting her blindly like I always did? Was I scared of the large chance of her not really being who she always acted like she was?
“No, Hope, you can’t think like that,” I chastised myself. I was rushing into things here. Light was not a bad person. Light was not a mastermind who wanted to kill the king of Lycans and break the peace treaty.
She was reckless but she wasn’t that reckless. She knows what kind of havoc that would break out if she ever did the things that everyone was accusing her of. I sucked in a deep breath. Light was innocent. I was just misunderstanding her.
But it wouldn’t hurt to confirm, would it?
With that fresh thought in mind, I set out of my room. Aware that it was probably close to midnight and whoever I wanted to seek answers from would probably not give them to me but I still left my room. The small note in my hand, there for evidence and advantage.
As I left the hallway and headed down the spiral of stairs, I saw Orion speaking with some of the guards. A smile made its way on my lips. If anyone was to know what was happening, it would be him. I jogged down the stairs, not caring how unladylike it was of me till I got close to him.
Like fate, the men left and as Orion turned around, he saw me. The edges of the side of his lips fell down to a frown. Not exactly a positive reaction but I wasn’t really expecting one. I wiped the smile off my face and put on a firm look which I hoped I was perfecting.
“Where is Light?”