Jessamine
I stab at my food, the fork piercing the tender meat and hitting the plate. I am seated at a long polished table, the light from the chandeliers glittering on their glossy tabletop.
The King is at the head and I am next to Darrock at the other end.
The meat falls off my fork and I stab at it again, frustrated, and the plate breaks in five different places. Everyone is staring at me, and I stare right back, widening my eyes for effect. "What? You want mine too?"
Nymeria scoffs, a perfect picture of grace as she slices into her food neatly, bringing her fork to her lips. "Peasant," she murmurs, before parting her lips to take in the food.
My fingers tighten around the metal, bending it and my wrist snaps as I throw the fork, aiming for Nymeria's head.
Queen Tara's eyes widen with fear and she pulls Nymeria out of the way before the cutlery can pierce through her left eye. "Have you lost your mind?!"
I scratch the back of my head. "Sorry, my fingers slipped."
Darrock hides his laughter with a cough and Queen Tara turns to the King, anger making her eyes bulge out of their socket. "I told you having her eat with us was a terrible idea. She's trying to kill our daughter."
No matter that Nymeria somehow snuck into my room last night and cut a large chunk of my hair off. My engagement as well as my official welcome into the King's Court is today and she is trying to harm me the only way she knows wouldn't incur her father's wrath. Unfortunately for her, I'd gone into the shower and returned to see my hair restored and longer than it usually was.
Unfortunately for her, I'm in a bad mood.
"Siblings fight, Tara," the King says casually, but his eyes are narrowed at me.
Darrock raises his hand, calling for the servant to replace my plate. Nymeria glares at us. "She is not my sister."
I mimick her, rolling my eyes and making a sick face. Claws jut out of her fingers, ruining her newly manicured nails and next thing I know, there's a plate hurtling for my head.
Grinning devilishly, I snatch it before it can hit my face and aim for the space close to her neck.
I'm off by half an inch and it grazes the skin of her neck, cutting her. Her eyes are wide saucers, her fingers flying to cover the healing wound as she jumps to her feet, snarling menacingly. "I'll kill you!"
My smile only widens as Queen Tara begins yelling and the guards surround us, looking torn between bundling me up and fleeing from the room entirely.
Steel clangs against glass and as one we turn to see King Hunter wiping the side of his lips with a napkin. He rises from the table, his green jacket unfolding to his knee, and he folds his hands behind his back.
"Jessamine," he says. "Walk with me."
I do, and the walk is silent at first. Very awkward. For the most part of it, I'm staring at the King's broad back and his pretty hair.
"Why Darrock?" he suddenly asks.
"You're the one who gave me away without my consent."
"Had you said no, I would've called it off. You're my daughter. You and your happiness matters greatly to me.
"Or Dawn? For someone who claims to care, you don't act like it. I've been asking to see you for days and you have been avoiding me."
He says nothing, for a while, and just when I ease into the silence, he whispers softly, "How did Madeline die?"
I jerk, images flooding my mind. The bloodied knife. The cherry blossoms scattered about the ground. My voice raw from screaming in anger and despair. Her wet laughter as the light in her eyes dimmed and died.
My fingers tremble and I hide them behind my back. "In her sleep," I respond in a silent whisper and I pray to whichever Goddess is listening that he doesn't hear the tremor in my voice.
King Hunter looks at me, and for the first time since we met, he lets me see his emotions. The full force of it knocks my breath away, and his lips move slowly. "Did she..." His gaze turns to the statue of the Sun Goddess, wielding a glowing orb of power. "What were her last words?"
I freeze, a numbing cold spreading from my core.
You can't keep me here forever, Mother. I have no friends, because of you. They call me a freak! You teach me things no one else teaches their children. I try to impress them and their parents tell them not to mingle with me. They call me mad, because of you! I'm lonely! Whip me again if you must, but I will attend the ball tonight!"
Mother straightens, her eyes darkening, like it usually does before an outburst. She clamps down on her ears, and begins whispering to herself. It takes me half a minute to hear her. She says, "I'm not mad. There was someone else there."
But I've seen her breakdown like this, everytime I threatened to leave, or actually left, and I am tired of it. Snatching my bag off the crumpling wooden table, I start towards the old oak door.
She grabs my wrist, forcing me to look in her eyes--my eyes. They are crazed. "Don't come back."
Anger and hurt builds, and I bare my teeth at her. "I hate you. You should have died with father."
Anguish flashes in her eyes. "You don't mean that." She reaches for me, cupping my cheeks hard enough to hurt. "You love me. Only me."
My smaller fingers rise to hers, wrapping around them and it takes a lot of effort to pry them off my face. I am angry and the words just tumble from my mouth out of a pent up frustration. "I wish it every day. That I didn't get stuck with you."
I left, but I didn't attend the stupid ball that caused the fight in the first place. I couldn't. I was too angry and I couldn't stop crying. So I climbed up one of the trees I'd grown accustomed to and slept on it, the anger dissipating at some point.
When I returned home later that night, I saw that she had taken it upon herself to grant me my wish.
I don't look at King Hunter as I respond, "I don't remember."
His expression closes, and I hate the vulnerability I see in his eyes. So I offer him something else. "She left behind a journal."
King Hunter's head whips back swiftly, his eyes widening as I go on. "It's written in Dawn, so I assume it wasn't meant for me to read. Do you..." My voice trails off and I nibble on my bottom lip nervously. This is so awkward. "Do you want to see it?"
He blinks. Twice, and then he angles his head strangely, staring at me with the oddest expression. "You would...gift it to me?" Goddess, he almost sounds normal. Like a nervous child. He sounds like how I feel around him.
I smile a little. "Not for free, of course."
King Hunter nods enthusiastically, and his hand sudden wraps around my wrist, swerving me in the opposite direction. "Anything you want."
We pass by a crowd of courtiers and they stare at us like they've seen ghosts. It could be because I must have paled. He's holding my hand, and his hand feels warm to touch today. It makes me feel oddly comfortable, but I know it's an illusion. You see similarities between yourself and a stranger, and you automatically want to let loose around them.
I stare at our joined hands as he takes us up the stairs to the second wing. He has such pretty fingers. Almost feminine. Smooth, too smooth, unlike Kier's calloused hands. Usually, things like that heal with every shift, becoming new skin again, but Kier has this adorable habit of--no. We won't think or speak about He Who Will No Longer Be Named.
"You're oddly excited, Your Majesty," I tell him.
He looks back and a youthful smile tips his lips. I can suddenly see how he must have looked when he was younger, and to the Goddess above, I don't blame mother at all. He's supposed to be my father and I am still awestruck by that easy smile. "I'd been trying to talk to her for a while, but she refused to see me. When I visited and found out she was gone, I thought I'd never get to hear those words from her. Or her thoughts. Or if she ever forgave me. Our break up was...well, a horrible affair. This is the closest I've gotten to actually... understanding why she refused to return."
My brows furrow. "Forgave you? Refused to return? What happened between you and my mother?"
His face drains of all color and just as he starts to speak, a loud voice booms across the hall. "Hunter!"
I follow the King's gaze ahead to the man dressed in armour, a bow strapped to his back, striding towards us in confident strides. "I came as soon as I heard--" The grin growing on the male's lips falters when hard, black eyes land on me.
Two seconds. It's all it takes for him to cross the room and have an arrow head so dangerously close to my neck. My heart is running wild, aiming for my throat and I tip my head back as warmth dribbles down my neck. My hands have gone cold--I can't feel King Hunter's fingers around my wrist anymore.
"Stand down, Bael." I hear the King's voice not to far from me, but all I see is murder in those black eyes. A rage I couldn't possibly understand. Have I done something wrong to this man? I would remember eyes like his. They suck in the morning light and leave nothing but a greying cold.
I shiver, holding my breath as King Hunter repeats the order, wrapping his finger around the arrow. But the man won't let go. Hate is all I see in his eyes as he whispers, "How could you come back here?"
He's going to kill me. I'm going to die. By an arrow? How... inconspicuous. I don't often think of death, but I like to imagine I'd go out with a bang. Like...saving the world. Or stabbing myself in the middle of a fight over me--not that I would. I love my life. Very much. But...an arrow has no romantics attached to it.
The arrow snaps in half and King Hunter's warning snarl ripples through the air. "That is my daughter, Bael. Stand. The. Fuck. Down. Now."
The man, Bael, jerks, his eyes widening, and he hops back three steps, looking from my face to the King's. I stumble back, falling into a wall of heat that steadies me as I grasp my neck. Oh, Goddess.
For a moment, all I do is breathe. Bael looks tense, and though the murderous glint in his eyes is gone, I know if I moved wrong, he wouldn't hesitate to cut me.
Bael bows his head tightly. "You must pardon me, princess. I made a mistake."
Right. A mistake. I start to tell him that it's fine, even if it's not, but he nods curtly in King Hunter's direction and walks away tightly.
"Here," the King says, extending a piece of cloth to me. "Forgive my Beta. He and your mother weren't exactly on good terms before she left."
Wiping the blood off my neck, I nod. "You are yet to tell me what happened."
"I will, in time." He stops by my door, letting me go in first and invite him inside. An odd gesture that I find alarming, seeing as he is King and could enter wherever he wishes in this place.
I blush when he enters my room and notes my room, studying every dress peeking out of my dresser, untouched, and the jewelry laid out for my choosing for this evening's event.
"You didn't bring much with you," he notes.
"I didn't have much," I answer, crouching low to fish out my bag from where I hidden it under my bed. I must look funny from this angle, because he laughs. It's soft, almost imperceptible.
"Did something occur between you and Kier? Darrock tells me there was a conflict of interests, though, I'm unsure what that means."
My head hits the bedstand and I stifle a groan, lifting my head warily. "No." I'm going to murder Darrock.
He blinks, staring at me eerily. "You've gone red, Jessamine."
I hide my head under the bed, tugging at the straps of my bag. "I don't know what you're talking about, Your Majesty."
"You may call me Father."
My head hits the bedstand again. I wince, pulling the journal out of the bag, and I stand, extending it to him.
"Or Alpha. Whichever you prefer," he adds, looking at everywhere but my face as he collects the book.
Something falls out out of the journal as he flips the first page, and he catches it in his free hand, glancing at the locket with a small smile. "She gave this to you?"
"She wasn't supposed to?"
He shakes his head, handing it to me. "She said she'd burn it and send the ashes back to me."
I find myself laughing. Ever wondered where I got my attitude from? I turn to stand beside him, and I stare pointedly at the first page. "So, what does it say? Do I need to learn your language?"
He smiles softly. "Eventually, but I believe it's for me." He traces the first line with his fingertips. "This says, Jessamine is four. I don't know what to teach her. She's asking why I've forbidden her from playing with my 'special' toys. I don't even know how she found them. Heavens, Hunt. I'm a terrible mother."