Moira
"Secure her a seat? Whatever for?" she asked, unable to keep her voice from cracking. "She's merely here as a chaperone. This is our council. She's an outsider. The daughter of a king that will stab us in the back given the chance. Why should we include her in our meetings?"
Kier shrugged on his most worn tunic for practice, and it didn't matter that he'd yet to soak in the tub, he smelled like snowflakes and there was nothing Moira wanted more than to bury her nose in his neck, sink her teeth into it and mark him. She'd tried. Once. It ended with her being hurled across their bedroom and Kier had hissed at her. No, not Kier. The beastly thing that lurked behind his hazel eyes. It had snarled at her, "I will never be yours."
It couldn't have gotten more hurtful than that.
Oh, but it could. She'd glimpsed it then. The mark he hid under his tunic, careful not to expose to her or the world. The crescent moon on his collarbone. And on the days he seemed careless enough to let it show, everyone assumed it was hers. All it would take was a sniff and they'd pick up the faint smell of licorice lingering off it, nothing like her scent of roses and vanilla.
Strapping his belt around his waist, Kier raised his gaze to hers. "She agreed to help and for that we'll forever be in her debt--"
"Can you not see that's what she wants?" Moira argued, moving a tad closer. Kier's eyes tracked the movement and she stopped dead in her tracks. "She's only helping to assert herself in our lives once more. She'll take advantage of this. She's deceiving you again and you trust her too much."
Kier laughed. It was bitter and breathy. Then he whispered more to himself than Moira as he snatched his sword off the table. "I'll be damned if I can't at least give her my trust. It's the barest minimum."
"What does that even mean? You don't owe her anything, Kier." Moira raised her skirts as she followed him out of his bedroom. It was his alone. He'd made that clear as day. He didn't even care to play the part of a loving Alpha. It was Moira who kept up appearances and the charades, making everyone else believe they shared their nights together.
"I do," he answered tightly, strolling down the crowded hallway. Moira smiled and nodded at the courtesying guests, even as she listened to Alpha Kier. "I know what you're thinking, Moira, and it's far from it. Jessamine doesn't even want to be here, and she's engaged to be mated with a man she adores very much."
Moira tried to ignore the underlying hate in Kier's voice as he spoke of her, but it nipped at her heels, chasing her and her thoughts. Perhaps, she could work it to her advantage. If Kier no longer believed the woman could be his, surely, his attention would be hers again. She knew Kier. He was much too noble to pine after an engaged woman.
Or not.
Because when Kier stepped into the training yard, he tensed. Moira's eyes flitted across to the familiar blonde in the flimsiest clothing she had ever seen on a woman. A thin wrap covered Jessamine's breasts, revealing a generous amount of cleavage on which sweat clung. The skin bounced with each blow she delivered against her partner. Her stomach was bare and Moira hated that she could admire a woman's body. The slimness of her waist was terrifying and the flare of her hips into that pair of tight pants was liquid sin.
Moira hated that Jessamine was beautiful. She envied her and she hated it. She had always gotten everything she wanted and meeting Jessamine had been a humbling experience. The wench had been in rags, an utterly destroyed maid uniform and Moira had wanted to own that body. That perfect face. That hair. She wanted to be Jessamine.
She watched Kier take in all of that softness and the desire that blasted in his eyes nearly brought her to her knees. Moira could tell that she might have gotten the title of his Luna, but she would never be more than that. So long Jessamine was in the picture.
It wasn't just Kier. The men watched her. They were going through their regular routines but Jessamine had their attention. Before, she had been endearing, but now, she was every bit of the siren Moira knew she would become. She ducked a blow from her partner, one of her travel companions with soft eyes and an easy smile. An Alpha. Her laughter flitted across the yard, something of a deadly melody, and she swerved, last second, delivering a kick to the man's midsection.
Moira suddenly felt her skin prickle and she sought out the feeling, finding the heated gaze of the man called Az on her. Her lips curled up in irritation and the male tore his gaze from her, returning them to his princess.
A personal guard. A beta. The Goddess had to be playing tricks on her. Had he been an Alpha she might have considered rejecting his nicely. But he was a nobody. A mere guard, and he'd dared to approach her with hope in his eyes and a light she had oh so happily snatched.
Rejecting the bond didn't stop her wolf from howling with longing at the sight of him. He wasn't terrible to look at. If she wasn't already Luna, she might have indulged him one night of foolishness and discarded him the next morning. But she only wanted one man now, and he wasn't looking at her.
"Perhaps, I shall arrange a room for the both of you, so that you can fuck her like you're doing with your eyes right now," Moira snapped when her husband wouldn't take his eyes off her.
Kier jerked, then blinked, his golden skin reddening. He spared her one glance and abandoned the training yard altogether, walking much too quickly for Moira to follow. But not too fast to hide the bulge in his pants.
Moira's throat tightened and she took off for her room, her mood ruined, her emotions in disarray. She'd barely made it into her room before a frustrated scream slipped from her lips. She raged, throwing everything off her dressing table. It did nothing to alleviate the anger. She grabbed the mirror off the wall and hurled it into the next. It crashed and frightened whimper caught her attention.
Her head snapped to her bathchamber, where a maid stood with a mop and pitcher, brown eyes wide with fear.
"I said," Moira groaned, grabbing a fistful of the woman's hair. The mop clattered to the marble floor and the pitcher broke as she stumbled over herself, trying to get away from Moira viselike grip. "No maids in the mornings. Are you daft?"
The maid thrashed, reaching for Moira's fingers in her hair and the wet smell of tears tickled Moira's nostrils. "I--I--I'm sorry. Luna Renae said to check if...if...if you bled--"
Moira cussed, hurling the maid out of her room. Her mother-in-law was starting to become a pain in her neck. She was a demanding wench, changing from the moment the crest rested on Moira's neck. She spent a larger part of her time in the library and temple, praying for Goddess knew what. It was the only reprieve Moira received. The woman was barely around, but in the time she was, she acted like a wretched hag.
But, of course, those were only limited to when her son wasn't in the castle. Moira had come to realize that there was more to her mother-in-law than she showed, and there were rumours flying about the castle about her escapades in the library with the younger, more handsome guards. Moira had gotten the honours of seeing it happen once. Kier gutted the guard in a for of rage, but his mother went unpunished, as usual.
Moira needed the woman gone, but she knew it would come sooner, rather than later. Kier's patience was running thin and there had been that one fight before he journeyed to Dawn, where Moira had seen him for the first time in a lust for his mother's blood. His fingers had been around her delicate neck, her eyes bulging, her skin bloodless. She should have let him kill her, but she was trying to get in his good graces. She'd stopped him before he could snap his mother's neck.
Shame. A stupid, goddess-awful decision.
The maid ran off sobbing and just as Moira turned to shut the door, a male came into view. Alas, it was the body guard. Those odd eyes seem to take in the damage in her room and his forehead crinkled with worry. "I felt... something. I wanted to ensure you were... alright."
Moira stared in his green eyes, the black slitting his pupils seeming to widen as she held his gaze. "I am not your charge. You have no business worrying for me or darkening my door. Get lost, and if you indeed wish to see me alright, kill your princess for me, will you?"
His jaw tightened. "You have the tongue of a viper."
Moira reared back at the insult, her nostrils flaring. She dragged said tongue over her lips and his eyes tracked the movement. "My bite is just as poisonous. Stay the hell away from me."
He turned and left without another word and Moira shut the door, sliding down against it and burying her head in her hands. Perhaps she'd do it herself. If Jessamine wasn't gone by the end of the war, she'd take matters into her own hands.
*************
Jessamine
I have a new fondness for the library.
Alright, that's not entirely true. Smiling prettily and batting long lashes at the guards had earned me a little information on Renae's schedule. She oddly seems to be avoiding me, which is quite alright. I've cleared my schedule just for her, ditching my meeting with Kier's council.
I chose the darkest corner of the vast space. She won't sight me, unless she's actively searching. I'm hoping to find why she's taken sudden interest here. In all the time I spent here as a maid, she never even stepped foot in here. Renae considered books too dull. She preferred the clowns who put up a show for her. That, she enjoyed--watching people make fools of themselves.
She'll get enough of that tomorrow, at the ball being held in my honour. How delightful. I think the Neredians are grappling at any opportunity they have to celebrate even the tiniest things. All to distract themselves from it all. They have, after all, never been to war before. Not one of this scale at least. I won't be attending that either. It's the only time Kier and everyone else will be too occupied to see me sneak into Renae's room to ransack it for answers.
My fingers flip through the page of a dark romance novel. Something about quadruplets and one woman. It is obscene. The naughtiest thing I've read and my cheeks heat up with every page I flip, my core tightening. I do not think any of these things remotely possible, but I should like to take note.
You know, just to know. Not that I have any plans of...
Heels click against the stone floors and I sit up straighter, my legs dropping off the table. Renae walks past a shelf as tall as the ceiling, nodding in greeting towards the scribes and I force my breathing to quieten, my anger to dissolve. Her eyes make quick work of her surroundings, seeking out the darker corners, as if to make sure no one else is in here.
Fiery curls frame a too delicate face, and her lips, coated in bloodred curl into a half sneer, directed at no one in particular. She's in a red dress, regal and overflowing, hugging the wicked curve of her waist and hips. Her back is straight, her movements almost as fluid as water. My eyes droop to her hands, unusually bare.
I wonder if she hesitated before she stabbed my mother.
Blending into the darkness, I watch her stop by the shelf beside mine, and I peek between books, watching her take out a green, worn tome. She sets it down on the table and slides into the chair. Her lips tighten grimly as she flips through the pages and for a while, she just...does that. Read.
There's nothing odd about that. I start to reconsider my decision to watch her, when she suddenly reaches into her sleeve and pulls out a piece of parchment. She deflty fits it between two pages, withdrawing another from it and hiding it in her sleeve. It's rather swift, and I might have missed it if I'd blinked.
I sit completely still, not entirely breathing until she leaves minutes later. I remain seated for longer, watching the scribes move about, none the wiser.
After a moment, I walk over to the shelf, looking back several times as I stylishly pull out the tome from it's place. I shake the book until the parchment slides out a page. I take note of that and set the book back in its place before opening the letter. It reads;
"The wine goblets will be switched at the ball tomorrow. The entrance through the secret passage will be unguarded. I'll have a note from the princess planted on the guards. Make it swift and painless."