Jessamine
I'm unsure how Kier handled the issue with Moira, but she's laid off my back. Completely. It could also be because I've been avoiding the man in question. It's been days since the study incident and all I've done is flee from him. Hard not to, when he's acting strange as hell.
It started the next day at breakfast when he abandoned the head of the table and picked a seat right beside me. I'd done my best to ignore him until he'd began dropping more meat into my plate with a stupid, corny smile as he said, "You should eat more, Jess." Then he had proceeded to lean his head against his fist to watch every bite of food I ate until I couldn't, for the life of me, get it down anymore.
The next day, after training with Az and Mikkel, we had returned to my room to find it drowning in roses and lilies. I only needed to see Kier's red tipped nose and eyes watery from sneezing to know he handpicked the entire thing.
I slept in Az's room that night, locking the male out. He'd been forced to sleep in my bed of flowers and he evicted me the next morning when he said Kier had snuck in through the window, expecting me to be in my bed, and they'd punched each other when Kier hugged him from behind and realized it wasn't me.
Me? I nearly laughed my head off when Kier came to the breakfast hall with a black eye and busted lip.
All he's done so far is manage to irritate me more than anyone has. I've been trying to write to Atticus for days and because the idiot won't stop hovering, I can't get the message out. I do not plan to give in to Atticus's demands, but he doesn't need to know that. Under my sleeve is a carefully crafted letter, dripping with hate and venom of how I absolutely hate Kier and his mother and wish nothing but their deaths. But to join him and help him win this war, I've requested an act of good faith.
Freeing Lloyd.
I haven't told anyone what I'm plotting, and it's getting tiring, keeping so many secrets. If my plan works fine, there'll be no need for the war. I just need Atticus to trust me enough to let me fool him into an alliance.
When I'm not training and riding out to meet with the army to ensure they're well fed, training, supplied with everything they need, I'm watching Renae. She's been...docile, sticking to activities with the court, tea parties, small revelries that I've declined every invitation to.
Tonight though, I know she's headed out. Camilla overheard her maid talk about Renae visiting the temple tonight. It's the only chance I'll get to deliver a message to Atticus.
Twisting the knob, I poke my head out the door. Az blinks at me, his eyes tired and hair disheveled. "What?"
"You may leave. I'm going to bed early."
A suspicious frown. "You never go to bed early." He takes a step further, his hand bracing against the door, but I push it, keeping it slightly closed. "What are you doing in there, princess?"
I smile sheepishly. "Touching myself."
He blinks and turns the shade of red apples before fleeing down the corridor, his boots thudding against the floorboard violently. Shutting the door swiftly, I slide the bolts into place. All three of them. Then I shrug out of my nightdress and pat down on my leathers, ensuring every dagger I'd slid in is still in place.
I throw on a black cloak and pull the hood over my head, before heading to the window. I scowl at the shrubs and wild grass feets below. This, this is going to sting, but I have no other choice. Taking the front door is not an option.
Gripping the sill, I suck in a sharp breath and hurl myself out the window, trying my best to avoid the grass. My stomach drops and I stifle an alarmed shout when I land smack into a flower bed. And mud. Goddess, I cuss inwardly as I spit out leaves, sand and snow, and dust more off my clothes. My skin stings from cuts that are already healing and my eyes water a little as I wipe the back of my palm over the throbbing on my face.
It takes a series of ardous maneuvering and leaps to find my way back to the entrance, just in time to find Renae nodding toward a guard, whose cheeks redden at something she says to him.
I wait a little eternity before following after her, but upon reaching the gates, the guard stop me. He's new, I don't recognize him. Nearly doubling my size, he is large as a boulder, a nasty sneer curling his mouth as he regards me. "Pull down the hood. No one leaves past the curfew."
Pointing outside, I try to make my voice sound breathy and high-pitched. "Luna Renae...she...Goddess, she'll be mad when she realizes I gave her the wrong parchment." I pull out my letter to Atticus from my sleeve, waving it at him. He starts to reach for it and I snatch my hand back. "You cannot see what's written in it. It's her petition to the Goddess!"
That earns me a sidelong assessment. "Your hood, remove--"
"Let her go, Kyron," a lean man brandishing a sword by the gate says. "You know how the Alpha's mother is with mistakes."
A tight nod, and I don't wait for his approval before running out, like I am indeed in a dire situation.
Asking Nyx's help in trailing Renae's scent can be compared to asking a peacock why its feathers are colorful. She rattles on and on about how lucky I am to be paired with her gloriousness, and that in her precious life, a different world, she was paired with the most powerful king alive.
I have no idea what that means, and I care little, so long as she's leading me in the right direction, because all I see is trees. And I'm unsurprised when Nyx takes me through a route that's a different direction from the temple. I knew she wasn't going to the temple.
"Zephyr wants to see our wolf form," she says after a while as I duck under a tree, peeling a piece of branch off my sleeve.
"And that concerns me how?" I think back, following Nyx's tug and walking the hidden trail I don't recognize. Fallen leaves and branches obscure the path and I groan as I find ways to walk without stepping on them and making sounds. "You two seem to be getting along just fine."
She jabs at my mental wall. "Animals are simple. Humans are not. You complicate everything. These back and forths are dull. Zephyr and I need to fuse soon, and you both are keeping us apart."
I nearly fall into a snowy poodle. "Fuse?"
"You know, what humans do when they're naked and--" Images of my hands on Kier's ass, hurling him closer as he thrusts into me fill my mind and I snarl softly. "Shut up."
She chuckles. "A little closer and we'll get caught Jessa."
I glance up. By an old gnarled tree with a wide trunk hollowed out by weather and time, two figures in hoods argue, and I hear Renae's unmistakable voice rise in annoyance. "Why won't he respond?"
"I do not speak for the king, Lady," a male voice responds tightly. "But, if you must know, he doesn't deal in failures."
Renae hisses. "Failures? Need I remind him who put him on that throne in the first place and aided his escape? He calls me a failure? Or are those just your words, Van?"
"Do you have the message or not? I don't have time for this, woman," the male snaps vehemently and I duck behind a tree when his head rises, but I don't miss Renae wrapping her fingers around his throat.
"Speak to me like that again and you'll lose your tongue," I hear her growl.
A struggle ensues and I risk peeking out when the smell of blood fills the cold air. The male has Renae pressed against the tree, his body pressed against hers. "You loved it very much on our last meeting," he muses, but his voice is flat, dead. "Do the pups satisfy you? I'd think otherwise, considering your unending appetite."
His legs dig between her thighs and my heart jumps, my body stiffening at the familiar position. I remember Slyder and the feel of his breath on my ear. My blood begins to pump faster and fear clutches at my insides. I hate Renae so much, but no woman deserves to be taken by force.
I'm moving out of my spot when I hear...a moan. Confused, I stay still against the tree, peering at the pair and... she's not struggling at all as he pulls up her dress completely. She's groaning and making sounds that I'd need to to wash out of my ears for weeks.
What the hell? So much for wanting to...ugh, save her. It would seem she's even more shameless and disgusting than I'd initially imagined.
The next few minutes are by far the most painful I've experienced in a while. Having to stay put as she moans his name into the night, his groans mingling with hers. I want to claw my ears out and eat dirt. Nyx laughs uncontrollably at our situation and I'm about snapping at her when I hear Renae moan a name harshly.
Hunter.
She said, Hunter.
I must really miss my father very much if I'm hearing his name tumble off her lips, however disgusting it sounds. Still... I mull over the possibility of father knowing Renae as they carry on with their...exercise. Unlikely.
Birds chirp, owls hoot... there's a cricket climbing up my boots. I swat it away quietly and steal a glance back when silence falls, followed by the rustle of clothes.
Another eternity passes as I lay in wait, my sweat cold and my palms clammy as Renae hands a parchment over to the male, and I will my scent hidden as she walks in the opposite direction. Towards the temple.
The male leaves shortly after and I count to fifty, very slowly, before following him.