Eero's Perspective
"Miguel and I are getting a divorce, and I'm marrying Claudius after that. I need your blessing for the whole pack to honor my marriage with Claudius."
My eyes immediately watch out for Luna's reaction. Aelice's opinion got stuck in her throat. She was just staring back at me like she was waiting for me to tell her that I was fooling around.
"If you want to make it up to me and prove that you didn't take part in your father's incoming betrayal. You would do this for me, Aelice, for the sake of Regulus' future." My feet advance to her and my hand desperately yearns for her hand.
"Escaping from the pack to start a new life with your fated mate won't stop Octavio from usurping me. Miguel doesn't have the power and proper connection to protect me." I pause.
"And the male shifters of the pack would never accept me, but things would be different if Claudius were my husband." Aelice remained speechless, it almost felt like I was talking to the wind.
I loosened my hold of her, slowly accepting that Aelice may never find the courage to betray her father like this. I turned my back on her, my fingers close to twisting the knob of her door open when Aelice mumbles an inaudible noise that made me look at her.
She sighs. Aelice closed her eyes and slowly nodded her head. She had just made up her mind.
"Okay." Her eyes flutter open even when I'm dying to hear it from her. I couldn't believe it.
"Okay?" I asked her to double-check.
"Tell me once the annulment of your marriage with Miguel has been approved. I'll give you and Claudius my blessing, and find a master that would lead the mating ceremony for your marriage."
"Aelice." I was about to walk towards her when Aelice lifted her finger, immediately halting my moves.
"But we must do all of this in secret," she said. Aelice began to fidget and pick the skin around her nails.
"Of course. We can do all of this in secret, that's exactly the plan. Miguel will secretly file the annulment since we have to make sure that Octavio won't catch a whiff of this." Aelice nodded her head. She was now smiling at me, but still, she couldn't stop picking the skin around her nails.
"You still do that," I said, for I couldn't help but say it. Aelice's lips twitched as her last pull made the skin around her fingers bleed.
I instinctively walk to her bedside table and when I open the first drawer. A smile had painted my lips as I found a first aid kit in the same spot, next to it was a hand cream.
"The last few years. It felt like you had grown into someone that I'll never get to know, Luna Aelice," I said truthfully. I grabbed the first aid kit from the drawer and faced her.
"But that isn't really the case. Behind the spiteful facade that you had shown me still hides an anxious young lady." I tapped the space next to me. The Luna of Regulus obediently follows my instruction.
She handed me her hand which I treated with an ointment before I lather her hand with hand cream afterwards.
"There, you're all good. I wish that once you and Vance escape from here to leave with your fated mate. You'd stop destroying yourself with your little ways, Luna Aelice," I said smiling weekly at her.
"I wish for the two of us to be best friends in another universe. I hope that I won't have to turn my back on you in that universe to save myself and survive." I smiled even more and was about to hold her hand again when Aelice said something that surprised me.
"I wish that I didn't grow to hate you in that universe simply because you were given multiple chances to choose for yourself, while I could only say yes to the only option that was handed to me by my father."
"Aelice."
"Petty isn't? I hated you for having the freedom to choose, while I get drown in my misery and so I tried to pull you down with me. If you were my friend, you would have left me. You'd be joining me. That's what I thought before—" I pulled Aelice into a hug, and that made her shut up.
"I-I didn't know. You should have told me."
"I was young, and I didn't know better. I was seething in jealousy and my father manipulating me didn't help me at all." Aelice turned to face me. She held my hand, sending me her desperation.
"In case something happened to me. Please, promise me that you'll take care of my Vance. Don't let my father get his hand on my son because if he does. He'd make Vance a monster, just like him, and just like me, but if he was raised by you. I'm sure that Vance would be a better man."
"I'm not going to raise your son, Aelice. You will. Nothing bad will happen to you. We will raise our sons together, and they'll be best friends. Vance and Perseus will have a friendship that we didn't get to have in this universe," I said to her like a promise that I'll do anything to keep." Aelice nodded her head and then there was a knock on the door of her room.
Aelice cleared her throat before she permitted her lady-in-waiting to get in.
"What is it?" She asked gently.
"It's your father, Luna Queen. He's looking for you at Alpha King's wake. He said that you have to be there and make sure that you look." Luna's lady-in-waiting hesitated with what she wanted to say, as she stole a glance at me.
"I have to make sure that I look what hmm?" Aelice questioned.
"You have to make sure that you look very sad, Luna Queen," the lady-in-waiting said. Octavio's words made me ball my fist and I stormed out of the room, wanting to confront him.
"Really? You're going to attack him?" My wolf mocked, and that helped me to calm down a bit.
"This is not the right time to give in to Octavio's attempt to provoke you, Eero, and you should know that."