The Luna Choosing Game

Nicholas held Elva safe and secure in his arms as he stood to his full height. Elva buried her face into the corner of his neck and shoulder. He gently patted her back.

He glanced down at Elva, his gaze so tender that it made my heart clench.

“There, there,” he whispered. “You are safe now.”

“Oh my God,” said one of the other girls in the room, fanning herself. “Of course he’s good with children.”

“Someone pinch me,” said another. “I think I’m dreaming.”

Nicholas’s soft expression hardened as he glared out at the rest of the room. “Whose child is this? Why is she here?”

I started forward, but the girl in the pink dress spoke before I could reach him.

“An outsider sneaked in, unless she’s a maid.”

Some of the other girls snickered at my expense.

“She can’t be a participant,” another girl fake-whispered, loud enough for half-the room to hear. “I thought we had to be virgins, and she’s got a kid.”

I wanted to disappear into a corner. Whether virgin or not, I was nothing compared to the rest of these girls.

My clothes weren’t as nice as theirs, and my figure wasn’t like what it had been at the Academy. I’d lost much of my musculature. I was skinny from too many nights of skipped dinners.

Elva’s wellbeing had always come before my own.

Her sake was the only reason I continued forward rather than hide in embarrassment. I stopped only when I reached Nicholas.

He looked at me, and I looked at him.

I’d forgotten how gorgeous his eyes were, golden brown with flakes of green. When we’d dated, I had spent hours looking at them, trying to memorize that color, but it had seemed different each time.

Before, when I’d stared long enough, I could earn a bashful smile from him. Now, his face was totally devoid of emotion. He looked at me like I was a stranger.

Did he… not recognize me?

I had changed, sure, but not enough to become unrecognizable. Unless he truly had sealed me away in his past and moved on, never once looking back.

I could be a great embarrassment to him, showing up here, years after leaving him,

Maybe he hated me.

The girl

voice was monotone. Another moment of staring

Elva, so I followed him. He led me to an adjoining room, separated by a

man in a suit hurried toward him. “Your Royal Highness, please remember

at the man, who nervously backed

an exception,”

course, sir.” The man bowed twice as

Elva into the room. I went inside after them. A servant stepped forward and closed the

I had never imagined

idea what even to say. What would he think of me, to see me as I was? To see me here, as part of

chest. She must have cried herself

and at once, his perfect façade cracked. He

Elva, his

hide my child

I blinked once, twice,

Eloquently, I said, “Huh?”

softly sleeping in his arms. She was three years old. That

been so young

I couldn’t remember where he was when he’d climaxed. But, hadn’t he been wearing a condom at the

seemed to slide into bewilderment. His gaze shifted, like

said, hoping to give

Nicholas wanted children. He’d even said so on television. For me to hide a child from him would

her name.

widened a moment, before

he seemed to struggle to get it out. He swallowed

glanced between me and Elva.

that to Nicholas. Elva was mine in every way that mattered. I would not have her seen as anything

to answer some unspoken question for him,

startled. What could cause that

stirred his arms, and he immediately cut off the

Elva down onto one of the plush couches

at Mommy,”