The Luna Choosing Game

“How long did you wait, Piper? A week? Two? It couldn’t have been long.”

He sounds like he’s jealous. Or was that an illusion? He doesn’t care about me and is just mad at me.

Maybe the latter is more logical.

His dark eyes burned into me, leaving my heart in scorched tatters. Never in a thousand years would i

have thought Nicholas would be so vicious to me.

“It wasn’t like that.” I said, to try to defend myself.

He crossed his hands over his chest. He wasn’t going to listen to me,

“Why even come here?” he asked me.

“My application was selected…”

“Why even apply? Were you trying to get to me?”

“No,” I said.

“Maybe you regret your child’s father. Maybe you want me back.” He laughed once, bitterly. “Like you

have a chance.”

The words sliced into me as surely as if he’d been holding a knife. He had changed since I’d known him.

Three w

years ago, he’d been kind and patient. I’d given him my heart and he’d gently cradled it. So many

nights, we’d laid under the stars, trading kisses and stories.

Once, when he’d spent all night looking at me, I had told him, “You’re missing the

starlight.”

He’d replied, “I can see it in your eyes.”

The man before me now was nothing like the one I had known. The man here was arrogant, indifferent. and imposing in how he carried himself.

Breaking up with him had never been something I wanted to do. It hurt me still, thinking upon it, so I had tried to push it to the back of my thoughts

work, and caring for Elva, that I could

with him now and seeing what he had become, brought all those feelings crashing back into Tome so

+15 BONUS

I was misremembering the past. Maybe he’d never been kind. Maybe I

I wasn’t that young,

want,” I said, adding some bite to my own voice. The hurt made it

is a mistake, and I intend to

chill ran along my spine. “You are the only woman who ever dared to break up

then, walking out into the sitting room, and then out into the parlor. I thought he might slam the door behind him, as enraged as he was, but instead, he gently

Elva continued resting, undisturbed.

wanted to hate

slammed that door. He might be a cruel, insensitive bastard but he liked children. He’d been kind to Elva.

hate him,

my knees beside the couch where Elva

a different world, maybe Elva would have been our child. If we had stayed together, maybe he would have revealed his secret in time. Maybe the three of us could have been a

was a

was very far from

time, staying here. I needed to go

I

beside Elva’s on the cushion. I was so drained, from the trip, from seeing

my own

Excuse

blinked open

official hovered over me. I beg your pardon, miss, but the King Luna, and princes have arrived, I suggest

my eye. “Wait, there’s

he was already disappearing out of the room. He left the

Elva sat up on the couch, watching me with

It is. We have to be quiet though, okay? No one can talk when the King

Luna are talking.”

“Okay”

pulled Elva into my arms

standing atop some type of stage The King

on one side. The three princes flanked his

than he did on the bills in my purse. He was pale with hollowed

and his voice camed far,

crowd and gaining their attention “Congratulations

for this monumental event. We are very pleased by your presence and look forward to becoming more

leaned in and whispered something in