The Luna Choosing Game

I stared at Julian, disbelieving my ears. Did he really just ask me for a solo date?

Yet everyone in the whole ballroom was looking at us. Julian still held the microphone up to his mouth.

This was definitely happening. It wasn’t a dream.

Which meant that Julian was up to something.

“Why?” I asked, before I could think better of it.

A few girls around me gasped. Only then did I realize my mistake and covered my mouth.

Julian also looked shocked, his eyes going wide for a moment. But then, just as quickly, he burst out

laughing.

His good humor seemed to erase the surprise of the other onlookers. Everyone seemed to think I had

been telling a joke.

With the microphone lowered, he said to me, “I insist this request is genuine, Piper.”

I didn’t believe him.

Julian always played the angles. Asking me on a date had to be some kind of move for his benefit, but I

couldn’t begin to figure out how. I’d only scratched the surface of the inner politics of the royal family.

my answer.

know how, but I couldn’t exactly turn him down. He was a

this was a competition. I was just a pawn

I said,

the microphone, he announced, “She said

the

no longer speaking to me, but to

stood. His face was an emotionless mask,

he stared straight

I

ached. I wanted to tell him that this didn’t

likely just for the

reach him without publicly dismissing Julian. I

Nicholas didn’t need an explanation anyway. We

anymore

triggered something inside of me, like a memory response.

screamed to soothe

like that to

look had dimmed.

He turned away from me and, even an hour later, had not

positively charmed by Julian and his antics.

me, they could not stop telling me