The Luna Choosing Game

“How do you plan on getting to this mansion you mentioned?” I asked, once we were out in the hall.

Julian’s Beta, Brian, fell in step behind us. “We can’t take that flashy car again, if we actually want to keep

it secret this time.”

“It would be too conspicuous to drive. Even if we escaped the grounds undetected, the bad guys would

quickly notice our arrival.”

“What’s your plan, then?”

He glanced at me. “Can you ride a horse?”

I haven’t ridden since the academy, but I thought I could still manage somehow. So I nodded.

“Good. We’ll have to sneak there though. Brian?”

Brian widened his stride to walk at Julian’s side. “Yes, Prince Julian?”

“Run interference, yeah?”

“Of course.” Brian increased his pace, breaking ahead of us, likely to block the path of any guards or

or who would run into us.

–

pour into Julian’s phone near

were able to follow a path that lead us away from absolutely everyone. We didn’t even see a single servant

preparing two horses

they said with a bow as we approached. They’d been expecting us.

gentler Better for

last time I rode, but he’d seemed to surmise it all his own. Julian was like that, noticing things. I wondered if I had any secrets I could keep from him. He already seemed to know

saddle, my horse–riding days returned to me quickly. Although in almost every memory, I had been by Nicholas’s side. I felt a bit hollow, not

received another text. “Brian is in the security office. We have to go now to avoid being seen on

we rode our horses out of the paddock. Once we were past the fence, we urged our horses to run. I rode in Julian’s shadow as

after he and Nicholas had saved me from the boar, they had claimed that no one knew the area around the palace better than them. Julian continued to show

rode for an hour or so, seeing nothing but wilderness, until he finally slowed at the edge of a clearing. I slowed my own horse

stopped, hidden just behind a

the clearing stood a massive mansion, almost as large as the palace itself. Someone very

have lived

who it was, when suddenly I felt something, like a pull in my

my breath