The Luna Choosing Game

By the next morning, the drug had worked its way through my system and I felt like my old self again. I

went down to breakfast, where I was reunited with Elva, who had stayed with Susie the night before by

order of Nicholas.

I was grateful for his foresight. Mortified as I was by my actions and sounds, I was at least spared the

embarrassment of explaining any of this to Mark or the nanny myself. Or worse still, to Elva..

A thought so stomach–churning, I dared not even think of it.

So when I did finally greet her, it was with a tight hug and big smile, the same as always.

Susie and I didn’t always sit together, but we chose to that morning. There were still many empty chairs with the previous elimination, and I was feeling vulnerable from what had happened the night before. I needed my friends.

Around us the girls were chattering about the curiousness of the evening’s events. Terry was to be one of the main judges of the night, but he never came to ballroom.

Also as curious, both Nicholas and Julian disappeared sometime in the night, only to reappear this morning, one with a black eye and the other with an injured hand.

“You don’t suppose the princes got into a fight with each other?” one of the girls asked.

“No,” Lilliana said flatly. “He is too mature to take part in such childish antics.”

“Julian does love to tease,” said someone else.

“Not enough to tempt a prince away from his decorum,” Olivia added. “Prince Nicholas been around Prince Julian for years. He’s surely built up a tolerance.”

“Well, then what happened with Sir Terry?“”

“Maybe he started the fight,” someone said, and another laughed. A third shushed them.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Olivia said, rolling her eyes.

turned in her seat to face me. I had Elva

I heard

I felt hungover some, with a cloudy head and tired eyes, but otherwise okay Except for my continued embarrassment over my body’s reaction to

the bile rising in my throat, and left my half of the breakfast uneaten on

pick at.

I asked. It took great strength to keep my

nodded. “Word is, Terry left at some point

sense of relief and for the

now, at least,

last night continued to linger in my mind, even

Terry’s cold hands on me

breath.

that girl in the black dress who seemed to have my wolf. Who was she? Where had she come from? How

had so many unanswered questions. It felt worse now, somehow, because I would never be able to find the answers. Not since Nicholas had forbad Julian and me from continuing our investigation.

in his heart he was only worried for me and for the kingdom, but it frustrated me

manipulated into giving away their wolves and their abilities.

cowed by Terry, or by Nicholas. I had my own

of those innumerous other souls out there who just

after seeing Elva safely into the care of her nanny and Mark, I set off on my own to

through most of the palace before I thought to check the empty ballroom. I found him sitting alone

wasn’t like him to be so

heels on the tile steps, he turned back to

I had questions

vulnerability faded. In its place was the same

don’t mind company if it’s you,” he

a seat on the same step he was sitting on.

was also there last night. He had bome witness to the full extent of my

it wasn’t my

Nicholas moved away.

taken advantage. He wouldn’t have. But Julian’s

the circumstances of my

I was still

kiss me on the balcony. In time, I might have