The Luna Choosing Game

“I’ve told the guards everything I know,” Lilliana said. “They’ll be watching you. Joseph himself just assured me of it.'”
I shook my head. I had no idea what she was up to this time, but I was tired of the schemes and lies. How many manipulative games would I have to endure during this competition? Every day, it felt like a new threat was emerging, oftentimes trivial, and I grew tired of dealing with it.
Especially when more pressing, life-threatening issues were just around the corner.
I had no patience for whatever new game Lilliana had concocted. Plus, when I looked at her, my anger sp iked. I recognized the shade of lipstick she wore as the same that had marked Nichola s’s lips.
Nicholas had said it hadn’t meant anything. I wondered if the same was true for Lilliana.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said.
“You can play dumb all you want,” Lilliana said. “We’ll let Joseph sort out all the truth. But no one is buying your bu llshit anymore, Piper.”
I blinked, surprised by her break of character. Since when did Lilliana swear?
As I watched her, open mouthed, she swiveled on her heel and stormed away. She pushed straight past Susie, who had just started to emerge into the hallway.
“What was that about?” Susie asked me.
I didn’t exactly know how to answer, because truthfully I had no idea, “Same old drama,” I said, because
that at least, seemed to be the nature of it.
Yet even so, I felt a chill run up my spine. I felt like someone was watching me.
I glanced behind me quickly, but no one was there.
After last night, I had felt more on edge than ever before.
Was this feeling just my imagination?
That afternoon I met Nicholas in the gym for more self-defense exercises. We utilized the mats this time, and took turns throwing each other down to the ground. I was thrown much more than I threw, but I felt like I was starting to get the hang of it a little at least.
Until thoughts of Joseph and Lilliana began to pop up in my head. Joseph, as a traditionalist, already hated my presence in the palace. I knew he was always looking for ways to get me kicked out of the
It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to think they might conspire some type of false charge against me, to have me eliminated from the competition.
What if it actually worked this time, and I was asked to leave?

Nicholas and I had been meant to be grappling, but in that moment, Nicholas easily toppled me onto the
mat.
My back hit the cu shioned ground and a puff of breath punched out of me.
Standing over me, looking down, Nicholas crossed his arms. “You are distracted.”
“I have a lot on my mind,” I said.
“You have to keep your head in the moment, Piper. You can’t lose focus.”
“Sorry, I mumbled.
He sighed and unhooked his arms. Then he reached down and offered me his hand. When I accepted it, he helped me to my feet.
“Since you don’t have a wolf, you will never have a natural advantage in a fight,” he said.
Upright, I realized my bra had gotten a bit twisted. Through my shirt, I grabbed my cups and attempted to adjust.
“You have to be constantly looking… for opportunities to… to…”
As his words trailed off, I glanced up at him. He was staring at my chest, specifically where I had pushed up my breasts to readjust the strap underneath.
I had straightened it. I could let go now. But I liked the way he was looking at me.
With my u-neck tank-top, pushing up my breasts placed much of my cleavage on more obvious display: the upper swells of my breasts, the deep valley between them. He might have even seen a slip of a nipple from where it escaped above the cup of my bra.
He was openly gaping, with his mouth ajar slightly.
Opportunities, he said.
Perhaps this was a perfect one.
I purposefully and unnecessarily pushed my breasts higher still, causing not one, but two nipples to pop free over the top of my bra and the u-neck of my shirt.
Nichola s’s mouth snapped shut. He swallowed hard.
I moved at once, grabbing him as he had shown me, and throwing him down hard onto the mat.
Unfortunately, the force of it also sent me off balance and I fell directly on top of him. I straddled his
waist, my thighs on either side of his hips. My hands hit the mat on either side of his head.
My hair had come undone from the tie, and created a screen to hide our faces from the rest of the
world.
He glanced up at me with wide-eyes, like he couldn’t believe what he was doing on the ground all the
sudden. Had the sight of my nipples addled his thoughts?
Then I felt some movement in his pants, pressing up against my core. This position aroused him. It
aroused me too. My panties felt damp, all of the sudden.
Nicholas blinked a few times and slowly recovered. “Piper…”
I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to grind my hips and make him wild.
But slowly I returned to my senses too. This wasn’t the time or the place for that.
Quickly, I rolled away from him and bounced up onto my feet.
“Some opportunities can be created with a solid distraction,” I said, parroting something he had earlier
said to me. Thinking of the training helped cool some of the fire in my veins.