The Luna Choosing Game

Chapter 0284

Julian was angry, that much was clear, though I couldn’t exactly fathom why. Yes, it would be irritating to be excluded from Nichola s’s confrontation of the King and Queen, but Julian usually handled irritation with cutting humor and sarcasm, not outright anger.

“Your presence wouldn’t have made any difference,” Nicholas said.

“Oh? You don’t think the person who has been investigating the underground organization. wouldn’t have had evidence and knowledge to help your case?” Julian scoffed.

Nicholas sighed. He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “It wasn’t personal, Julian.”

“Like hell, it wasn’t. I was the one who helped find the evidence, and I even have some of my own. You should have looped me into your plans. Aren’t we a trio in this? When did you decide that you’d rather do everything alone?”

Nicholas shook his head.

I didn’t necessarily want to take a side here. I could see the situation from both angles. But the fact was Nicholas hadn’t told me his plans either. He simply left me before I had woken up. He’d apologized, I was no longer hurt. But I could understand Julian’s upset.

Still, I decided to stay out of their conversation, mostly because it felt deeper than this one. singular argument. This issue may have been the one that finally brought them into an open. conflict, but underneath the surface, this resentment had likely been festering for a long time.

“Admit it,” Julian said, a sharp edge in his voice. “You purposefully excluded me. You genuinely do not believe that I am capable.”

Nicholas crossed his arms. He didn’t deny it.

“Nicholas…” I whispered, feeling pity for them both.

“You’re such an as shole,” Julian said.

“You may be capable, Julian, when you want to be, but you aren’t reliable. You have been a foolhardy play boy since our youth,” Nicholas said. “You may be doing the right thing right now, but I can’t trust you to always make the best choices.”

don’t know what you would have done,” Nicholas said. “You are unpredictable. Your whims are fleeting. You do whatever you want without worry of the consequence.” Julian huffed out a laugh too short and loud to be genuine. “That you honestly believe that tells me you don’t know me at all, brother. You think I’m some kind of monster. You think I would throw Piper to the wolves.” “He doesn’t mean it like that,” I said. “Doesn’t he? Because that’s what he’s saying,” Julian said. I looked at Nicholas, expecting him to take back some of the harsher things he’d said, or at least

“He’ll never see me as anything but a nuisance, and honestly, I’m tired of trying.” Julian dipped his head to me in goodbye, then turned and left. “Nicholas,” I said

is fine between him and me. My expectations of him are all the way down on the

it go. Maybe, someday, if I could discover more of the things that went wrong between them, I could make another, better effort to help push them to resolution. But for now, perhaps the best course of action, was simply to keep the two brothers apart. After lunch, I was walking back toward the room when I was stopped by Nathan. “The King wishes to speak with you.” He did not wait for a response. He just turned and began walking. The expectation, I was sure, I was led into a sitting room and ushered inside. After I walked through, Nathan stepped outside the room and closed