His Luna’s Vengeance

2. The Start of Revenge

Apparently, taking away my freedom and shackling me down to the Alpha King was a reason to celebrate. Because of that, there was a brief break in the meeting. There was a little feast prepared in one of the dining rooms that was probably a normal lunch to the werewolves but to us, it looked grand enough to celebrate the formation of the treaty.

I knew my task, knew that I would be taken by the King and yet, it still irritated me. In as much as I was aware of how delicious the food was, I did not have an appetite for any of it. So I sat through the feast, ignoring the smell of roasted pigeons and garlic bread, the most mouthwatering cheese I had ever seen, the spices I had never really smelled and occasionally popped a grape into my mouth.

There was a light in my father’s eyes that I detested. It was as though a burden had been lifted from his shoulders and he was finally free. I knew what made him free, what made him so happy.

Getting rid of me.

The elders and my father bore the same expression and heavens, it made me boil with anger. Could they at least, try to pretend that they hated giving me off?

I didn’t know how long I sat and endured the drunken laughter and feasting around me until a servant walked into the dining room.

“The Alpha King requests an audience with his bride to be, Princess Adeline,” he announces, gaze as sturdy as his build.

The werewolves are exactly how I had heard them to be. Bulking muscles, unimaginably tall and strength worth ten human men. It is why they are so successful in the battle field.

The room is silent as I rise to my feet and smooth out the pale blue dress I am wearing. The elders and my father wait with abated breaths, hoping I do not lash out in anger. It’s a little amusing that they cannot predict my temper.

“Let’s not keep The King waiting, shall we?” I say, stepping out of my chair.

My father rises to his feet and takes three long and might I add, drunken steps towards me.

My face flames with the humiliation that is to come when we talk about the prenuptial agreement. My father is not good with wine and I already know that it will not end well.

I lower my gaze when his alcohol breath fans my face. Surprisingly, he grips my hand again. Maybe he thinks he can manipulate me by giving me the warmth I craved those years ago.

What a fool.

“If the Alpha King wants to touch you, you will not refuse him,”

I leap backwards and gape at him in shock, my cheeks flaming wildly.

It’s not lost on me that I had already started changing past events and weaving them into my favor which may be why this conversation is happening.

“W-what?” I ask, heart drumming wildly against my chest.

My father’s brown eyes ice over with contempt, impatience flaring through him. He tightens his hand around my arm and pulls me back, the smell of alcohol fanning my face.

“You know what I mean. If he kisses you, If he hikes your dress up, if he spreads your legs, you be a good girl and let him,”

Now I understand why I refused to eat. I knew that I would eventually become so irritated with my predicament that I would feel like retching. However, I was certain that the Alpha King would make me want to vomit, not my own father.

“I-it’s inappropriate,” I whisper, looking down at my feet in shame and equal resentment as I realize everyone can hear him.

“The wedding has to take place before I-“

“I don’t care,” he snaps, tightening his grip on my arm.

Gods, he’s always been so horrible when he was drunk.

“Let him take you to his bed. It is enough consolation that he will marry you either way,” he hisses, spittle flying from his mouth and narrowly missing my face.

Before I can make a sound or spit in his stupid, drunken face, the werewolf messenger from earlier walks towards us.

“The Alpha King is not a patient man. I shall escort her to his majesty from here,”

My father finally takes the incentive to let go of my arm but I am not forgiving, neither am I going to let what my father did go.

“I hate you,” I hiss resentfully, jerking away from him and storming off with the messenger.

The elders have the audacity to scoff at my attitude knowing that whatever I do now, I’ve already signed away myself to the Alpha King.

By the gods, every single man in my life makes me so furious!

The palace of the Greater Moon Kingdom is at least triple the size of the our own, indicating what kingdom in the Moon territory is more successful.

Their main color themes for interior decoration is silver, black and white.

So I walk through hallways of silver, black and white, admire a few fountains, portraits, antique furniture and ignore the lurking maids gazing curiously at me.

Soon, I stand before a black and massive doors, the Sigil of the Royal werewolves imprinted across the dark wood.

“His majesty is ready to receive you,” The messenger says and with that, turns both doorknobs.

Gingerly, I step into his study.

Seated behind a desk, it appears that the Alpha King is not as bothered about the formation of the treaty as we are.

In all honesty, it is quite obvious that we will be gaining more from this treaty than The Greater Moon Kingdom will.

As the door clicks shut behind me, I try not to startle and focus my gaze on everything, anything, except the Alpha King.

In the past, I recall holding this meeting with the King. I was the one that had initiated it, having sent a letter through maids and guards to have a private hearing with him.

This was where I sank to my knees and begged him to let me go. This is where I told him I could never marry him because I was in love with another. The Alpha King promised to let me go on one condition.

He wanted to know my mate’s name. Foolishly, I gave him and the treaty was never formed.

I didn’t know that the King would wage a war with my mate’s kingdom. I didn’t know that I would be locked away in my father’s castle and scorned by all my people for failing in forming the treaty. I most certainly did not know that King Cardan would match out as victor in the war and would kill my mate. I didn’t know that I would end up taking my own life because I was overcome by grief.

I am certain that this is why I’ve been reborn. I must protect my mate at all costs and bring The Alpha King and his Kingdom crumbling to their knees. And now, it is time to start laying out my own cards.

The Alpha King rouses from his work, dropping his quill and leveling a look with me.

Once again, I cower. His power is too dark, too overwhelming. The meat on my bones feel like they are shrinking and goddess knows that my bones are rattling. I want to turn around and run away. I want to go on my knees and beg him to free me of this fate.

‘Give me Nesta’s daughter and I will protect your lands again. No warlock, no vampire, no dragon will plague your lands if you do me that favor’ I still remember the words of his envoy.

“Princess Adeline,” he regards my presence, rising to his feet and noiselessly pushing his chair back.

“Your Majesty,” I reply, fisting my fingers in my glove.

Remember. Remember he killed Achilles.

King Cardan is a huge man, having possessed the moon god’s spirit and what they call the Founding Alpha.

His line is of the goddess that formed their species and hence, he carries the power of a god. It makes him naturally tower over men, over werewolves. It makes him immortal.

“I received your letter. What is the problem?” He asks, folding his arms across his cape of black and silver embroidery.

I look away from his crown of gilded bones and gulp.

“I-it’s nothing really,” I try to look pleasant, to look shy.

If I am to bring him down to his knees, I have to make him see me as an innocent i.diot.

Batting my eyelashes and lowering them to the ground, I continue.

“This arrangement is loveless, we both know that. I just thought that we should get to know each other,” I wring my fingers together.

“Look at me when you speak, Adeline,” his cold voice reverberates through the room, sending shivers of fear down my spine.

How is this man supposed to be my enemy if I fear him so?

Inhaling, I glance up and redirect my gaze at him, peering into the icy depths of his eyes.

I catch a glint of those silvery white irises, of the sneak peek of the beast that resides within him and it takes all of my pent up rage pushed to the surface to make me forget my fear.

“I just thought we could form a... friendship. To understand ourselves better,” I say, putting my hands behind me.

“A friendship,” he repeats, his face as cold and placid as the knight armor I spotted occasionally in the hallways.

“Yes,” I squeak, nodding and forcing a pleasant smile on my face.

“We could visit your pack occasionally, see to the holidays and spot some tea shops- oh and it could be a tour if you would like-“

“A tour, a visit,” he rudely interrupts me.

I had to nod swiftly to hide how quickly my smile was turning into a grimace.

“I-if you want. I suppose,” I supply.

The Alpha King stares at me silently for a heartbeat or two before taking a step towards me.

“You’re just like they say, aren’t you?” He inquires, tilting his head meaningfully, his wavy black hair falling over his forehead with the movement.

“Who?” I ask, slightly confused.

“The rumors. They call you Sweet Addy. That you’re so kind you would see a wounded lion dying and cry over it’s corpse irrespective of the lives it took while it was alive,”

My face goes pale with his admittance and I take a tentative step back, confused at his mannerisms, at his reaction to getting to know me better. It wasn’t entirely lost on me that my father had paid a few gossips to make claims of me being a docile little doll living in my father’s castle.

The fact that the Alpha king chooses to mention it makes me wary.

“They say you’re your father’s puppet. Why have you come here? To entice me?” He cuts to the point, taking another step towards me.

All I can feel is his darkness sucking all the oxygen in the room and soon, I can’t breathe.

“N-no of course not,” I stutter, pressing my back into the door.

I want to run. My legs are so wobbly I feel like worms have replaced them.

King Cardan takes another step towards me, his blue gaze frosting.

“Then that defeats the purpose of your father’s request doesn’t it? For if I want to touch you, you will not refuse me,” he repeats my father’s words mockingly.

My face flames with mortification while I curse my stupid father in my head. How had the King already heard of it?

“I never wanted that-“

“If I kiss you, if I hike up your dress, if I spread your legs, you be a good girl and let-“

“Stop it,” my voice is cold and furious as my rage takes the best of me.

I hate my father so much it shocks me that I can hate another man even more.

A small smile quirks up at King Cardan’s lips as he takes in my violent reaction.

He eats up the space between us and stares down at me like the mortal that I am, pinning me to a spot with his glowing eyes. All my life I have been taunted for being too tall for a woman but beside The King, I am nothing but a rag doll.

“I’m not a fool, Princess Adeline. I know a lie when I hear it. I know you’re not sweet and neither are you a harmless doll. The report I received of The stubborn Princess does not match the one that stands before me,” he presses.

“You know you will be my wife, not my friend. I saw it in your eyes, sweet Addy,” he mocks the nickname condescendingly.

“You hate me and if you were given a dagger, you will thrust it down my throat while I sleep,”

Whatever plan I had of wooing him with a charm that did not exist in me just flew out the window. How did he catch on to my intentions so fast? How does he know I badly I hate him?

“I offered an olive branch today, your majesty. I don’t know what you speak of,” I look into his eyes and lie through my teeth.

He scoffs loudly and folds his arms.

“Even your mortal bones quiver with your lies. I asked for Nesta’s daughter, the fiery one. That is the one that will be mine. That is the one that I shall make my wife,” he declares arrogantly.

I will never be yours, you arrogant bastard.

I never say the words through my mouth, but The Alpha King can see the fire in my eyes.

He turns around without a single word and inches towards a gargantuan shelf of books, picking two objects from a corner.

I raise my eyebrows curiously.

“What is that?” I inquire, tilting my head for a better look.

The Alpha King stands before me in an instant, a violent breeze that contains his scent blowing my dress back.

“This is your punishment, Sweet Addy. If you’re going to play in my head, then I’m going to play in yours,” he reveals what he is holding.

A paintbrush and a small canister containing paint.

I try to turn and run away, but I can’t move. My body is frozen to the spot, try hard as I may to push him far away from me.

He opens the lid with surprising ease and tosses it to the side carelessly.

Taking the tip of the paint brush, he dabs it into the paint and flicks it slightly before pressing it to the crook of my neck.

It takes five strokes of the paintbrush across my skin before I realize what he is doing.

“This is dishonorable,” I seethe, trying hard to take control of my body and leap away from his paint brush’s touch.

But the King pays little regard to me as he dabs the paint on my skin and scatters it, attempting to make it faint.

The odious man is carving fake bruises to my neck. This means he knows the bad relationship I have with my father.

He knows that if my father spots these bruises, he will be very happy and think that in fact, The Alpha King has taken his liberties with my body.

“Release me,” I demand, trying to struggle from the Vice like grip of his ominous powers.

“Let me finish my first strike, Sweet Addy. Your father told you not to refuse me, did he not?” He toys with the brush, pressing it against my pulse.

I seethe and I seethe, acid pooling on my tongue. I don’t know how long I stay and glare at him, but he finally stops dabbing my neck.

“For the final touch,” he says, his eyes twinkling with child like mischief.

The King presses a thumb to my lips- or to the red lipstick that had been applied on my lips this morning and rubs it off, plastering it across the corners of my lips.

“You are- you are the worst kind of man,” I tremble with fury, hissing as his fingers pinch my lips to make them look swollen.

“Which is why I’m a god,” is his snarky retort.

And then King Cardan does something even worse.

He lifts his lipstick stained thumb to his mouth and smears the color across his lips and the corners.

I try to contain my anger, I really do. But if I don’t say a word, my ears will burn until they explode.

“I will never be yours the way you want, your majesty,” I spit.

King Cardan cracks a cruel smile, revealing just how he intends to keep me under his claws.

I should feel stupid for challenging him. This man waged a war and killed my mate just to snatch me. The only thing stopping him from having me is me.

When he releases me from his power’s grip, I turn around and try the knobs of the door.

But the Alpha King only exists to torment me because soon, he snatches the band holding my brown hair until it is tumbling down my back.

“You’re already mine, Adeline. Body, mind and soul,”

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You’ve made it to the new chapter of my new book! What do you think so far? It’s my pet project and I’m slightly shy about it so I would love it if you left a comment! Please recommend a chapter name for me and don’t forget to leave a comment ;)