Chapter 54

We walked upstairs to our apartment and once nobody could hear us, I turned around, stopping and said accusingly, "was that truly necessary?" My blush was still prominent in my face as the aftermath of kissing in front of all of the kitchen staff.

His smile told me exactly what I needed to know, "I was looking for you for a while, until a maid told me what you were up to. I had to show you a lesson for your unpunctuality," he teased.

"By kissing me in front of your staff?" I question, showing him how idiotic that sounds.

"You're right, it wasn't much of a punishment," he agrees, "more of a reward, was it?"

"Oh, shut up," I reply, annoyed at the dumb smile that appeared on my face, "you'll pay for that, you know?"

"How so?" He grabs me by my waist and pulls me taut to his body.

I push against his chest, separating away from him, fighting my impulses to get more of what he was offering; but, I have better things to do, at least for the time being.

"We're not doing this right now," I assert.

We sit down, food in front of us and we start talking about our day. I allow Arsen to ask me first about mine, just like he always likes to do. I tell him everything that happened, occasionally forgetting about the food in my plate. I share with him my plans for the rest of the day which involves going later to meet the Lotte, Cain, Sage and Nova right after school and then a bunch of training. I didn't go to much detail on my training as he was the one that had organised that part. It was separated in two parts: physical and mental or werewolf training. One would deal with working out, knowing how to defend myself, attack and work with different weapons, even though currently I would only be working on the first two. The other centered around my wolf, shifting and mindlinking, which I would be meeting a she-wolf for.

"Are you nervous about it?" He asked.

"I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't. I know I shouldn't and there's nothing to worry about especially because my wolf is getting so much stronger everyday, but I can't help but get nervous every time I think about it," I answer.

"It's been a long time since you've had your wolf so it's normal that you feel nervous when you do wolf things. Plus, we can always change approach if you think it's not working," he succesfully calms my nerves slightly down.

"What about you? How was your day?" I ask intrigued, "busy?"

"Very." He answers, "actually, there's something I wanted to talk to you about."

The mood changes as his expression goes to his blank state. Suddenly the air is thicker, and I can tell whatever it is will upset me.

My mind only went to Ascian, but I didn't voice that thought, "did something happen?" I asked worried.

"Boats have now began to sail to Kylain, all Ascian's troops," he explained, "too many for Kylain to stand a chance, but I doubt Kylain is what they want."

"What are you suggesting?" I ask, feeling as all my muscles tense up. Capable of understanding what he is hinting to but I prefer not ot jump to conclusions.

"Ascian's troops are now moving to Kylain right after Khann's return from his exile, you connect the dots," he answered.

"Right, so Ascian wants revenge," I shrug, "let him have it. I'll be happy if they kill each other when they duel."

"How do you know they'll duel?"

"Because I know Ascian and he's a man of honour," I explain, I knew that as a primary victim of it. "You would've known by now if you had asked me about it yesterday."

I knew I was being petty, but my plan had been to talk to him about it and this was the only way I felt we could genuinely address it.

"I didn't know what to ask you yet," he stated, blank face.

"You did know, but you only wanted to ask the questions once you had an external reason to ask me for them so that you can mask them around so that I, or anyone, have no clue what you're thinking about," I argue, "it's fine, but I'm your mate and I think you know how that must make me feel."

I hadn't had a bad night just because I felt more comfortable sleeping on Arsen's chest, or because we weren't on the best of terms, but because my wolf realised how Arsen doesn't trust me. Arsen rarely talk about himself, and when he did it was precisely thought out to give as little information of his past as he could. I had learned more about him from a few conversations with Ulises than from Arsen. How was my wolf and I meant to feel about that?

"It's not as simple as that, my life hasn't always been this easy," he explains.

"Your life continues to not be easy and I'm not deeming that it's simple, but you're not even trying. You're comfortable keeping *everything* to yourself, I'm not. I'd like to know my mate some time," I look into his eyes, and I know somewhere, somehow, that seemed to make him step out of that blank, hollow expression. "Take your time, but at least try, I don't care how many times you fail and we get no where. I won't judge, I won't ask further questions," I take a deep breath, containing all my emotions, "but sometimes you feel like a stranger."

"I'm sorry," he answers, but I know he's lying. He finds comfort within that space of mind that he can only access and he is still not able to give it up when he's with me.

"You aren't," I end this conversation. Now, we both know where each other stands on this matter, and independently, we'll have to work through it. I swallow and leave that whole conversation in the back of my mind, to get to it at another time, now we had to discuss Ascian again. "Ask about Ascian though, I don't mind. Plus it'll be helpful."

He resets himself, just like I did and shoots at me his first question, "I know you were meant to marry Ascian, but how close did you ever get?"

"What do you mean? Physically or relationship-wise?"

"Both," he states.

"Physically, as I said Ascian is all about honor, and like the vampire he is, a lot of honor came from sexual interactions. We never got to do anything, rarely spoke about it and when we did we would only joke about it. The closest we ever got was hugs and the occasional kiss," I recalled.

"And your relationship?" He asked, but before I could answer, he thought of an even more important one, "how did it come to be?"

"Well, my parents came to Esmeralda," my home town, "to work as diplomats, so they were somewhat close to the Vampire Royal Family thanks to that they were able to know that the mark that I had on my wrist meant that I was a Moon-lover," I explained, I stretched my arm out and I showed him a scar that I had, he frowned. "It was burnt off after Khann, part of the rejection process."

"Why isn't this common knowledge?"

"Because the vampires don't want werewolf Moon-lovers, it would, under normal circumstances, immediately taken you out of the selection. However, due to my parents' position, I wasn't. My parents began campaigns as Ascian's Moon-lover when I was only 3, usually they start at the age of 14, 15. This led to me receiving special education and going to school with Ascian, he was older than me so it didn't really do much for either of us especially because we were only kids.

"Regardless, thanks to my parents' efforts, I was at the age of seven invited for a play-date with Ascian who was nine, I believe? I don't remember much about it, but the King and Queen saw us compatible. So from that point onwards, I was invited to multiple events at their palace. It began as only play-dates and dinners, but it turned into so much more. I spent Christmas with him and his family, I watched him train daily, I would attend every public event he was in. It got to a point where my parents and I moved into a tower of the palace.

"Ascian and I grew very close, we understood and trusted each other deeply. He hated his dad and the ceremonies and the- everything, he was quite rebellious," it brought a smile on my face to even think of that. I remembered how much we would laugh about it all, "I made them more bearable as he was always so firm and perfect to try to please everyone, I would break him out of it. I was seen as more rebellious and joyful, so all the lectures and the 'punishments' landed on me, but the public seemed to enjoy my- I remember the tabloids," I laughed, "*my 'dance like no one's watching*' personality*. He liked it too, we would sneak out to see each other and just joke about stuff. There was a lot of bonding and I was allowed to do anything the media liked. So, I was my bubbly self, and he loved it. My parents' harshness and selfishness had made me simple and generous unlike most of the other Moon-lovers he met, which made him even more inclined to the idea of me.

"After years of bonding and even saying our I-love-you's, Ascian had an interview on the Selection as his eighteenth birthday was coming up and at some point, don't ask me why, he confessed that he thought I may be his Star-lover- you know what that is, right?" Arsen hummed his response with gritted teeth, but his curiosity stopped him from cutting me short. "I don't know if he was being genuine or not, but recently my parents introduced the idea of marriage to the King and Queen. It was very well received, so it made have been planned. The media started spreading the word and everyone was talking about wanting us to get married, and the Royals came out with the statement that once we would become of age, we would. We threw parties celebrating it, Ascian and I spent every second we could together, we would sneak out even more, he even kissed me a few times. Life was going great and I was being marketted as the start of a new era as I was a werewolf and I was going to become the Queen of Vampires and people really bought into that narrative as it brought together two species that have hated each other for so long.

"Because of it, parties were thrown inviting other packs and one of them Alpha Cassio was invited, I met Khann and well the rest you already know," I admit that it was an exaggeration, Arsen didn't really know the rest of the story he only knew that Khann raped, but there's more to it than just that.