Chapter LIII - The Aftermath-2

"I was scared, okay?" She sounds exasperated. "I didn't know who to trust. If I told a wrong person, I'd be dead as well. I knew Queen Sophia was having an affair with Æmilius but I didn't know that he was King Alexandros's bastard son. Besides, Prince Caspian hates me. If I told him about this, he would think that I made things up so I could get close to him or something," she says. "And waiting for him in our bedroom, dressed in nothing but tiny lingerie, and begging him to take you was a better option?" This woman! Not even ten minutes in her company and I'm tempted to throw her and her logic out that big window behind us. How could my cousin stand her? I should nominate Jorden for sainthood...is there such a thing? "As I said, I was desperate." She pouts as she studies at her beautifully manicured fingers as if she's bored. Penny was right, it's hard to like this woman but she has changed quite a lot since the first time I met her. She's like a work in progress. I guess Rome wasn't built in one day and comparing Lady Celeste to Rome is being generous. "Look," I say. "I'm sorry about your father." She shrugs her shoulders and lifts her chin up proudly. "I wouldn't mourn him too much. He was a cruel man. I only tried to stop him from being killed for my mother. For some reason, she loved him. "Jorden and I have that in common. We both hated our fathers," she says flippantly. I'm surprised Jorden confided in her about his father. Jorden is kind to everybody but he's pretty tight-lipped about himself, especially about his father. I know his father hit him constantly when we were growing up. In our pack, kindness was often mistaken for weakness. My uncle's definition of tough is being cruel and a bully. He hated that Jorden wasn't "tough" like him. I knew he got the lashing every time he openly helped me when I got bullied, that's why I never held it against him when he didn't get involved. I actually preferred it. Once I cried when I saw his back the day after he stopped particularly cruel bullying. I didn't shed a tear during the bullying. That was a month after Jonah left the pack. I was twelve and Jorden was thirteen. "Don't you want to wait for your erasthai?" I ask her. "Your Highness, do you know how many lycans ended up with their erasthais? Not all of us are as lucky as you are. Some waited hundreds of years to meet their one true love. Many died without ever meeting their erasthais. "So, no. I knew all my life that I'd never end up with my erasthai. I don't travel, I hate to fly. I stay here all the time and I came from a long line of lycans with arranged mating. The reason that I'm not marked and mated yet is that they were planning for me to be mated to Prince Caspian and become Queen one day. Now that it's not going to happen, I know I will be forced to mate with one of those men from rich aristocratic families soon. But I'd rather mate with someone I love and who loves me. "What about Jorden? What about his mate?" I ask her. "I don't know. All I know is that I need him in my life. I know I'm being selfish and he's too good for me but he makes me happy and I intend to make him very happy. I'd do anything for him." I study her for a little while until she starts to shift uncomfortably in her seat. I hear her heartbeat going faster and something close to fear flashes in her eyes though she's fighting to keep her tough exterior. "Can you please stop doing that to me?" she asks me finally. I raise an eyebrow in wonder. "Stop doing what?" "Are you really not aware of the powerful aura that you carry around you? Or the weight of energy you just gave out to dominate me just now?" Actually, no. I'm new in all this and the fact that I'm quite blind to the energy and the power of others make me unaware of my own. However, I prefer not to admit it to her. "Listen, you are both adults and I can't stop Jorden from doing what he wants." I take her beautifully manicured fingers in mine so that she won't be looking at them anymore and give them a squeeze. We're going to be related soon after all. "But I need to warn you, I love my cousin and my powerful aura is the least of your worry if you ever hurt him." I release her hand and get comfortable. "I will hunt you down and personally make your life hell until you wish you were dead. Then I will pull out your vocal cords so that I won't have to hear you scream from what I'm going to do to you. Next, I'm going to break your ribcage one bone at a time before I rip your still-beating heart out of your chest and feed it to you. I will claw out your...." I proceed to go into very graphic details of what I plan to do to her if she ever breaks Jorden's heart. I think she's got the message by the time I'm done. After all that, I smile super sweetly and welcome her to the family. I stay back in the library after Lady Celeste has left. I love books. I'm glad that my mate loves books as well. He downplays his abilities but he can read and speak in so many languages. He remembers history and facts with frightening accuracy. He can recite the content just after a quick scan of a book. He comprehends more from a simple written text than most people could. His sharp mind can dissect events and conflicts in the world, the cause, and arguments from both sides. He reads people like he reads a book. I'm in awe of his intelligence. My finger absently traces the spine of books as I stroll along an older section of the library. I keep walking until I reach a special section and my finger touches the spine of a book with strange symbols written in gold. Underneath the symbols are smaller writing: The Record of the Lycan Monarchy. The book is thick and massive. Ooohh...that sounds interesting! I pull it out and carry it to the nearest table near a window. The dark brown leather cover is worn with age. The cursive handwriting is elegant and the paper is yellow with time. There are maps of territories and sketches of the monarchs. The history of the Royal family and the Monarchy is as old as time. It is bloody and violent. It wasn't always in Russia, either. More than the first half of the record is written in some strange symbols and writing that I don't understand. The part that I start to understand or perhaps with some English translation is of King Decebel Augustus who lived in a country that is now known as Romania. He was violent and had a hard time controlling his lycan. He marked his own cousin, Lady Livia before taking the crown and his reign was filled with debauchery and cruelty. He and his men pillaged werewolf packs for pleasure. They killed the males and took their females for their entertainment. A bloody rebellion led by another cousin, Cyprian Romanov who was third in line ended his reign in 841. King Cyprian Romanov wasn't much better, if not worse. He moved the monarchy to Kievan Rus' or now known as Russia, where he started his own reign of terror. The violence spilled into the human world, causing thousands of deaths. He ruled for nearly four centuries before his own son, Nikolai slit his throat and severed his spine in the year 1240 while he was sleeping.