His Incredible Queen Luna

Not until the abrupt pain had suddenly numbed all her senses did Leona realize what had just happened to her. A sword, silver, sharp, and cold, had run through her heart from her back. And in front of her stood her husband, Austin, smiling at her, in his glorious uniform for the Kingdom’s coronation tonight, holding a glass of red wine in his left hand. The moon was really bright outside, everything in the sitting room could be seen clearly though without lights. Just a second ago, he walked up to her at the cold fireplace with that glass of red wine, and said, “You are being paranoid, dear, nobody is plotting anything behind your back. Here, have a drink.” Leona sighed and reached out her hand for the wine. That’s when that sword suddenly pierced through her. Her body went paralyzed before she could reach the wine, hand fixing in the air. Disbelief and astonishment abruptly grabbed her. She stared at her husband, dumbfounded, and wasn’t able to understand. “Aye, aye, it seems like you won’t need it anyway,” he just smiled at her, and then lifted that crystal glass to his curled lips. Her blood had spurted across his chiseled face. It slowly dripped to his mouth corner. Austin didn’t allow himself to be bothered by that. He just drank it smoothly along with that glass of red wine. Leona could just hear the torrent of her blood running out of her heart. It took her some time to come to the truth that her husband had just murdered her. Or, he had been planning it all the time. She was just too blind to see it. “Why?” she tried to ask, but the vitality inside her had already been drained dry. Her body fell straight onto the floor. She didn’t even feel the tiniest pain when her face smashed on the carpet. That sword pulled out from her back along with her falling under the gravity effect. Leona felt an empty hole in her heart shivering as her blood turned cold. The red carpet beneath her was soaked to deep crimson, making her feel both slimy and wet. She was supposed to heal from wounds like that. But it didn’t happen. Leona then knew that that sword was poisoned elaborately and she knew that this was the end of her. There was nothing she could do with it. “That was fast,” she heard Austin commenting rather unpleasantly above her. “I was expecting to have a small talk with her.” It was strange. Even though she was already dead, she could still hear him. She then heard the other man in the room reply to Austin. It was the man who had just pierced her with that sword, and the one she didn’t even realize existing in the room. His voice was dry. “You’ve gotten what you wanted,” he said. Leona recognized him from that voice. It was the man she trusted most, her best assistant and her Beta, Felix, a werecat she once rescued from the slave camp. He had been following her as her closest friend since she was 14. That was 11-years trusts and reliance, and now it all went nothing. She felt bitterness filling in her broken heart, not even sadness or anger. Austin kicked her shoulder and flipped her over. Leona surprisingly found that she still held her vision. The carved ceiling of the sitting room, the cold moonlight which was sad but bright, Austin’s snooty face with a satisfied smile, and Felix’s remorseful eyes were all reflected at the bottom of her sight. For a moment, Leona even thought that she was still alive. But her pupils had dilated, and her breath had disappeared. There were no heartbeats inside her body anymore. She was definitely dead. And Austin knew that. “Get rid of her body and come to the ceremony,” he ordered in a casual but cruel tone, placing his hand on Felix’s shoulder. “It won’t be a whole ceremony without the Queen’s best hand.” Felix replied to him with nothing, just kept his head lowered. Eyes fixed on her. Austin then patted his shoulder and then went out of the sitting room. He needed to clean Leona’s blood off his face before the ceremony started. After Austin walked out of the room, Leona saw Felix kneel beside her. He stared at her pallid face with his sad eyes for a while and then reached his hand into his pocket to fetch something. Leona saw him taking out a small crystal bottle with a dark green potion in it. He held the bottle up above her head before unscrewing the lid. And then, he tilted it a little, pouring out the potion on her. Leona felt something cold drip onto her cheek first, and then, the piercing pain made her bones shiver. She couldn’t really tell if she was feeling it psychically or purely mentally because she was already dead. But she didn't even move her eyelashes when the potion crawled into her skin. It was acid, a very strong kind. Leona knew it from the greasy noise that occurred when it burned through her flesh. And the scorching odor generated along with it soon permeated the air. Leona had never thought that one day she would emit that kind of smell. And she surely had never expected her husband to be so cruel. They were destroying her body so that no one could even notice that she was already dead. That was to say, no one would ever find that she was murdered by the one she shared her bed with. And no one could ever get revenge for her by convicting their crime. How cruel. And how shrewd. Leona had always known Austin had ambitions. She just never thought he would go so far to achieve it. The stinky odor emitted from her scorched skin almost choked her. Leona sighed, trying to close her eyes, but couldn't. She didn’t even have much strength left to feel rage or sad. However, after that initial drop of the potion, Felix somehow stopped his motion. He stopped pouring out that acid and stared at her. Leona was a very beautiful woman, with snow-like long hair and a pair of fascinating purple eyes. She died with her eyes wide open. But from his position, she looked so serene and at peace, as if she was just asleep. That drop of potion had imprinted a horrible scorched scar on her right cheek from underneath her cheekbone to her ear. It was supposed to disfigure her to be the most hideous monster, but somehow it made her even more beautiful, and sad under the moonlight. Felix sighed. He put that potion back into his pocket and took off his coat to cover her face. Their plan was meticulous. It was necessary for him to destroy her body so nobody would find out their crime. But Felix had just found that he couldn't do it. Leona was once the light of his life. 11 years ago, when he was left in that stinky cage in the fighting pit, waiting to rot, it was she who kindly offered her hand to him. During the past years, they studied, played, fought, and went to the battlefields together. There were countless happy memories between them, though nothing romantic. Leona was the best warrior of the kingdom and the most valuable princess. He was just a lousy werecat. She had never treated him more than a trustworthy friend, an excellent co-worker. But he had never stopped loving her. Though, in the end, he chose to kill her... Felix sighed, and then quickly swept those messy thoughts off his mind. He then pulled up the hand-knitted carpet beside the fireplace to wrap Leona’s dead body inside it. Her blood had already run dry. No need to worry about leaving traces behind him. Felix carried that roll of carpet on his shoulder and then went out of the side door. He lived in the castle as Leona’s closest assistant, knowing every secret path in it. He took a covert stair and went down it to the kingdom’s garden behind the castle. At the exit of it, two gardeners were waiting to dispose of the body for him. Leona didn’t know about Felix’s plan. But she sort of figured out he was going to bury or burn her. And of course, burning would be the best plan. When she was wrapped in that carpet, her vision was blocked. The red carpet was the only thing she could see, but she did hear the cheering from the main hall getting louder and louder. She heard them-her people and her soldiers-calling her name loudly as congratulations to her upcoming coronation. Tonight, she was supposed to take over the kingdom and be the newly crowned Supreme Queen. Now she was dead, or, disappeared more specifically. The kingdom’s throne would fall to Austin. And he, a normal human she once married, would become the solo King of this powerful supernatural territory. How ambitious, and how impressive. Leona wondered if Austin had started to plan all of these before they even met each other. The path towards the backdoor of the garden was paved with polished slabstone with blooming flowers on both sides. Leona was never a fan of flowers. She was more of a sword and gun person. But tonight, when Felix carried her through the path to her final end, she felt glad to have flowers accompany her. She had seen enough betrayals and hates in her life and there was no way Felix would give her a proper funeral. It was nice to know that at the last moment of her life, there was something beautiful beside her. The backdoor of the garden was just a length of white fence which was recently painted. Outside it in the woods stood two middle-aged men waiting beside their old pickup truck. About half an hour ago, Felix called them and said a maid of the future Queen had died of illness. It would bring bad luck to the Queen’s coronation. So he needed them to bury the maid’s dead body without anyone noticing it. “Don’t look at her face,” after placing that roll of red carpet onto the truck, Felix warned them. “She died of a contagious illness. It will kill you both.” The two middle-aged men who were the gardeners of the castle quickly nodded their heads. The taller one asked Felix with the humblest tone and respect, “Where do you wish us to bury her, Sir?” Felix pressed his lips. He couldn't find the proper answer. “Wherever it’s suitable,” he said after a while, and then stressed, “Just don’t let anyone know she came from the castle.” “And the tombstone,” the taller gardener asked again, “What name would you like us to put on it?” Felix fell into another dead silence before he replied, “Just draw her a lion. She had made as much contribution to the kingdom as the Queen.”