99 Moons with Alpha Rhaegar

CHAPTER 16: THE PRINCESS RETURNS

ELYSIA’S POV

I woke before dawn.

Not because I wanted to. My body just refused to stay still, like it knew something I didn’t yet.

The ache in my ribs had dulled overnight, fading to a distant throb that barely registered when I moved. I pressed my fingers against my side, feeling the bandages through my dress.

*Too fast*, my wolf murmured. *We’re healing too fast.*

“I know.”

I didn’t have time to sit with that. The sounds in the corridor had already started, footsteps moving with purpose, voices low and clipped. Something was different this morning. I could feel it in the air, tight and charged, like the sky before a storm.

I tied my dress and stepped out.

The kitchens were already drowning when I arrived. Servants moved in every direction, colliding and apologizing without breaking stride. Something had shifted in the atmosphere overnight, and whatever it was had everyone wound tight.

Nessa was already at her station, knife moving fast through a pile of carrots. She didn’t look up. Just jerked her chin toward the potatoes beside her.

I settled into the rhythm of it, grateful for something to do with my hands.

Twenty minutes passed before I broke the silence. “What’s going on?”

Nessa’s jaw tightened. “The Princess returned yesterday.”

My knife slowed.

“Princess Sabrina,” she added quietly. “The Alpha King’s daughter.”

The name hit me somewhere low in the chest.

Sabrina.

And suddenly I was back in that tent, watching Killian’s face over her shoulder as he looked directly at me and didn’t stop.

My knife slipped. Pain bit across my finger, quick and sharp. I pulled my hand back, pressing my finger into my apron.

“Careful,” Nessa said, glancing at me. “You all right?”

I nodded too quickly, wrapping my finger in my apron. “I’m fine.”

But I wasn’t. Because Sabrina was Rhaegar’s daughter. I’d known that. I’d known it and somewhere between the rogues and the cliff and the horse ride to Bloodmoon, I had simply… forgotten. Or buried it. The way the mind buries things it can’t carry.

She would recognize me.

*We need to leave*, my wolf said.

“There’s nowhere to go.”

I kept my head down and kept working.

The warning came mid-morning. Marta, the head cook, planted herself in the center of the kitchen with the energy of someone about to deliver a sentence.

“Princess Sabrina will be touring the kitchens within the hour.” Her eyes swept the room like a blade. “I want this place spotless.”

No one needed to be told twice.

I scrubbed and peeled and kept my eyes on my hands and tried to convince myself that Sabrina wouldn’t notice me. That I was just another servant in a gray dress. That she had no reason to look my way.

I almost believed it.

Then the doors opened.

I felt it before I saw it. The way the room stilled. The way the noise softened all at once, like something being smothered.

I kept my hands moving.

“How charming.”

Her voice was smooth, unhurried. The kind of voice that had never once needed to raise itself to be obeyed.

I stared at the pot in front of me. Don’t look up. Don’t…

“You.”

One word. Quiet. Precise.

I looked up slowly.

Sabrina stood a few feet away, dressed in deep green silk, dark hair braided over one shoulder. She looked like she’d stepped out of something painted. Her ice-blue eyes were fixed on mine, and her expression was almost calm.

Almost.

“Elysia Belrose?” Her head tilted slightly. “I thought you were dead.”

The kitchen had gone completely silent.

I held her gaze. “Princess.”

Something moved behind her eyes. Not surprise. Something older than that.

She took one step closer, unhurried, and lowered her voice just enough that it became almost private. “Even if you were saved by my father. You should still be careful,” she said softly. “He doesn’t save people without a reason.”

Then she turned to Marta, her expression shifting back to pleasant. “Wonderful kitchen. Please make sure the evening meal includes something light. Father hasn’t been eating well.”

Marta bowed. “Of course, Princess.”

Sabrina moved toward the door. She didn’t look back at me.

She didn’t need to.

The moment the door closed, whispers erupted like a dam breaking. But I didn’t hear them. All I could hear was Sabrina’s voice echoing in my skull.

Nessa leaned close, her voice barely above a whisper. “You know her?”

“She knows of me,” I said carefully.

Nessa studied me for a moment, then turned back to her work without another word.

I stared at the pot in front of me, my hands still.

Sabrina hadn’t threatened me. Hadn’t made a scene. Hadn’t done anything I could point to and call cruelty.

And somehow, that was worse.

My father doesn’t save people without a reason.

I didn’t know what she meant by it. Warning? Accusation? Or just a daughter who knew her father better than anyone?

My wolf stirred, uneasy and restless.

I picked up my knife and went back to work.

But the words stayed with me all day, quiet and sharp, like a splinter I couldn’t reach.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​