Fake Luna

The Royal Banquet

The Royal Banquet

KAELLAN

I smiled with all my heart as soon as I met the neatly-coiffed version of me in my Luna Vinelle’s dresser. Her mirror, the one that is of the most humble adornment among us who led Bellastrom, blared at me with the emblazoned regal air that goes with its ownership.

Indeed, even without trying, my Luna stands out the most graciously.

“I cannot believe that I could as well attend the banquet of Zaphtos’s royal family, my Luna,” I stammered while trying to suppress my lips from quivering due to the mix of excitement and nervousness. “I cannot thank you enough for helping me dress up. Allow me to bow down to you.”

“Why, you silly girl,” Luna Vinelle giggled as she held me from dipping my knees to the floor. “You all deserve to go out and have fun every once in a while. Especially you, Kaellan. You are working so hard for everyone and I cannot thank you enough for being the example of cunning strength among our girls.”

She reached for one golden crescent hair pin from her jewelry box and deliberately swirled and pushed it on the side of my head. My tendrils fell into a more arranged place and she hummed in satisfaction as she traced the revealed crests of my neck.

“As I have expected, you will grow into a beautiful young woman. I want you to enjoy this night and consider it as your introduction to society, okay?”

I could not bear to even directly stare at her but I could not help it either. I am always drawn to her impeccable strength of the soul.

“I want you to enjoy this night as well, my Luna. And if it was not even bold of me to say,” I trailed off for effect before dabbing some perfumed oil on her wrist and the back of her ears. “I wish that you, my Luna, may find your destined mate tonight.”

Just as she always does, Luna Vinelle blushed at the mention of a romantic possibility and playfully smacked my arms to suppress her giddiness. But just as well as she always can, her force is not intentionally light. For a woman who possesses such strength of the soul, Luna Vinelle is relatively weak in physique and could not even last shifting into her wolf form for over ten minutes.

She told us that it was an illness she acquired at birth when her mother, who was pregnant with her, fell on an icy lake and almost lost her. She might have survived with the help of the moon’s gift, but the cost of her life was her struggle to shift.

When her pack found out that she could not even hold her form together, they banished her and disowned her at the early age of twenty as soon as she lost her parents in a challenge of leadership change.

While Luna Vinelle wandered, she reached Zaphtos, Kingdom of the Crowned Alpha, and lived away from territorial packs in the middle of a vicious forest, which now transformed into a habitable village as she managed to grow her circle.

Catching admirable commendations from the highest order, the palace issued a formal decree that Bellastrom be recognized as an established all-she-wolf pack in Zaphtos, upholding the rehabilitation and rebirth of the women who were abused, disowned, or banished from their packs.

And since we are now legally recognized as a pack in Zaphtos, we were invited to attend the banquet that the Alpha King Lanford Ronan, promised during his late wife, Queen Adaira’s funeral one year ago since she always wanted to bind all packs of Zaphtos together no matter how diverse we are.

“Here, Kaellan,” Luna Vinelle called me as she pulled a laced white dress that fluttered prettily with the slightest kiss of wind and motion. “Try this on while I prepare too.”

“My Luna, you do not have to go this far. I do have some dresses that Miara gave me.”

“Oh, shush. That would not do. You could wear those when you head back to the Mage School but tonight, you will have to wear this,” she said as she began to usher me back to my room and smiled. “I will see you all downstairs, okay?”

I NERVOUSLY had to rush downstairs to meet everyone on the porch of the pack house.

Pearl, who is as old as Luna Vinelle, tapped her stilettoes as I approached. Instead of minding her temper, as the second-in-command, I went on to inquire on the duties of the she-wolves who volunteered to remain in order to keep patrolling our bounds.

“Are Melissa and Rikka already stationed, Pearl?”

“If I were you that is not going to be the first thing I should worry about,” she said snobbishly before running her eyes up and down my image. “Why don’t you just try to remain here like them so you could spare us of any potential dangers from your poisons?”

I sighed and aimed to place my hand over her shoulder when she stepped back and scoffed in refusal.

“Pearl, you know that I only study poisons in the academy because I want to find cures against a lot of the new bounty hunter weapons against us werewolves. I will never mean to hurt anyone with it.”

“Who knows what runs in your little head, Kaellan? Anyway, I know that you have Luna Vinelle wrapped around your finger so I could not even do anything to make you stay at this point. But I am warning you, I will watch you and you better behave yourself when we get there. Besides, you have never been into a gathering. Who knows what embarrassing drama you are bound to play yourself into?”

Some of the women began to call her off and some tried to pull me away but I only listened to little Lianna as soon as she lightly tugged on my dress and said, “Why can’t I also go with everyone, Kaellan? I will be on my best behaviour so just take me with you.”

“Lianna, we would also love to take you with us but you know that it is still inappropriate for pups to attend such gatherings. And what if your pursuers turn out to be there as well? We would not see the end of it if they took you away from us now that you are safe.”

The thirteen-year-old girl sadly dropped her shoulders and nodded before mumbling, “But you should promise me to head back as soon as I want you back, okay?”

Lianna has always been the little sister of everyone and she could not bear not being with any of us ever since she came to the pack house as a refugee from a wild hunt. Because of her rare varying eye colours of vibrant blue and vivid green, she was tagged by some of the blood witches as the perfect sacrifice in exchange of the Blood Moon’s blessing of an eternal life.

Although no one has even proven its effectiveness, the demands for such rarities in the black market were unparalleled.

“I will. I promise. Now be a good girl and stay inside, okay?”

“Okay. Take care, all of you.”

SEVERIN

“I did not even agree to any of these things, Father. I would not bother walking into a swarm of unknown faces while almost half of my pack was sent to defend the borders on the north. I should have been with them.”

“A promise to your mother is a promise I will hold my life with. You can go after your army as soon as the banquet is over but you have to equal your sincerity in upholding my promise to your mother.”

My anger bubbled inside me as my uncle, Lord Lancett, slipped a vicious grin before sipping from his goblet.

“My sincerity goes along with my belief that my mother did not die of illness but of murder.”

The table almost flipped as the glass wares shattered under my hands.

“I could not tolerate such language and preposterousness in this table!”

“Good,” I snapped before fixing my gaze on my father’s brother, “because I cannot as well tolerate dining with a schemer on this same room.”