His Imprisoned Queen

Chapter 4 Queen Elina

I stand up abruptly, blood rushing into my face. Those golden eyes in the alley… now I know where the familiarity comes from. Those eyes belong to Bryce!

“Elina, are you okay?”

Alice looks at me anxiously as she takes a vast mouthful of her pudding dessert.

“You seem distracted the whole dinner. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

I take a deep breath and ask, “Alice, were you with Bryce last night?”

Alice nods, and she looks confused. I continue, “are you sure you guys were together the WHOLE time?”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure.” Alice frowns and looks at me, “Elina, you have been acting weird since I talked about my fiancé. Is there a problem?”

I sit down and stare at my red velvet cheesecake. I don’t know where to start. After the “above-average guy conversation” we had had in high school, I never talked to Alice about Bryce anymore. I didn’t know if it was because I didn’t want Alice to know that I still had something to do with a below-average guy, or it was because I didn’t want to hear her talk anything bad about Bryce.

Things did not just end between Bryce and me after he had hypnotized Carl that night… There were more and I am never going to tell Alice about any of those. These two are about to get married and the least Alice needs to hear about, is how her best friend was attracted to her future husband. No matter how hurt I am right now, I still truly wish them happiness.

I sigh and look at Alice, “listen honey, actually, I saw Bryce last night.”

“No way. He was with me at our mansion. And believe me, our mansion is really far away. You must have made a mistake.”

I raise an eyebrow and say, “I did not make a mistake. Trust me, there might be something that you don’t know about him.”

“Oh really? He’s my husband and who knows him better than I do?”

Alice’s face turns red with anger. As she glares at me, I feel a mix of jealousy and hurt flowing over me.

Well, he is not your husband YET.

I cross my arms and say, “Well, maybe I do. Do you know that your future husband has some strange superpower that can hypnotize people, and he can howl like an animal, and his eyes can change colors?”

Alice gasps and uses her hand to cover her mouth. She looks at me in disbelief and says, “Oh my god, you know?”

Then the angry look on her face all of a sudden turns into excitement. She grabs my hands so tight that they hurt, “Finally I don’t have to keep everything to myself! Elina! I can’t believe you know he is not a human.”

Now it’s my turn to gasp.

“WHAT? HE IS NOT A HUMAN?”

Alice is frozen to death. When she finally comes to her senses, she throws my hands away, looking terrified. We stare at each other in silence for a while, then she finally speaks.

“s**t. So you don’t know.”

Alice’s face is contorted with panic, but I don’t care.

“What do you mean that Bryce is not a human?”

“Shush! People can hear you.” Alice gives me a threatening look and starts leaving her seat, “you know what, Elina, I will get the check now and how about let’s hang out some other time?”

I grab Alice’s arm and hold it tight, “you can’t run away from me like this, Alice. Tell me!”

“Okay, fine, at least let’s get out of here first and find someplace private.”

I look around. She’s right. People are looking at us and murmuring. As I follow her out of the restaurant, I catch sight of a bloody-red, but not glowing mark on Alice’s neck.

“Alice, where does that mark come from? I saw a familiar one on Bryce’s mom’s neck.”

Alice answers without slowing her steps, “well, Bryce and I are just wild in bed.”

Okay, that shuts me up.

***

“Wow, when you said we were going to find someplace private, I didn’t expect you would book a presidential suite!”

I walk into the enormous fancy room and let out a gasp in admiration as I run to the floor-to-ceiling windows. I just can’t help it. The suite is located on the thirty-second floor. The night view outside is so beautiful.

“I just want us to be comfortable. You know, we are going to talk about some really serious business,” says Alice. She kicks her high heels on the floor as soon as she enters the room. I do the same.

While I go rest on the couch, Alice grabs a bottle of red wine with two red wine glasses from the kitchen counter.

“Okay, since we are no longer going to that fancy bar. Let’s enjoy this bottle of…” Alice looks at the bottle closely, trying to read the words, “1982 Chateau Laffite Rothschild!”

I raise my eyebrows, “wow, Bryce is rich, isn’t he?”

As soon as the name gets mentioned, Alice’s face becomes stern. She pulls me a glass of wine and pulls herself one, then lets out a desperate sigh.

“I am so dead, Elina. It’s strictly forbidden to… talk to you about this subject.”

I take a gulp of my wine and squeeze her hands gently to comfort her, “I promise, I will never tell anything we say in this room to anyone.”

Alice finishes her glass so quickly that she is already pulling herself another one, “I’m the worst Luna ever.”

I blink, “Luna?”

“Okay.” Alice is finally letting her guard down, “I’m going to tell you. But please don’t freak out.”

I nod my head eagerly.

“Bryce and I, we are not human. We are… werewolves.”

I had prepared myself for this moment, but when the words came out of Alice’s mouth, my face was contorted with shock, and I almost dropped my glass! I scream out uncontrollably, “YOU ARE NOT A HUMAN EITHER?”

“I didn’t know that until I got my wolf! That was when I turned eighteen. Normally, a werewolf gets their wolf at the age of eighteen. It freaked me out too! Knowing that there is a wolf inside my body…” Alice makes a grimace, “that was when I found out my human parents are not my real parents, they adopted me when I was only an infant, and I was raised as a human. My biological werewolf parents had abandoned me.”

“Oh my god.” I put down my glass and pull her into a hug, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve had fun living as a human. When I turned eighteen, I got my wolf, and I also learned that my mate is Bryce. Bryce is an alpha, which means he’s the leader of a whole pack of werewolves. Our pack is called Blood Moon Pack, around three hundred werewolves are living in the pack. And I become the LUNA of the pack because I am the alpha’s mate.”

“Okay… wait a minute,” I try to digest the information as quickly as I can, “so you’ve got to choose your own mate?”

“No no no!” Alice waves her hand violently, “the moon goddess tells you who your mate is. She arranges your marriage and you cannot disobey her. Particularly for an alpha like Bryce, he must marry his mate, otherwise, his pack will be cursed and will never flourish again.”

Oh, that makes sense. I thought about when Bryce rejected me at the after-graduation party, he said things about fate and destiny blah blah blah. I thought that was just some crap he made up and didn’t give a s**t about it. But now I understand.

The wine suddenly tastes bitter in my mouth. I don’t want to admit it, but my heart is ripping apart when I hear that Bryce is destined to be with someone else. I also realize the bonding between Alice and Bryce is so strong that nothing can ever break it. Since the day he rejected me, I’ve been telling myself to forget about him and move forward. I’ve been trying hard in the past four years to keep him out of my mind, but I know there is always a place for him, deep in my heart. It makes me feel worse when I think that Bryce probably had feelings for me as well (thinking of what we had gone through, very likely,) and he had to let it go because of the stupid mate thing.

“Elina, are you crying?”

I hastily lower my head and wipe my face with my spare hand. s**t. The tears (mixed with mascara) are coming down my cheeks and I didn’t even realize it. Before I can think of a reasonable excuse, Alice hugs me tightly.

“Oh honey, please don’t feel sad for me. Being a Luna is not that bad, sure there is a lot of responsibility, but I’ve got to enjoy a lot of things too. The food in our packhouse is great, and I have a walk-in closet that’s bigger than this room!”

I cry soundlessly in her arms and I think: This will be the last time I cry for Bryce.

This is the closure between us.

Tears are streaming down my face. My sobbing is getting so loud that it’s impossible to muffle it. Alice must have noticed that too. She grabs my arms and looks at me.

“Honey, what’s going on? Are you overwhelmed by all those werewolf crap?”

“Sorry… I’m really happy for you… it’s just… I had a really tough day.”

“What happened?”

I try to think of an unfortunate event that happened to me, and it’s ironically fortunate that I have plenty, so I tell Alice about today’s explosion accident.

“Honey, I seriously don’t know why you are crying about it!” Alice exclaims, “you survived an explosion! And you are saved by an extremely gorgeous guy! You should call it your lucky day!”

“I know I’m lucky. But it’s just… I don’t get it. Why did there happen to have an explosion in the building I work? Why would someone try to stop me from getting there? Why did that handsome guy save me from such a dangerous accident? How come he knows me but I don’t know him? And how will I ever find him? I feel like I’m trapped in a puzzle, and there isn’t even one clue.”

“I understand. I felt the same way when I learned I am a werewolf.” Alice sighs and pulls three bottles of champagne out of nowhere. “You know what Elina, just leave all your worries behind tonight. Let’s have fun. Mysteries solve themselves when you are unexpected.”

I grab a bottle of champagne and draw the cork out of the bottle. The cork leaves the bottle with a pop and I have no idea why that pop sound makes me relaxed.

“You are right Alice.” I pull myself a glass and toast to her, “let’s have fun tonight! Let’s get drunk! I don’t want to think about those bullshits anymore!”

Alice jumps up excitedly and toasts me, then we start drinking madly. Really madly. We turn on the tv and dance to the music while we gulp down glass after glass of champagne. The visions start to get blurred but I don’t care. I want to indulge in alcohol as much as I can so there is no space in my brain for unsolved mysteries. I laugh and drink, feeling dizzier and dizzier, but I don’t stop drinking. When I finally find it impossible to keep my eyes open, I put down my glass and fall on the couch at the last second before the overwhelming sleepiness attacks me.

I wake up because I’m dying to pee. I stagger to the bathroom. After I pee, I look in the mirror and can’t help laughing. I look like a mess! Tear stains mixed with black mascara are over my face, and there is a wine stain on my dress too. One of my earrings is gone. My hair is crazy! I turn on the faucet and start fixing my hair, suddenly a loud knock comes at the door.

“Elina! Are you in there?”

Alice sounds urgent. I turn off the faucet and answer, “yes.”

“I’m really in trouble this time! Bryce just mindlinked me—”

“Mindlink?” I open the door and feel panicked when I see Alice crying.

“That’s our werewolf way to communicate. Anyway, he told me the royals are on the way to get us.”

“Royals?”

“I’m so dead Elina! They must know that I have told a human about werewolves! They must have some sort of surveillance system. They are going to put me in the dungeon and burn me into ashes!”

Alice dissolves into wails. My head is still spinning from the hangover, but panic is rising in my chest. I never want to cause my friend any trouble. I hold Alice’s hands and try to compose her, “don’t worry honey, if they question me, I will deny that I have heard anything from you. I will not confess. I promise to you.”

Alice calms a little bit but starts to wail again when there is a gentle knock on the door to our room.

“Luna Alice, are you in there? Can you please open the door?”

It’s a male’s voice. Very gentle. Alice looks at me, looking terrified. I try to act calm but I’m scared too, who knows what kind of torture those werewolves will put on me if I refuse to tell the truth?

“Luna Alice, can you hear me? I will break the door now.”

Next second, the door bursts open. Alice and I both scream. Two men are standing in front of us. One man has curly blond hair. His dark green eyes are orb round and like all his other facial features, they are soft. Very soft. He looks very young, I wonder if he is above eighteen. And he looks quite… non-threatening. Totally different from the man standing beside him, who is taller, stronger, and more handsome, but has very sharp features.

Wait.

He looks familiar.

I rub my eyes, and now my visions are clear enough to take a detailed look at him.

Shit.

That’s my savior, that f*****g gorgeous guy! Standing right there!

I look at Alice and mouth “this is him” frantically, unfortunately, Alice is so scared that she keeps her head low and only looks at the floor the entire time.

The man who looks really young walks to us and bows his head, “sorry to interrupt, Luna Alice, and Queen Elina.”

I blink, feeling dumb.

What the f**k? Did he just call me a QUEEN?