16. Submit to Temptation
SUBMIT TO TEMPTATION
Leif was in love; I was sure. He had been staring into nothing and smiling like a half-wit for no reason, something he only did when he was in love.
I noticed his strange behaviour that day when Johnathan invited me to watch the fireworks, but I didn’t have time to inquire further. However, over the past two days, it had begun to get on my nerves.
Leif would leave for the library early in the morning, skipping breakfast, and wouldn’t return until past midnight.
I tried to locate him at the library, but the scribes who worked there told me they hadn’t seen him in the past few days. No one knew where he had gone, and it irritated me to no end.
I asked him where he had gone the whole day, and he had the nerve to tell me he was reading in the library.
“No, you were not there, because I went there to find you, and no one saw you there the whole day!” I crossed my arms as I leaned on the doorframe, demanding an answer from him.
As I exposed his lies, Leif didn’t show the remorse I had hoped for. On the contrary, he glared at me as though I’d done something wrong.
“Why do you have to hover over me all the time! I’m not a child anymore!” Leif retorted, his delicate features hardened with exasperation. “I didn’t try to follow you all day long, did I? Can’t you just ... go out and have a life yourself?”
I gawked at him, unable to believe my sweet little brother had just told me to get a life. I growled and marched over to him, fuming like a hot coal. “Who were you with? Tell me!”
Usually, whenever I turned on my alpha aura, Leif would drop his attitude and submit to my authority immediately. But I didn’t know what had gotten into him that night; he was determined to pick a fight with me.
“It’s none of your business!” Leif shouted like a feral cat. “It’s my personal life!”
“Of course it’s my fucking business! I’m your brother!” I bellowed.
“You have no right to invade my privacy!”
I slammed my fist into the table and hissed at him, “Cut the privacy nonsense! We are not at Winterthrope; this place is not as safe as you think! I need to know your whereabouts all the time!”
“No!” Leif raised his pointy chin and said with all the resolution in the world, “I’ll tell you when I’m ready! Now, can you leave me alone? I’m tired!”
He then proceeded to push me out of his room and slammed the door in my face.
I couldn’t believe it. The South had turned my sweet little brother into a contrary little brat!
I seethed in my room the rest of the night and decided to trail after Leif tomorrow morning to find out who he was meeting. I was sure they had first met in the library, considering Leif had spent almost all his free time there during the past week.
However, to my dismay, I woke up late that morning because I had slept poorly.
Leif was already gone by then, and all I could do was roam around the palace, hoping someone had seen him earlier.
The servants and other southern nobles were generally not very helpful, as they typically avoided talking to me if they could help it, but my skills, demonstrated in the training yard, seemed to have won over some guards and warriors of the Steel Legion.
One guard told me he had seen my brother heading to the garden.
I went there, but the royal garden was way too big for me to pinpoint exactly where he had gone. I was about to give up and head to the training yard to blow off some steam when I saw Johnathan strolling my way, dressed in riding attire.
It would be awkward, but it was also too late to hide since he had obviously seen me.
His expression was serene, betraying no emotion as he approached me.
“Hey,” I said, barely holding his gaze.
“Hey,” he replied casually. “Going to the training yard again?”
“I was trying to find my brother but have no idea where he went. You didn’t happen to see him, did you?”
“Actually ... I did,” Johnathan said, looking slightly concerned. “I saw him riding out with Allan Eclipse when I came in. You didn’t know they were going out?”
Allan ... Eclipse? An Eclipse?!
What the fuck? Lord Gillian of Eclipse and his son, Lovel, probably hated Leif’s guts right now. What was Leif thinking, getting involved with someone from that clan?
My expression probably showed Johnathan just how unaware I was of their outing or relationship. I was never good at keeping a straight face.
“They’ve been at the observatory together, too. There was a small party held there last night, and I saw them. I thought you knew,” he said.
“Do you know where they are heading?”
Johnathan shook his head. “I didn’t ask, sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I softened my voice. “This Allan, do you know him?”
“Yes. He is Lord Gillian’s only alpha son, Lovel’s older brother.
He had only arrived at Nocturne after Yarrow’s recital.
” Johnathan paused for a moment, hesitated, but still said, “You may want to keep a close eye on them ... Allan is a charming young lad, but he can be a little rakish. Plus, Gillian sees Leif as Lovel’s biggest competition.
This could be part of their strategy to distract your brother. ”
Shit ... This was exactly what I feared. But right now, there wasn’t much I could do since I had no idea where they had gone. I could only wait for Leif to come back and pray he hadn’t done anything stupid with this Allan.
“Johnathan, I ... I should apologize to you about that night.” I plucked up my courage, deciding to address the elephant in the room. “I overreacted.”
“No, I should be the one to apologize.” Johnathan lowered his eyes slightly. His smile was quiet and a little sad. “I guess I was a bit angry ... and envious. But I didn’t mean to make you feel threatened. I would never do anything that would harm Damien, or you.”
“So ... are we good?” I asked gingerly. It was a shame. I really liked him; if not for Damien, I might even have fallen in love with him.
He nodded, and a smidge of tenderness softened his countenance. “Yes. We’re good.”
I exhaled in relief. An instinct told me I wouldn’t want to be Johnathan’s enemy. He might not be a warrior, but something about him was ... formidable.
Johnathan turned to leave, but he paused after a few steps and looked over his shoulder.
I caught a glimpse of the same intriguing depth I saw in his eyes the other night.
“What I offered still stands. When it becomes too hard, and it will, you know where to find me,” he said with a striking smile, then left.
I decided to go back to my room to write a letter to my father, explaining the possibility of forging an alliance with Damien without marrying off Leif to him. The part about me getting marked by the prince would be left out, of course.
However, I found a note lying on the floor after I opened the door. Someone must have slipped it through the small gap beneath the door. I picked it up and saw a line of wild, flowing handwriting: Come to the attic above the west wing at noon.
The note wasn’t signed, but I had a pretty good inkling who wrote it. I sniffed it, and the familiar, alluring scent confirmed my suspicion. I didn’t realize I was smiling until I glanced at myself in the full-length mirror before heading to the cellar.
The west wing was the farthest from the royal living quarters. Many guest room doors over there had been locked, for years, furniture and linens gathering dust. It was also entirely deserted at noon, when most werewolves were taking a nap to escape the heat of the sun.
It took me a while to find the entrance to the attic through an unobtrusive door.
I climbed up a steep spiral staircase that was slightly too narrow for my body and arrived at a short, shadowy corridor, one that was clearly forgotten by most of the servants, judging by the lack of lamps and the thick dust that blanketed the floor.
A hauntingly beautiful melody echoed through the corridor, rippling through the still air like a ghost’s plaintive humming. Someone was playing a lyre.
One of the doors at the end of the corridor was ajar, and a yellow line of sunlight poured through the gap.
The music came from the room. I pushed the door open and saw a spacious storage room stuffed with dust-sealed furniture.
The light came from a thin, tall window, and Damien sat on the wide windowsill, holding a wooden lyre in his arms. His long fingers, calloused from fighting and weapon-wielding, danced elegantly across the silver strings.
The golden sunlight framed the crown of his head like a halo.
I was probably staring, which was embarrassing. But I also didn’t want to stop ...
He was ... beautiful. So beautiful. Before I met him, I didn’t know this word could be used to describe a male alpha.
He only looked at me after he finished the song, a trace of lingering melancholy still hanging over his raven brows. But then, a wicked little curve appeared on his lips.
“I was worried that you wouldn’t come,” he said, standing up and placing the lyre on the sill.
I crossed my arms. “You didn’t even sign your note. How was I supposed to know it was you?”
“For safety measures. You never know if a servant will read it before you. And I knew you’d recognize my scent.
” He moved behind a table, and I noticed he had brought a bottle of wine and two goblets, plus some dainty cakes and fruits on a three-tier plate stack.
Behind him was a giant, canopy-less bed, old and likely unused for ages, though it was much less dusty than the rest of the furniture in this room, and the black velvet coverlet was clearly newly placed.
Did ... did Damien prepare the bed for ... for us to use?
I had an inkling of what this meeting was about, but seeing the well-prepared bed positioned ostentatiously among all the abandoned furniture, with its purpose so blatantly laid out, my cheeks began to burn, and I suddenly wasn’t sure where to put my arms or how to stand straight and still without fidgeting.