The Worst Kind of Wonderful

Chapter FIFTEEN

✖️The Worst Kind of Wonderful✖️

I am your fairy tale.

Your dream.

Your wishes and desires,

and I am your thirst

and your hunger

and your food

and your drink.

-Klaus Kinski

Chapter Fifteen~

Once, in a time of legend, in a place where dozens of packs and their alpha's were ruled by a single king, there lived a family of nobles, a father and his two daughters whose mother had met her demise in a great war years before and father driven mad by her loss. His madness was tragic but expected, for in this time and place the people were so powerfully and irreversibly connected to the wolves that inhabited their spirit, that they could sense their other half; their very soulmate. That sense became a bond that overtook their everything and became their world. If one half were to die, the other would suffer that loss by being ripped from their body, mind, or soul.

This particular loss, however, did not only affect the departed's mate, but her children as well Christine and Elizabeth Levine.

The two girls both held immense power that stemmed from their lineage and the eldest, Elizabeth, was engaged to the future king of their land: the same ruler who controlled dozens of packs that existed within their realm. She was only seventeen but thought herself fully prepared to take on the life of a royal. Christine, who was just a year her junior, was much more uncertain of her sister's transition but kept her lips sealed out of love for her sister and respect for the advisors that had arranged the marriage in the first. The advisors were viewed as an almost holy breed of wolf that were said to have the ability to peer into the future, and the future that they saw was one of Elizabeth and the crown prince, Thomas, meeting at The Royal Masquerade, a ball thrown to celebrate each royal's coming of age, and later marrying.

The Masquerade was an event for only the elite in which every guest would come in disguise and the new prince would have to find his beloved in the crowd. This was the main event and form of entertainment for the nobles attending, but the prince and his soul mate were not the only ones to take part. Every attending party that was of age to find their mate would play that same game of cat and mouse, hoping to find their destiny in the sea of disguises of fabric and metal and paint. Christine had hoped that she would find her future in her best friend and worst enemy, George Brams, her neighbor and greatest sorce of laughter and tears. George, who was also a cousin of the crown, and Christine had maintained a love and hate relationship since early childhood. Despite their early emotional confusion, the two found, as years went by, that hate slowly slipping away. They had even shared talk of an engagement when Christine brought up her sister's. However, as The Masquerade approached, Christine felt a stirring of uncertainty in the air.

Her feeling was ignored as the celebration grew nearer and all doubt was shrouded by the talk of gowns and masks and their entire futures. The night of The Masquerade fell three weeks after the moon of Christine's eligibility to mate, rose in the sky. As discussed, Christine had not seen George in that time so they could participate in the gathering of masks. The night of the ball fell into position and Christine's nerves built, piling up until they overflowed into her speech. She came to Elizabeth with her concerns but was met with reassurance. Christine had kept her cascading brunette locks down and Elizabeth fashioned her flaxen hair into a styled knot. The two were overjoyed but that twist in Christine's stomach never seemed to subside, try as she might to ignore the tug.