Sun & Moon

Chapter 6 - Bianca

I pant and moan and cry out in Valentina's dark loft, clutching onto her silk sheets as if my body would float away in ecstasy. I picture Astrid's piercing brown eyes, the sun-kissed freckles on her cheeks and her plump pink lips.

As soon as I do, my bliss is disturbed by a faceless, dark gentleman grabbing her by the waist and kissing her.

Before I know it, I am a muddled up mess of orgasmic delight and fury.

"Fuck!" I yell out, trembling with aftershocks.

Valentina rises up from between my legs and wipes her mouth with the back of hand. Her black and white hair is tied back for practical purposes, which she releases and shakes out.

"That was no help then, Princess?"

The inflection in her question indicates a little hurt that her services did not do much to clear my thoughts.

I sigh heavily and put my panties back on. I turn to caress Valentina's disappointed face to thank her. She is quite beautiful when she isn't playing vampire mistress downstairs.

"I'll miss you," I whisper to her.

A thought pops up in the back of my head of whether once my betrothed lays his mating mark on me, all my sexual attraction to feminine beauties will disappear. Or if it doesn't, would I search the streets of my new home to find another Valentina de la Mort.

I get up to leave.

"Don't go," she suddenly pleads. "Stay the night."

A sombre smile spreads across my face. Valentina doesn't know yet that I'm to be married to Alpha Rio Xenakis in the coming days and that tonight was a sort of good-bye from my end. It's better to leave things on a good note and disappear.

"Sorry, Valentina," I say softly with a double meaning that she will soon understand.

"Well, maybe you'll take me up on the offer tomorrow night after your wolf gala."

She saunters over to the door that opens to stairs leading downwards to her office and I follow. Valentina sits at her desk, a large cherrywood in a Victorian style. She pours herself a glass of thick dark red liquid that's displayed on the left side of her table and sips it.

"Good night, Princess," she trills as I exit her office into the VIP lounge.

I quietly search the booths of the lounge half-expecting to catch Astrid making out with the tall, mysterious stranger. But she's not here. I ask the bouncer at the door if he's seen her and he only points to the exit.

Oh, Goddess, how long was I even with Valentina?

I rush out through the ever-growing crowd of Oscura and stumble out the front doors. And there she stands, radiant under the soft glow of the half-moon up above, with her back turned towards me. My eyes linger a little on her high-waisted jeans.

"Astrid!" I call out to her.

She turns around with her hands crossed, biting a bit of her thumb nail, a little spooked, a little worried, and a little agitated.

"Let's go home," she says, "I'm tired."

"Sure."

The crunch of the gravel, as we make our way to my silver Mercedes is all the sound that echoes through the vast parking lot in the middle of this abandoned plot of land. Oscura is located smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, about 40-minutes to the town.

I hesitate to ask Astrid about her mystery man because, frankly, I don't really want to know more than what I already saw. Plus, I feel a little guilty for having made love to Valentina and abandoning my best friend for most of the night. So, our drive home is silent, apart from the car radio Astrid switches on playing soothing indie folk songs.

The car comes to a slow halt right outside Astrid's quaint 2-story home. It's about 1 am. Only An, Astrid's older sister, seems to be awake as the faint glow of her room indicates she's probably reading the night away as usual.

"B, I have something to tell you," Astrid finally breaks the silence between us. "And you might not like it and it might...complicate a couple of things, but it has to be said."

"What is it?" I ask expectantly, which I always do when she cryptically brings something up like this, naively thinking she'll finally reciprocate my feelings. But most of the time, it's about a boy.

"I kissed a guy," and of course it's about a boy, "who turned out to be the one and only Lycan Alpha himself."

I'm stunned. A rage builds up inside of me as I remember him kissing her. But then I also remember that she kissed him back. Do I get mad about my fiancé kissing another woman, or do I ream Astrid for kissing a man I hardly know or care about?

"Say something," she nudges.

"I'm processing," I reply.

"I'm so sorry, B. And I can't use the excuse that I didn't know him before we kissed because I did—however, he didn't know who I was—but that still doesn't make up for the fact that I'm the worst friend ever."

"Don't say that, Astrid."

Because I am the worst friend ever.

I have no right to be mad at her. After all the boys I kissed behind her back. After all the years I never revealed my true feelings. I'm the liar. I'm the worst friend. And she proves her worthiness once again by telling me of my betrothed's infidelity even if it meant risking our friendship.

While I'm the coward who won't take that risk myself.

I sigh.

"It's fine. I'll deal with him tomorrow night."

Astrid purses her lips and looks away. There's more.

"Say it," I urge her.

"He said..." and her voice trails off to an inaudible whisper.

"What?"

She closes her eyes. "He said I'm his destined."

I urge the fight to break out in hysterics because that sounds completely absurd. Like any old excuse a player would make to get away unpunished. Is this the same powerful Lycan Alpha I've heard about or an adolescent boy?

"You can laugh if you want. That was my first response," she says as she sinks into her seat.

But I don't laugh because when I look into her deep brown eyes, I can tell that a part of her thinks it's true. In fact, who's to say it isn't true? The destiny bond works just as well on humans. Why not tigers, too?

I also sink back into my seat. "What a mess."

"B, why couldn't you just have waited for your destined like everybody else?" Astrid asks quietly. "At least then I'd know you were leaving for love and not for some pompous jerk."

Why would I leave when my love is here? I want to respond, but instead sink deeper into my seat.

It's a good question though. It would flush out my inappropriate feelings for my best friend. But also, in the deep recesses of my mind, I fear that my destined would be a woman that my parents would never approve of, because Goddess knows how obsessed wolves are with heirs and lineage. I know that's why dad married mom, the rich princess of Golden Heart, although, in the end, they've only been disappointed by bearing merely one child, a daughter no less.

All the riches in the world could never wipe out the daily reminder seared inside my brain that I, Bianca Greywood, daughter of the Alpha of Silver Bow, am just a woman.

I unlock Astrid's passenger door.

"I'll see you tomorrow," I say and wait for her to exit my car so I can be alone for a while.

Astrid leaves with a quiet 'see you' and, immediately, I drive off.

I park my car at home then race through the woods, ripping through my sequined outfit, its beads flittering all about as I emerge a mass of white fluff, with two heavy paws that thud on the ground I land.

And I run till dawn.