.
Vera sat in the bloodied tub, soaking her entire body with warm water while being covered in suds and bubbles. Her dark hair vanquished it's flames and rested damply against her forehead, while also spilling sultry around her shoulders.
She felt powerful and powerless equally falling motionless underneath her bathing pool. It was maddening how many emotions ran blankly inside of her mind.
Her roguery gazed openly through the window at the midnight sky and the stars which glistened back at her into a smirk. Vera imagined her mate running along the forest lines but she'd known better than to think he'd be on his way back to her any time soon. Not after she'd shifted into a feral beast, and especially after she'd been approached by another man.
To make matters more dire, Alexander could feel the excitement Vera felt upon being pursued by Adonis.
Just that single thought alone, is enough to make Vera shiver and sink deeper into the warm bubbles that encompassed her.
She broke away her gaze from the moon's glare as Heidi began to mumble something.
"What!" The attitude leeches from her tone so quickly being spat onto Heidi, who furrows her eyebrows dejectedly.
"I said that I'd like to tell you a story. That's if you allow me to, Vera." Heidi sat in the stool in front of the tub with the naked Vera soaking underneath.
For all the time in the world, Vera always hated Heidi's quizzical lectures. She didn't need the confusion.
Vera leans forward to show she was indeed listening when Heidi grabs the nearest rag beginning to bathe her.
"Your words would only trail me deeper into another maze, you know that right?" Vera whispers as she wiped at her wet eyes. From water, and sobs.
Heidi smiles lowly at her response but didn't mind it. "Will you just listen." Heidi pleads obstructively.
Heidi already knew where she'd begin, If only Vera was determined to listen truly and fully. Then would she grasp then entirety of the story.
And what it really meant.
Vera lets out a desperate sigh resting her back against the tub until the water came just below her nose. She sees her reflection mirror her action threw the glass where the moon gleamed, then she hummed to herself even more trying to find tranquility.
Instead she sufficed with a pounding headache that nauseated her brain and shifted around her core until it reduced an infuriating heat to atoms.
"Once upon a time there was a woman. Whom was gentle, she was significantly beautiful, she petrified all else around her." Heidi took this time to pour shampoo into her palms where she began to lather it around, before soothing it into Vera's hair.
With Heidi Gripping her hair roots tightly but gently, Vera winces but soon surrendered to the appeasing touch that grew more delicate.
Heidi then cleared her throat to speak, "In fact she was so beautiful everyone kind of thought of her as... Aphrodite reincarnated."
Vera couldn't help but to feel lulled at the tone in Heidi's voice when Heidi giggles more, filling her with whimsy and content.
"She was mated to an alpha who bore her a son, which to the same male she bore two more. Twins." At this point, Vera began to hum as she closed her eyes — instantly relaxing to the change of atmosphere.
When she closed her eyes instantly a creature appeared, easing its way into her imagination as she followed the stillness in Heidi's voice that soothes her in a way it moderated her bruised bones that shedded once into a werewolf that made her sore all around.
Slowly Vera's thoughts were clouded as she reminisces of her mate and how her teacher for all those years turned out to be related to him in the end. It almost seemed vaguely premeditated, which it was, due to Alexander's indirect confession.
Heidi rings out the rag filled with water, replacing it with more soap to drag across Vera's chest, all while continuing her story. Vera wiggled her toes and sunk further into the bath, the smile on her face beginning to grow. Heidi trailed the rag across Vera's breast, rubbing the soapy scent into her pinkish nubs. "One day this woman attended a ball where she met a man whom she connected with. He was the King's foot stool. Right hand man per-say, but she didn't register that. Because he was masked. It was a masquerade, I forgot to mention that."
Vera nodded her head in response to show she were indeed listening for Heidi to continue her fable, following her eyelids starting to flutter along with her stomach. She didn't understand why Heidi paused with means to drag out whatever conveying message she was trying to infer but Vera internally shrugged it off.
She also couldn't tell whether Heidi intended to caress into her arms and fondled at her breast like she had but also decided not to say anything,
"She fell in love with him." Heidi stated with finality. Biting back her lip, she looked into Vera's eyes that was swimming with attentiveness and grail before she invaded between her legs with the same plushy clothe.
"They were bewitched, true mates which no one believes to this day because she was fate tied to the king."
"How could this be? I'll never understand." Vera's tone was trimmed in just the right way as Heidi rubbed her skin into her Alexander's little mate's own.
Vera gasped in union to Heidi straining her hair, removing the shampoo suds from her scalp only then to rinse it some more.
"Years had surpassed of the two sneaking around when suddenly the King called for a Blood Pardoning..." Heidi says trailing off once again, only this time Vera couldn't help but to be flooded with suspicion.
Soothingly Heidi caressed Vera's inner thighs, deepening her palms into the scars Vera received from her painfully first transition. She really sympathized with her for than one reason.
One being she was equivalent to Alexander's lycan and this she could not know. She matched his wolf in size, characteristics, speed. It was almost as if she was royalty herself and not some poor girl who once lived in a sheltered foster home all her life.
Vera pushes her wet hair neatly to the side as she turned to her mate's sister who rose to her feet. Towering over Vera for a mere second before reaching to the bathroom's closet. Upleading to Vera's dismay — Heidi took from it; a fluffy white towel and two containments of oils.
"A blood pardoning is the time period of trial combined with free treason. The King would release a bunch of slaves in comparison to faulty criminals," Vera squinted her eyes as she stared at the floor tiles in deep thought but she pondered on it even a little longer once Heidi motioned for her to stand, which she reluctantly did.
"What was the reason." Vera inquired though she had an inkling she had known better. She outstretched her arms, revealing more of her nudity even further.
Heidi sighed turning away from the girl not before she hunched over the sink where she gazed at her into the mirror. Her cheeks were tainted pink and she could see the Alexander's princess pull the plug out of the tub and then she began to moisturize herself with lavender and rosary scents.
"The king's intuition grew, he suspected someone had been secretly courting his luna." Heidi bit back her bottom lip as she closed her eyes tightly shut, she facepalmed herself and debated where to finish,
"In other words, adulteries."
As if on cue, Vera takes another daring look towards the window hugging the towel around her body, waiting for something. Someone to reveal themself, a sign... an anything.
Although she was very much listening to Heidi, her mind couldn't help but to wander towards her mate who she longed for without remorse and denial. He would surely be alone tonight, cold and bearing the ways of the wild. In his wolf form, remaining as his other entity succumbing under its instinctual habits.
Though they never voluntarily slept together most nights in the same bed at least, Vera felt even more alone than she already had.
"Go on." Vera instructed returning her attention from the mere distraction.
She turned away from the window pane to pull the curtains back by the rod once a single tear slid from her eye and she started to dry her hair, "During the trials he released millions of men to rogues. Both old and young.. but he waited to the very end to announce the treason as he formidably came to a tenet."
A conviction, Vera reprimanded inside of her head. She noticed during the story how Heidi vibrated and walked out of the bathroom in which she followed with the towel still hung around her body, she noted, that the king in the story waited to the climax of the serial pardoning to announce his creed and his impending action— almost as if...
"He smelled him on her, didn't he." Vera mumbled. "He knew all along since the very beginning... for months who had been cultivating his wife." And as she expected Heidi nodded.
Vera took a deep breath in, focusing the comb threw her brown hair as something inside her had snapped. Furrowing her eyebrows together her voice cracked in between syllables.
"The same as Alexander smelled him on me," Realization had washed over completely as she noticed the parallel.
Vera shuffled around on her feet until she moved around Heidi to gain access to a drawer that held her clothing inside, scratch that, her mate's clothing.
"Ok. Well, what happened next." Vera said, shrugging.
Heidi stared perplexingly at the girl who pulled boxer briefs up her slender legs and a long blue tee that stopped just above her stubby knees. She watched seeing Vera take a seat onto the bed where she also began to pull white cotton socks over her feet.
Heidi scoffs at this action. "You know what happened next Vera, the King sentenced him." As if it weren't anymore to say.
"To how long?"
"Death!" Heidi growled out in frustration, "Well how was I suppose to know that!" Vera returned the shout while her eyebrows knitted together in equal annoyance.
"Why are you telling me this story Heidi and what does this have to do with Alexander, and me wanting answers?" Vera sassed.
She stood back on her feet to shove past Heidi while bumping her shoulder in the process and after, she fled to the window sill in angst to remove the repulsive curtains.
"Vera maybe the answers you are oblivious to...you already know. You're just too stubborn to put the pieces together." Heidi insists.
Vera does a three sixty spin, glaring daggers at Heidi, "I'm too stubborn? Really? You've been around me my entire life watching me on the sidelines as everyone picked on me. You knew of my fate with your brother and hadn't said a thing. People pushed me down and made me a laughing stock when I couldn't even shift into my wolf." Vera yells poking at Heidi's chest.
The brunette shoves past the blonde again walking back towards her bed, she was so delusive in the mind she didn't even know what to do!
She pulls her mate's shirt towards her nose giving in to her inner urges to sniff. His scent calms her and relaxes the creature inside that yearns for the closeness of a soulmate. Heidi gawked at the dusk haired child out of blasphemy. She didn't know how to respond without sounding like a total jackass coming up with an excuse.
She wanted to say it was fitting and righteous, how it made her stronger but instead it had only made Vera weaker.
"And yet, finally as my life has a turning point to be something good my own mate won't even accept me. He treats me like the past people I've eve come to know in this life, even Andy, my sister had. Except it's worst because he's the very one person in this world whose suppose to love me." Vera couldn't help but to cry again with her sobs louder than before.
Heidi doesn't say anything as she sits on the bed next to Vera. "I don't understand, and then this new guy. Who I haven't even heard of, despite my deep research in the past on the royal family. Who by the way could possibly be my mate also?" Heidi hushes Vera who cries harder.
A deep howl is heard from outside the window suddenly disrupting Vera's cries.
"I don't think we should talk about Adonis right now." Vera shifts to the edge of the bed after momentarily being startled. "He can hear us." Heidi says, sighing on the bed.
Heidi's irises were now transfixed on the window that showed the woody forest, which hid the her brother, Alexander.
"I don't give a shit." Vera curses, glaring in pure hatred outside at intimidating shadows. She stands and walks over to push the window open, only to see a black wolf almost invisible, zipping past its surroundings.
"Bane can go and fuck himself and see if I care." As soon as Vera says this the wolf stops mid run and bows it's head at her.
"Well tell me this Heidi, how many brothers do you have?" Vera asks, entirely changing the subject. "All my life I heard there was five but I didn't get to know their names."
Heidi smirks more to herself, with images of all of her siblings coming to frame inside of her mind. She never got to see them often, just mostly Alexander and Clarity.
"Well my eldest brother, who you'll never meet. He was the Great Achilles. The forgotten first born son as most would say outside of the royal family. Then there are The twins. Lionel and Adonis. The twins are both widely compassionate and conflicting." Heidi looked to be in some sort of daze as she smiling thinking of her family tree.
"Then there's your Alexander, who turned out to be the bachelor we know today. Finally the youngest being Me and Clarity-" Heidi goes on absentmindedly trailing off, before she anticipated a distracted Vera.
"Look Vera, the point is, The King sentenced his best friend for the courting of his wife. Killing her suitor who she was impregnated by-"
Heidi is cut off by Vera's fist colliding with the glass, smashing it in the process.
Vera releases a blood curdling scream, bellowing out in agony while thrashing around at the shards inside of her palm. The tiny woman amazes Heidi once she tosses everything residing on Alexander's nightstand, with them all flying out of his window.
Sounds of things shattering on impact once meeting the concrete outside of the manor awakened Heidi's heightened ears.
"God damnit! That damn wolf keeps staring at me with those.. Alluring wine eyes! Stop looking at me, you!" Vera pounds harder on the glass upon noticing Alexander's beast sitting, intently staring at her with poised eyes and anointed fur that called out to her grazes, and affable fingers.
Heidi pulls Vera away slowly from the view causing for a whine to be issued from Rachel Alexander's mouth which barred canines, he thrusted forward on the balls of his paws but looked to be battling internally with himself.
It was truly a vivid sight between instinctual nature versus the human side of pride and conceptional matters. Both were at stake, equally as tantalizing and confused.
"Vera listen to me. Alex doesn't want me telling you this and honestly it's not my place. But what I will do is help you figure it out." Heidi promised.
Vera falls disconsolately, with her back hitting the soft palatial bed before Heidi through the sheets on top of her, and she began to tuck her in. Vera sighs feeling her heart beat lessen its pace as Heidi pulls back Vera's silky black hair, tying it into a ponytail.
She covers the window with its curtain again finally settling in a chair beside Vera's bed where she began to watch her intently. "Why doesn't he want me?" Vera whispers falling into a slumber.
Before she could fall into a chamber of absolute unconsciousness, Vera decided to ask again, though she hadn't registered what was going on or that she had spoken.
"Heidi, who were those people?" She murmurs.
Heidi had slid into the comforter on the couch, where she soon drug her fingers throughout her hair, staring into nothingness.
"Who are the people in the story." Vera begs again for a solidified answer.
heat crept up the base of her neck, lThe King was my father, Augustus, and the woman in question is deceased Mother." Heidi chokes out an answer.
"What about His right hand man? The one who courted his wife in secrecy?" Out of curiosity Vera's hand found the side of Heidi's hip bone where she tugged and awaited a response.
"His beta. The man sentenced was his beta."
•••