Alpha Royale

10. ...Pretty Sunflowers and Daisies...

The same white moonlight filtered in through the window to brighten the darkened room. The bedroom's light were dimmed, and a few vanilla scented candles burned from atop the tabletops, all lit by Cat before retiring for the night.

I was seated on one of the leather armchairs I had drawn up to face the door, a bottle of expensive of Jin, brought to my room at my request by some other scullery maid, swinging in my hand. Drinking with Aaron at an illegal age certainly did come with a gift for a higher tolerance. After nearly wandering the entire castle almost twice over I had stumbled into a worried Cat, whom hadn't been pleased to escort me to the room after vanishing for the duration of the charity dinner.

Another swing had burned its way down my throat when I felt my conscious slip and return within under a few rushed heartbeats. My eyes fluttered shut, the sound of the door creaking opening the only the reason they reopened again.

"Iva, you're here," Gabriel said unsurprisingly. His eyes were affixed on me, his coat hanging over his shoulder by a hand and fur shoulder cape still pinned in place. "I wasn't expecting to find you here."

"I retired early," I reply, twirling the half empty bottles contents.

"I didn't take you for a drinker," Gabriel frowned at the bottle, meeting my gaze.

"I didn't take you for someone who loves the company of gorgeous female royals," I said too coolly.

He exhaled a heavy sigh. "Iva, you're the only one."

"I better be," I murmur and I saw him cringe a bit until his eyes darkened and his demeanor changed.

"Who did that to you?"

I was going to take another swing of my alcohol when I saw him looking down at my once bleeding hand from earlier this evening when I decided crunching glass out jealousy was the only acceptable thing to do. It had healed for the most part, but it was itchy red and a scar remained. His words caused a jolt of energy to go up my legs to the apex of my thighs but yet I resisted pushing my thighs together. Looking dead straight at him, eye in eye, I said coldly, "I did."

His mind must have needed the time to process that, but he didn't comment specifically. It looked more like he was either trying contain his wolf or his own anger or perhaps both as he tried to calm his deepened breathing.

When I didn't elaborate and continued drinking from the bottle, he watched me intently, leaning against the door frame. The things this man makes me feel...

"Mother was meant to scare you Iva; she's cold, manipulative and knows her way around people like most know how to play a game of chess. She'd be the opponent that checkmates you within a matter of a few moves. As much as she's calculating, she's also impatient."

"Is that suppose to make me feel good about myself? That I have patience, although it threads as thin as my anger?"

Gabriel took the time to assess whether or not I was serious, his whirring eyeballs telling me as much. "I can't help that my temper can be described as volatile." I added, with another careless swing of my bottle. This time it went down too smoothly.

"It was her call to bring Adela between us, you know as much as I do she's desperate to severe the bond. Iva, I hate to mention it but she doesn't want friendships-"

"Good because I am not 6, Gabriel," My voice comes in a vicious hiss, "that I'm going to be friends with the bullies in hope they stop picking at me. She thinks I'm a damned gold-digger who shouldn't be allowed to meddle with the most prestigious royal family of the century."

It hurt, each and every word like the sharpened edge to shattered fragments of glass.

"She doesn't want to break you," He said rather sternly, eyes glittering like rhinestones, "she wants to destroy you Iva. But, I want you."

There was yearning in those eyes of his, it was what brought him closer to me with each step. "She can't remove you as long as I stand because I will not loose my mate to a woman like her. I respect the fact she's my mother and she's an independent women, ruling a nation," I snort loudly, Gabriel choosing to overlook it, "but I have standards and as prince and your loyal Mate, I have expectations set by you and my crown."

He was about to push away, stalk somewhere else when I said, "I will not be broken by some no good bitch who think she can scare me with a basket of pretty sunflowers and daisies, using them to symbolize the false riches and my innocence."

He paused right behind me, back to mine until I whirled. "I'm just as educated in the language of flowers as she is, and one day I'll show her with a garland of aconite."

...

Today wasn't a good day.