Daughter Dearest...Why Is There A Werewolf In Your Bed...?

I woke up and threw my pillow at my alarm clock. I am not a morning person. A huge yawn escaped my mouth as I rolled over and stretched. The curtains around my bed were closed, I tugged on a rope to open them and squinted into the sunlight.

Great. Another maid to fire.

Let me elaborate.

Since I was half vampire, my behavior in the sun varied. I could be comfortable in it or I could get very sick. I had to get a shot every morning before they opened the curtains in order for me to function normally.

I shut the curtains and grabbed my cell phone from under my pillow, dialing the number for the maid’s room.

“Hello?” The calming voice spoke.

“Um...someone forgot to close my curtains for this morning...”

There was a pause.

“RACHEL!” I held the earpiece away from my ear. “I am so sorry, princess. I will get someone up there right away.”

Leave it to Hilda to get people’s asses moving. A few seconds later, I heard a bang as my door flung open and a swish of fabric meaning the curtains were closed.

“Princess, are you okay?” A small head with large brown eyes, peeked in between the curtains around my bed.

“Hi Rachel. Yes I’m fine. I closed the curtains when I noticed the window was exposed. Don’t worry.”

She sighed in relief and nodded gratefully. Another maid pushed past her and held her hand out. I let her grip my arm as she brandished the syringe. I cringed and looked away as I was injected with the clear liquid medicine. I hated needles...

“Rachel won’t be fired will she?” I croaked. Yes, croaked. I told you I don’t like needles.

The maid pulled the syringe out of my arm and glanced back at Rachel who as smiling timidly. Pretty much an “Oops?” smile.

The maid heaved out a sigh, “I’ll tell Hilda that you don’t want her fired.”

I smiled widely, “Thanks, Mildred.” Rachel was the only maid who was my age. It was nice to be able to talk to someone who didn’t always bow down to you every time they saw you. I told Rachel that I didn’t want her too. She finally agreed after I scolded her for the thousandth time.

She gave up. I won!

The maid walked out of the room and Rachel leaped onto my bed and hugged me.

“Oh! Thank you! Thank you!” I laughed and hugged her back.

“I wasn’t about to have you leave so that I would have to take advice from my mother all of the time...” I rolled my eyes as I thought about it. I mean even though my mom still acted around my age...she was my mom!

Rachel pulled away from me and began to blurt out the gossip of the kingdom. That Ethan’s wife was seen with my mom, shopping in the stores in town. It was a definite plus for the relations between the two feuding sides. The rumors of a rebellion by the rogue lycans who were still pissed about the old alpha were spreading and it was nice to see some peace between the sides.

I gave her my full attention when she told me that a lot more political figures would be visiting the castle. They were working on a treaty.

“Oh, great,” I groaned. It was weird enough that I had to be introduced to the people who my father was working with. Having to be polite to them, even when I hated them. Well not hated, more of...disliked being in their presence.

Rachel put a hand on my shoulder and sighed, “You can make it.”

I smiled, “Yeah, but I’ll need a lot of patience.” Rachel laughed. Let’s just say I’m not the most patient person on the planet. You don’t need the details.

Rachel stood up and patted down her unruly skirt. The maid’s uniform wasn’t that bad. My mom had been livid when she first saw the uniforms my father had them wear before she had lived with him in her third life. My father always shuddered when he thought back to that.

Mom must have been really mad to make the king of the vampires shudder. He always smiled afterwards, but you could still tell he was scared.

The uniform consisted of a white calf-length skirt and a grey long sleeve shirt. It didn’t look too drab and you could still tell that they were maids. It looked comfortable too. Rachel bid her goodbye and left me to change.

More like, rolled out of bed and shuffled through the hallways. I yawned widely, my eyes half-lidded as the little adrenaline rush left my system. I didn’t even notice the thing in the middle of the hallway until I bumped into it.

“Oof! Who left a.....um, who are you?” I looked up as I talked and found myself looking into a man’s face. Someone I didn’t know.

Shit! How can people get into the castle when there’s so much damn security around? I kept starring at the man until he cleared him throat and introduced himself.

“I am a representative of the lycans in the next kingdom.”

I stared at him. I knew there were other kingdoms of vampires and lycans. I just never met any of them. It was supposedly very hard to get past border security after the James Incident.

Word of the struggle for power had spread far, I guessed.

I got a good look at the man. He had sharp features and a little bit of stubble. How could this man have a five o’clock shadow, in the middle of the morning? It escaped my ability to reason. I seemed to recall my mother telling me she had thought the same thing when she first met my father. The details were a little fuzzy when she told me, but that thought had escaped the haze of my mother’s suspicious recollection. It was like she was giving me half-truths. Hiding something.

The man was also a head taller than me, with brown eyes and dirty blonde hair. His business suit was wrinkled like he had slept in it, which was probably the case. It was a day’s ride to get here from the other kingdom. And even longer than that to get here from another kingdom.

I didn’t bother with names. I told you I wasn’t interested in politics.

“I’m sorry. Are you alright?” the man asked.

“Yeah. I would just like to know who you are.” I adopted the prestigious sounding voice as I straightened my posture. I was trying to be intimidating. Which didn’t seem to be working.

“I’m Mason. Who are you?” he began to walk down the hallway, looking both ways down a perpendicular hallway.

“I’m Rayne,” I stated simply. The man froze as he looked to his left, down the hallway again. His shoulders tensed and his head slowly turned around. The theme from a movie my mother had made me watch played through my head, “Psycho” I believe it was called.

“You are...the princess?” his voice seemed to shake slightly. I looked at him curiously, he seemed to be lost.

“Yes,” I sighed putting my hands on my hips, “Are you looking for my father’s study?”

He turned around and walked up to me, nodding. I motioned for him to follow me and walked to a small stairway that lead from the second floor the third floor. My father was standing outside his office checking his watch until he heard us approaching.

“Ah! Mason! I’m so sorry the help didn’t tell you which stairway to take. They have seen so many people come in and out so often that they assume they know where to go.”

Mason walked past me as my father gave a thank you nod to me. I returned it and started back to my room.

“Rayne?” My mother’s call reached my ears and I paused. If she hadn’t seen me I could play it off as a maid passing by to dust or something. If she had seen me I could ignore her. But if that couldn’t work, I could make a run for it. I mean, I was still in my pjs and she was already calling me to meet someone. Probably a politician’s wife.

I hated being there. I really did. Like I said before...I hated being in their presence. It lets them scrutinize me and I could tell that they were thinking of getting me to marry their son. My mother had declined all of them, to my immense relief.

“Rayne I know that it’s you! Go change and come back! If you don’t I’ll send a letter to dear Derrek...” my mother’s voice singsonged through the air. I stumbled in my haste to get back to my room.

Derrek had been an overzealous kind of guy. He was so stuck up, that I knew there was no way to get the stick out. Even my father couldn’t stand his attitude. My mother had liked him, until he had insulted the dessert she had made. He just couldn’t shut up. So every so often she would threaten that she would send an acceptance notice to his parents.

I shuddered at the thought.

So I shoved myself into a black pencil skirt and black flats with a brown long sleeve t-shirt; the usual outfit I wore to meet some politician’s family. I shuffled my feet, trying to prevent the inevitable. I slumped down the stairs and straightened my posture as I reached the parlor. A woman was sitting with my mother as they sat and chatted away about nothing in particular.

My mother turned around and waved me in. “Rayne come on in! This is Mason’s wife, Lidia.” The woman next to my mother turned around and smiled. She had blonde hair and grey eyes, both of them contrasting greatly against the pale pink sun dress she wore. I nearly grimaced, I would put pink in my hair and shoes, but never that pale of a pink in a dress. Blech.

“I would introduce you to my son, but it seems like he won’t be arriving until tomorrow.” She smiled wider. Great another hopeful parent.

“Mason is the king in the next kingdom, they are lycans,” my mother informed me.

So my mother would have me marry a lycan? Not that I had a problem with that, but I haven’t exactly heard many great things about lycans.

I sat with my mother for a few more minutes before I excused myself to get some breakfast. It was then that I made my escape to my room. I walked back into my room and was about to pull a chair to the window that took up most of my wall to the balcony, when I noticed that the curtains on my bed were closed again.

I set down the apple and glass bottle of orange juice and walked over to my bed. I liked it when my pillow was cold, the curtains kept the warm air in. I pulled the rope and went to flip my pillow over when I noticed that there was someone in my bed.

A guy with black hair and blonde streaks laid in my bed, eyes closed until he noticed that the cold air was flowing around him. All I could do was stare at him. I didn’t even break out of my stupor to call the guards. His eyes kept me locked. They were the most beautiful shade of grey I had ever seen.

“Oh. This is your room? Sorry, I was wandering around and noticed that this door was open. I saw the posters on the wall and decided that the person in who had this room would be interesting to talk to,” he looked me over, not caring that I saw, and smirked, “I guess I was right.” He stood up abruptly and took my hand.

He led me down the halls until we came back to the parlor. Lidia looked up in surprise.

“You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow...” she whispered, but a smile was evident on her face. My mother turned around and looked at us in surprise, then to our hands which were still intertwined.

“Well, Rayne, I see you have met Miles.”