Claimed By The King(s) Of Kings

Aina

Malric’s eyes locked onto Aina with a terrifying, absolute intensity. Vance stepped forward immediately, his broad chest heaving as he stared down at the trembling blonde boy in front of him.

”Would you spill it already, Travis?!” Vance growled out loud, his voice booming across the water. Aina swallowed hard, a lump forming in her throat so large it felt like a jagged rock. She felt her knees shaking beneath her trousers. Instinctively, her small fingers reached up, nervously adjusting the bridge of her glasses.

”Oh... uh... okay,” Aina stammered out, her voice pitching slightly higher than normal. ”Well... I... I saw her yesterday. The girl in the purple dress. Right... right before I jumped out the window. She... she...”

”Stop the stuttering and say it!” Vance snapped violently, taking a threatening step closer. ”You weren’t stuttering the other day! Speak!”

Oh God, get your act together, Aina! she screamed furiously at herself in her head, her cheeks heating up under their intense, predatory stares. You need to pull yourself together right now or they won’t believe a single lie that is about to come out of your mouth!

Aina took a quick, deep breath, anchoring her feet onto the damp tile. She forced her expression into one of total, innocent earnestness.

”Well, I saw her yesterday!” Aina blurted out, her voice steadying as she laid out the grand deception. ”And... well, she explicitly said she was not a student here! She said she lives somewhere far out on the mountainside! I was obviously super surprised to see a girl standing in a room full of creepy mannequins, which was weird, but anyways... she said she was from the mountainside. She heard some huge party going on out there and came to find food at the party. Also, she’s a rogue!”

Silence descended over the pool pavilion, heavy and suffocating. The three enforcement boys standing near the archway—Max, Jax, and Dax, looked at each other in total bewilderment.

”A rogue?” Max repeated out loud, his brow furrowing.

”A rogue?” Jax echoed.

Molly blinked, turning her head to stare at Aina in shock. ”A rogue?!”

Theo stepped forward from the shadow of the stone pillar, his ice-blue eyes narrowing into two razor-sharp slits as he stared directly into Aina’s eyes.

”Is this a joke to you, Whitelock boy?” Theo asked coldly, his voice smooth, terrifying, and completely devoid of warmth. ”There are no rogues in the capital.”

”Well, that’s what I heard!” Aina lied smoothly, widening her eyes behind her clear lenses and holding her hands up defensively. ”She said she is a rogue! She live somewhere hidden deep inside the dark forest out by the mountain!”

Malric, who had been standing deathly still, suddenly stopped pacing. He stared at Aina for three long, agonizing seconds, his eyes burning with an unreadable, chaotic fire.

”Okay,” Malric said, his voice dropping into a low, lethal hum that made the hair on Aina’s arms stand straight up. ”I am going to personally search that entire forest. And if I do not find her out there... you are a liar, Whitelock. And I will eat you.”

Without waiting another second, Malric spun on his heel and stormed out of the pool pavilion, his dark cape billowing behind him. Vance and Theo cast one last lingering, threatening glare at Aina before turning and rushing out right after their brother, their heavy boots thundering down the hallway.

Aina let out a long, shuddering breath, her shoulders collapsing as the heavy pressure in the room evaporated.

Wow, Aina thought bitterly, staring at the empty doorway. Rude bastard. He’s not even going to find anything out there. Oh God, please do a miracle, Aina begged the Moon Goddess in her mind, her stomach tying itself into a sickening knot. They’re really going to go look for her right now?! That forest isn’t even that big! They are going to find out I am full of complete nonsense very soon!

Molly turned around, clapping her hands together with a bright, triumphant smile.

”See?!” Molly chirped happily, completely oblivious to Aina’s internal meltdown. ”Now that you’ve given them their information, they’ll be so preoccupied with finding their fated mate that they probably won’t even notice you at all!”

Aina offered a weak, hollow nod. ”Yeah... for like two seconds, Molly. They’re going to employ all the academy vampires to search that forest very, very soon. I doubt they’re going to search it all by themselves.”

Molly paused, tapping her chin thoughtfully. ”That’s true. They’ll probably be completely done searching by the end of the day. That forest really isn’t that big.”

”Yeah,” Aina muttered sarcastically, rubbing her temples. ”It’s really not that big.”

”Anyways!” Molly cheered, waving her hand dismissively. ”When they find her, they’ll be so preoccupied with loving her, that they’ll forget all about you! So we win!”

Aina forced a fake, painful smile onto her face, nodding along like a wooden dummy.

Yeah... we sure do win, Aina thought bitterly, her inner voice practically weeping in agony. I am screwed. I am so ridiculously, unbelievably screwed! The second Malric realizes there are no rogues in that forest, he is going to come back here and tear me limb from limb!

Before Aina could wallow in her self-pity any longer, Molly suddenly grabbed her by the sleeve, checking the small gold watch on her wrist.

”Oh, no!” Molly gasped, her eyes widening in horror. ”We’ve completely missed our physical training class because of all this drama! Now we have to rush straight to Math! If we don’t hurry, Professor Nae is going to lose his mind, he is such a terrible, awful person to latecomers!”

Aina’s jaw dropped in pure, unadulterated outrage.

Oh, come on! Aina screamed in her head as Molly yanked her out of the pool room and down the corridor. Now I have to do MATH?! As if this day couldn’t get any worse! How bad can one morning actually get?!

She huffed, her breath rattling slightly in her chest as she reached into her pocket, her fingers brushing against the cool, sleek metal of the custom silver inhaler Headmaster Roiner had bought her.

My morning started out so amazingly, Aina complained inwardly, her cheeks flushing slightly as she remembered sitting in Roiner’s sunlit kitchen wearing his oversized shirt. I got to spend time with hottie pants, I got these amazing expensive glasses, I got a custom inhaler... but it literally doesn’t take the royal princes doing much to completely ruin my entire damn day!