Cooking for a Cruel Queen

Kelly

“Hi, Luna,” some of our kitchen helpers called, smiling playfully at me as I passed them by. 

“You all know that I am not yet the Luna,” I replied, returning their smiles. 

“We all know that you would soon be our Luna,” one of them replied happily. 

“Yes,” the other one agreed, “No one else deserves to be called that but you.” I shook my head as I proceeded to enter the office of the Alpha. 

Leo looked up from the papers he was reading and gave me that dimpled smile as our eyes met. He stood up and walked towards me as I closed the door behind me. The moment the door closed, he was already standing in front of me. Up close, he was just devastatingly handsome with his messy light brown wavy hair and brown eyes. 

“I missed you,” he whispered as he gently took my hand, pulled me closer to him, and turned me around. He wrapped me in his embrace, and everything just felt right. Goddess, I love this man so much. 

“I missed you, too,” I whispered back, placing my hands over his strong arms that felt like my safe place. 

Every night, I prayed to the Moon Goddess to make him my mate. 

He dipped his head down, and I felt his warm breath against my neck as he said, “God, you're so beautiful.” Oh my goddess, even the sound of his voice was enough to make my knees grow weak. He gently pulled away as he made me face him. He lowered his head, about to kiss me, when the door of the office burst open and my brother came barging in.

Embarrassed to be caught, I quickly hid behind Leo. He knew how easily I got shy and let out a soft laugh. The three of us might have grown up together, but there are some things that I still want to keep private. 

My brother and Leo are both three years older than I, but that didn’t break the bond that we have formed. And as for Leo and me, it even grew stronger. 

Leo reached for some papers on his desk, but his large frame was still enough to cover me. 

“You’re just in time. We are about to go out for a date,” Leo announced as he looked at me and winked before turning to face my brother and handing him a stack of what seemed to be unfinished documents. 

My brother muttered something under his breath I didn’t quite understand before saying, “I thought we were way past the time that the two of you bullied a poor single guy like me.”“Bullying? You might have misunderstood, my dear brother. We would never bully you,” I said as I stood beside Leo, who was now leaning against his desk. 

“Yeah, right,” my brother mumbled. 

I smiled at him. 

“By the way,” Leo said, interrupting my brother and me, “Is your father really going to adopt the girl?”

“Yeah,” he answered irritably, “My father said that she looks so pitiful and that we should show compassion when needed.” My brother sounded like a child having a tantrum because he wasn’t able to get the toy he wanted.  

“News had it that our neighbors are telling our father how much the girl resembles his first love,” I added as I leaned closer to Leo. “We are against it because it felt like disrespect to our mother, but no matter what reason we provided to our father, his mind was already set on adopting her.”

Leo tagged my chin up, making me look at him. The love behind those brown eyes kept my anxiety at bay.

I smiled at him and then looked at my brother. My father adores me, and yet, why do I feel like he is slowly slipping through my fingers, getting out of reach? A heavy sigh escaped my lips as the uncertainty won over me, and I asked the two important people in my life the hardest question for me to ask.

“What if the two of you ended up favoring her, too? What would happen to me?”

Leo reached for me, “No one could ever take your place, Kelly.” He pulled me into his arms, and I heard my brother agree with him, even telling me that I would always be his favorite sister as long as Leo and I don’t do sweet things in front of him.

Leo smiled and bent his head towards me as if to kiss me, but stopped when my brother muttered angrily, “Get a room, you two. I am trying to work.”

Leo and I laughed. 

From the weather to the harmony that the three of us have, and most especially, with Leo. His love for me would always be my sweet haven.

Everything was perfect…

But all of that changed the moment Merry came into our lives. 

Because what used to be filled with happiness, all turned into one big mess of pain.