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29. Torture
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Once A Luna, Now A Stealer? 30. Apology
Callista.How could Theon have let this happen to me?I’ve been pondering that question since I woke up in the infirmary and am no closer to finding an answer than I did before. It is far too devastating just to be a misunderstanding.Later, I am laid on a crisp infirmary bed after being treated and bandaged, dressed in a loose hospital gown. I feel like a mummy, wrapped from head to toe. Dr. Harris had told me that I didn’t have any internal bleeding, fortunately. The dungeon master hadn’t damaged me that bad, despite all the blood.Like, he hadn’t done anything that would take a long while to heal. He’d hurt me plenty.But he’d done enough. I was once again bed-bound, and in my state, I’m going to take at least a month to fully recover. I’ve got four broken ribs, a sprained wrist, a full-blown concussion which had thankfully already healed into a mild concussion, and a whole lot of cuts and bruises. My whole back had been sewn up.I feel like a soldier who’d gone to war.The infirma
Once A Luna, Now A Stealer? 31. Agreement
Callista.“I didn’t make a contract like that,” I reply. This was absolute news to me. I’d certainly remember if someone had asked me or forced me to write anything before being drugged with Wolfsbane. I didn’t remember much about what happened afterward, though, except for the parts with Theon in them.Oh, Goddess, what had Farris Leighwen done to me now?“Impossible, the document is legitimate. We even checked the validity of the agreement using an Earth witch. You yourself wrote it and signed it.” Theon answers, his brows furrowing. However, he isn’t stupid, and there is doubt in his eyes. Surely he must’ve realized by now that Farris had been at least a little shady with everything.“That’s not possible. I would remember doing something like that.” Even though I insist, I’m starting to feel doubtful. A witch’s magic didn’t lie. I try to wrack my brain to find signing and writing such a damning document anytime before.Had I actually done it? I’ve read that Wolfsbane caused tempora
Once A Luna, Now A Stealer? 32. Enough
Callista.“See this corridor?” The maid who'd called me, Helen, points at an extremely muddy corridor, “This needs to be washed, like, ASAP. The Alpha King absolutely loathes uncleanliness.”I look at the amount of dirt and gulp. “That’s…that is a lot of dirt,” I state the obvious, “This is the entrance, right?”“Yeah, and we need to keep it clean, all the time. The newbie is usually in charge of this. So,” She thrusts at me a mob and a bucket, “Get on with it.”So, the maids don’t really like me much. It might have to do with me being the stealer as well as a criminal now. They were all much older than me, in their twenties or thirties, and they were very, very cold. As soon as I was taken to the maid quarters and introduced to them, they’d told me that I wasn’t to expect any special treatment from them and that they didn’t really want a stealer of all people with them, and that the only reason they were gonna tolerate my existence was because their Alpha King had commanded it.Very
Once A Luna, Now A Stealer? 33. Eavesdrop
Callista.It’s about 07:00 PM, and I’m carrying a load of laundry that belongs to the Beta’s family. It was heavier than any others and had mostly baby clothes. I’ve heard in the kitchen that the Beta’s mate’s third child had been born just weeks ago, and all the nappies were his.I navigate the maze of corridors that make the east wing of the castle. This wing hosts almost all the bedrooms and studies, sitting rooms, drawing rooms, and a big library last I checked. All the enjoyable aspects were in the east. The west wing had the kitchen, laundry rooms, the servant quarters, and the guard quarters, along with the parking lot, storage spaces, and the weapons room. The infirmary was a separate building that was in the north of the castle connected to the keep via a passage, while the entrance was on the south side.Today I am on laundry duty. My arms hurt from moving stinky loads of clothes and I was just counting down the time till it ended. As I pass a certain door, I hear raised vo
Once A Luna, Now A Stealer? 34. Theon
Theon. Ruelle told me that she needed to be away from me for a bit. No matter how much that hurt me, I agreed, because regardless of what she thought, I did really care for her feelings. Also, I felt that a little separation would do us both good. I didn’t want to chase her out of the rooms she’d already become familiar with, so I moved out into a much smaller room in a different corridor, closer to my study. This had been my childhood room, way before I became the King. Ruelle was getting too aggressive with her advances. Every time I tried to kiss her or hug her, she’d start to act provocatively and try to get me to have sex with her. To be fair, it was getting annoying. I did want to do that with her. I wanted to make her my mate. But my wolf wouldn’t listen to me. He’d put up a frenzy every time I touched Ruelle, commanding me to stop and go find my own mate. By which he meant Callista. When she was getting tortured, my wolf was horrified. He’d yelled in my head to go to her,
Once A Luna, Now A Stealer? 35. Kiss
Callista.I’ve been kissed before. Numerous times, in fact.My first was a boy in fifth grade who’d told me my hair looked pretty that day, and I had been blushing like crazy. Back then we were yet to go through puberty, so it didn’t really make sense. It was just something we had seen older people do, which automatically meant it was a cool thing to do. Then, at recess when we were playing, he'd suddenly appeared next to me, and asked for a kiss. Just like that. I was honestly taken aback, and my mind had been screaming, “Take it! Take it, you fool, this is a one-way ticket to the big leagues!” at me. Back then, all the popular girls had all been kissed, and who didn’t want to be similar to them? This is the fifth grade I’m talking about, and yes, I’d been that dramatic.So yeah. It had been a wonderfully clumsy, orange lollipop flavored kiss, and at the time, it rocked my world.After that, I was kind of popular, but no one asked me to kiss them. I did hold hands with some boys, but
Once A Luna, Now A Stealer? 36. Gasp
Callista.A gasp comes, breaking the moment.A very recognizable gasp.With it, Theon and I return to reality. The feverish happiness I’d been bathing myself in before vanishes, instead mixed with cold dread. For a moment, I catch Theon’s eyes, unguarded, loving, and wish that he’d seen the truth of who I am. My heart races in my chest, and I try to put the truth into my eyes.But in the end, it doesn’t matter. Prejudice wins over the reality and my heart breaks when his brown irises turn exceptionally hard.I know that the look he's giving me now, after pushing himself off me and shuffling back a few feet, is going to hurt me forever. Its shock and disgust, with a thin smear of anger, mixed with gallons of disbelief. So, so different from before. He looks at me as if I’m a monster who’d come to destroy his world.Something inside me withers at that. Then, deep in my mind, another decision reinforces.Ruelle starts to scream.“I knew it! I knew you were fucking her behind my back! Tha
Once A Luna, Now A Stealer? 37. Full Moon
Callista.I don’t sleep that night.I don’t cry either. Although the sadness in my heart, mixed with anger, indignation, and desperation combined is the size of the sun, and just as hot, I don’t cry. My eyes remain dry as I listen to the soft breaths of other maids, nothing pulling the lids of my eyes down and dragging me into a slumber.How can I sleep, when I know this is the last night I will be spending here?In the perfect world, I would be sleeping by Theon’s side, bearing his mark on my neck, the voice of my wolf in my head, secure in the knowledge that I’d finally found the one place in the world where I belonged. But the reality is far from that, and I couldn’t dwell on what would’ve been, not when I wanted to keep sane.But oh, how I wish for that dream to soothe the hurt in my very soul.In the morning bells sound, rousing the staff of the castle.Helen lets me know that I’ve been punished for my ‘insubordination’ from last night with two more months in community service. S
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