Chapter 159: 159. An Insane Visitor I
Tessa
Tessa woke with a start.
She always slept with the windows open.
Her mother told her it was a terrible habit and one day, one of the many people she had broken would take the window in to slit her throat.
Tessa left it open anyway. She feared nothing. Feared no one. Not even death.
But there was something about the displacement of the air that made all of the hairs along her and rise and every instinct in her body snap taut.
She knew she was in danger before her mind caught up, her Lycan growing restless in her chest. Frightened.
She sat up fast, sheets slipping from her waist, heart already hammering, every sense she possessed flaring at once as an ominous pressure settled over the room, as though something abominable had entered it and was now standing very still, watching her.
Tessa’s claws extended halfway before she identified the shape at the foot of her bed, bent slightly to pick up a bottle of liquor from the floor.
Maisie Adams.
Earlier that evening, she had been summoned before the court, still shaken from the Exile attack, finding herself being accused of trying to murder wench.
"She smelled like a rebel," she told the court, tears brimming in her eyes. "She had rebel blood all over her. It was an accident on my part, but how should I have known your bride was meeting with rebels?"
And just like that, she had turned the tables on them, and to twist the knife even deeper, she added, "We were attacked where we are supposed to be the safest. Our walls have been secure for years. Now of all times. Did they break through our defenses or did someone let them in?"
She knew if they hadn’t been in the presence of the Queen, Soren might have killed her for the accusation.
Jericho had tried, of course, and gotten pinned to the ground by the Queen’s guards.
Very violent, that one.
He was not like the others with their diplomatic words and politics. If Jericho hated something, he didn’t talk to it. He killed it.
And hate Tessa, he did.
It didn’t matter how innocent and truly, awfully saddened she tried to look while offering to apologize to the stupid bitch.
They didn’t buy the act.
In fact, judging from the murder in their gazes when the Queen dismissed their accusations as irrelevant, Tessa expected to wake up to claws ripping her heart out.
It was why she had slept naked, after all.
She was not, in fact, expecting the mutt herself.
Maisie Adams turned the bottle over on her hands, studying it. "I almost envy you. My husbands have forbidden me from drinking. Though, I think that has more to do with how crazy I get when I’m drunk."
The girl popped the lid and downed the rest of the alcohol in the bottle.
Tessa didn’t remember having that bottle in her bedroom in the first place. She recognized it from her father’s bar but didn’t remember taking it—and why did her room stink so heavily like someone had poured alcohol on everything?
She would think about it later. Right now... Her eyes flicked to the door. It was still locked. "How did you get in here?"
The wench cocked her head towards the balcony. "Apparently, I have a remarkable talent in climbing."
Tessa stared at the windows. The drop was lethal enough to deter even a Lycan from considering the acrobatics.
And yet, Maisie Adams didn’t even look winded. She looked like she’d merely strolled into her bedroom using the door for a little chit chat.
Tessa stared at her. Hard. She stared at the soft white robe wrapped around the curvy body. She stared at the skin above her collar and the love bites scattered across the girl’s neck and chest. The light, faded bruises of fingerprints on her wrist. The kiss swollen lips and the familiar afterglow that seemed to come from within, rendering her skin flawless.
Tessa abhorred Maisie Adams.
Maisie was not worthy of anything she had so easily received.
The Lycans belonged to Tessa.
They always had.
She had been promised this. Long before she ever understood what it meant to be promised.
Where other girls were permitted dreams, Tessa had been given ambition instead, fitted to her until it became fitted to her like second skin, until it became her only purpose.
Her mother, the priestess, every tutor who had ever stood over her, the Queen, they had told her the world belonged at her feet, and would eventually kneel, provided she prepared correctly.
She had prepared. Every day of her life, she had prepared.
She had learned etiquette. Politics. Grace. Poise. She endured fertility treatments. Received bedroom lessons before she ever had her first kiss. The males might have been tutored too, but knowing more wouldn’t hurt.
She became primed. Perfect. She was ready.
And then, some wolf who couldn’t be bothered to match her own underwear had simply walked in and taken it all away.
No. Not taken away.
Maisie Adams had displaced Tessa from her own life and rendered her existence meaningless by taking her place. The world that had been built just for her, the life that had been carefully and intricately planned, brick by fucking brick. She had been ejected from it by an ugly, wretched thing.
It didn’t matter if her mother was royalty. Or if she had nearly killed her in that duel.
Tessa would never see Maisie as anything more than a dirt-born Omega.
It didn’t matter if Maisie who had once been nothing of note was desired now and had become something men noticed without trying as hard as Tessa did. It didn’t matter that she was somehow lovelier now than Tessa had ever managed to be. She would always see Maisie as plain and a fucking ugly bitch.
Tessa slipped out of bed, uncaring of her own naked state, and she bared her teeth at Maisie. "Get out. Before I kill you."
Admittedly, if Maisie hadn’t been bonded to the Lycans, she would have killed her tonight and left a trail of her body parts for them to find. She was still considering it.
Maisie hung her head. "I wanted to talk to you." Very meekly, she rose her head, fidgeting with her robe. "I’ve been thinking. About everything, and I think you were right."
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