Page 65 of Moon Cursed

My heart melted and spilled down my rib cage. People would go on and on about how they’d kill for their kids. I thought that was just a sentiment until my little girl was born. I literally would raze the whole fucking planet to ash to protect my baby.

And I planned to.

“Okay, baby,” I sang to her. “Show Uncle Daddy your new power so that he finally stops being an asshole.”

“Even if this is real, that will never be what I’m called,” Badr snapped.

I just laughed.

Grumbling insults that she knew I could hear clear as day, Lucia rescued a baby blanket from the chaise—both covered in bears—and plopped down in front of her.

Her irritation washed away the second she looked at my baby, transforming from the cold and deadly vampire princess to a soft and squishy vampire auntie. “Ready, Hope?” She threw up the blanket and brought it down. “Peekaboo. Peekaboo,” she cried.

Badr leaned in, brows furrowing, and shoulder brushing mine. Neither of us did anything about it as we watched Hope and waited for her to turn.

And waited... and waited... and waited...

Hope blinked, giggled, cooed, and flailed her arms as Lucia, loving the game, but what she didn’t do was wink out of sight.

The clock ticked the thirtieth minute since we’d been waiting when Badr’s satisfied grin got too heavy to bear.

“Will you wipe that smile off your face?” I snapped. “Just because she’s not doing it now doesn’t mean I’m lying! I—”

“Give it up, Volana. You and your leech put on a good show, but if you wanted a cute face and chubby cheeks to sway me where your lies couldn’t, you shouldn’t have trotted out this ugly little brat.”

Lucia hissed, launching at the screen, but I was a step ahead of her.

I punched Badr square in the face, knuckles crunching on his cartilage. Blood spurted from his nose as his head whipped around, spraying across the screen. “Don’t you ever speak about my daughter that way.” The icy chill in my voice scared even me. “I’ll rip your fucking throat out, Divan, and you know that’s no bluff.” Inside me, my wolf roared and thrashed against the confines of my soul, eager and willing to tear this bastard to shreds. Oh yes, her obsession with him was evaporating quick.

Badr spat blood on the carpet, snarling. “That was your last fucking mistake, Volana!”

“Get out. We have nothing to prove to you.” Claws erupted from my fingertips. “GET OUT!”

“Gladly!” He whipped the towel off his shoulders and it swung across my desk, knocking half the contents on the floor. “You and I are going to finish this,Headmistress,and that’s a promise! I’m going to put you right back in a maggoty, manure shithole where you belong.”

“Keep shouting your bluster and ignorance louder, pencil dick. Whatever it takes to make you feel like a man.”

Badr slammed out the door, his hatred for me resounding louder than the splintered doorjamb.

I turned on a curious, watching Hope. “It’s okay, baby, the mean man is gone.”

She cooed at me, beaming that wide, gummy smile. In a blink she disappeared, leaving only a moving onesie and a floating bear.

***

“ICAN’T BELIEVE ASHlet them both back into the castle after what they’ve done.” Nia spoke to me but looked where everyone was looking—at the dais where Badr and Orion were holding court. “Badr attacked the entire school, and Orion is under investigation for murdering the former headmistress! Innocent until proven guilty, sure, but you’d think both of those charges would get you moved to the home/virtual-learning list.”

I didn’t say anything, I was too busy slicing, dicing, and stabbing my beef sausages.

It’d been a week since Badr’s return, and only a few days longer than that for Orion. Both of them swore they’d undo and destroy everything I’d been building... and it was working.

Badr and Orion claimed the prominent seats on the dais, surrounding them were a gaggle of alpha and beta girls—one of them Megan—hanging all over them and every word.

My throne used to be there, but it mysteriously disappeared the morning after Badr came back. By lunchtime that day, the table was back and taken over by the popular alphas again, all of them staring at me when I came in—daring me to pitch a fit and make myself look small and petty for fighting about a table.

I didn’t take the bait... and that was my first mistake.

Once the alphas and betas got back their popular table, they claimed all the seats in the back—going so far as to wake up early, be the first ones through the mess hall door, and grab all of the best seats while the rest of us were still wiping sleep from our eyes.

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