The Hidden Luna Queen 2

While the couple answered, I briskly pulled away with a quiet gasp, though Xaden's hands remained firmly locked around me. Flushed red, I gently tried to pry his needy hands off of my body while focusing my attention on the three voices a short distance away from our slightly disheveled forms.

Burke continued to engage in conversation with them, offering directions for where they needed to go, which led them away from us.

I sighed in heavy relief. Thank goodness for him. We were once again in the clear.

"All this waiting is killing me," Xaden groaned softly, wrapping his arms around me in a tight embrace as he buried his face against my shoulder. I could feel his pain deep in my soul. "I want to show the world that you're mine, Maeve."

I bit my lip. "Is this because of Nicholas...?"

He scoffed, lifting his head, and for a second, I worried I might have said the wrong thing. "He has nothing to do with this," he insisted, a fire burning in his eyes. "But how am I supposed to just take it when I hear you being lumped in with other men? When another man dares to talk about you like that?"

Gently, I caressed his chest with delicate fingers. "You don't have

anything to worry about," I murmured. "I only have eyes for you, Xaden."

He hummed in response, only somewhat appeased, yet his grip eased around my waist.

I let my gaze lower to his mouth, where I caught an unusual shimmer of something that coated the entirety of the soft flesh. It only took me a second to realize what it was, once I noticed the slight pink tinge to it.

"Your lips..." I pointed out, trying to fight back a smile. "They're covered with gloss."

Xaden lifted a hand to his mouth, lightly brushing his fingers over the lip gloss smears I had inadvertently left behind. His beautiful green eyes were aglow with something hot and intense that made my insides flutter." Could you help me?"

This man is going to be the death of me...

I swallowed hard with a slow nod. Slowly, I pulled out the red handkerchief that peeked out from his b****t pocket and began to dab it against his mouth with a delicate touch. All the while, I felt his eyes bore into me.

His soft lips, slightly swollen from my attentions, were quite a sight to behold. Even with most of the gloss removed, however, it was very

obvious that he had been up to something questionable outside of the banquet hall.

"You still look like you've been busy kissing people," I muttered, trying to ignore the butterflies in my stomach, seeing him so tousled because of

me.

All of a sudden, he leaned forward, planting another kiss on my lips, catching me by surprise, though I was powerless to stop him. It ended as quickly as it began, with him pulling away, still looking at me with pure heat. "I wasn't kissing just anybody-I was kissing you."

My lips pursed in a small pout, feigning disapproval. "I thought we were past all that.”

"I'm sorry," he said, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. "I just needed one more."

I failed to hide the bashful grin that spread across my face. "You're lucky you're cute," I said as I resumed wiping away at his mouth to keep myself from gazing at him or falling for another of his little tricks. "But no more for now, alright?"

Xaden hummed in begrudging agreement but, true to his word, did not try again. After a short beat, he spoke up once more. "You think I'm cute?"

"Is... that so terrible?"

Without warning, he wrapped his hand around my forearm, catching me by surprise. While maintaining eye contact, he pressed slow, deliberate kisses to my wrist. "Cute is not quite the word I was hoping to hear," he murmured, the conflicting heat in his eyes and softness in his voice melted me even further. "But I'll make an exception for you."

My heart stuttered in my chest, but the remainder of our clean-up commenced in relative silence. Once his mouth was deemed free of gloss, I wiped my own mouth and neck, while he smoothed out his blazer.

Thus began my walk of shame over to Burke, who still stood beside the banquet hall door, patiently waiting for us with a rather bored expression. Xaden, on the other hand, strode over without a care in the world, perhaps even looking a little smug with himself. This is so embarrassing... he probably knows what we were doing...

I wished the earth could just swallow me whole.

"Now then... if you two have finished all of your business," Burke drawled, his gaze swinging pointedly between the two of us, making me blush," shall we return inside? It sounds like the Alpha King is going to speak shortly."

I braced myself. We could not go back inside without him knowing what was going on. "Before we do that..." I trailed off with a wince, stopping the prime beta in his tracks, "there's something you need to know. It involves you." Burke's shoulders suddenly sank with dread. "What happened?" Judging by the look on his face, he must have assumed there to be trouble, which was not entirely wrong.

I smiled nervously. "You are now my fiancé."

THIRD PERSON POV

"Thank

you for gracing us with your presence, Your Highnesses." A lowly alpha and his luna bowed before Prince Henry and his lovely wife Isabelle, who secretly simmered with a burning impatience to return to the scene of her plot. "It was our pleasure, Alpha Karl," Isabelle murmured with a glowing

smile, radiance befitting a Luna Princess of her station, and she made sure everyone knew it. "Please, feel free to come to us with anything else you might need.”

They bowed reverently before her, and the sight warmed her soul tremendously.

This was what she lived for. And she would be damned if she let Maeve take the spotlight away from her.

Immediately afterwards, Henry was called aside to speak with one of the soldiers alone, which allowed Isabelle her much-desired reprieve.

As calmly as she could, she ventured back to where Maeve had last been seen, brimming with joyous eagerness to see the aftermath. She could just see it now-Maeve, overwrought by her insecurity and humiliation, giving up on becoming a Luna Princess and fleeing from the palace, never to be seen again.

Her victory was so close, she could almost taste it.

Much to her dismay, however... not a single soul was to be seen.

Stomach sinking, she glanced wildly around the hall for some sort of sign of anyone. But neither Maeve nor Xaden was seated at their table-or apparently, anywhere at all inside the room, for that matter-while Charlotte seemed to be busy mingling with other guests.

And that stupid girl she'd brought over... the one who was supposed to expose Xaden's rakish history to Maeve-she was back alongside that lowborn husband of hers, decidedly not doing the job Isabelle had given her.

Isabelle wanted to hope their sudden absence, along with that girl's

dismissal, meant that the job was completed. That Maeve and Xaden had erupted in some sort of fight and that things were finally going her way, but surely there would have been some sort of indication.

From what she could tell, the atmosphere of the banquet had not been disrupted, nor were there murmurs of such a scuffle involving the prince and an unknown woman.

By all appearances, nothing had happened. It was as if the plan had never been executed at all.

Isabelle wanted to scream. She was ready to explode with unrestrained

rage, but this was not the time or place to do so. Not in front of her adoring subjects.

With hurried footsteps, she rushed to a set of glass doors that led to a lovely balcony, offering a polite, forced smile to everyone who greeted her along the way. And once she made it to the open space, where she thankfully seemed to be utterly alone in the soothing afternoon breeze, she quietly shut the doors behind her.

She needed some time to breathe, to gather her thoughts.

How was it possible for that brat to thwart her at every turn?!

MAEVE POV

Silence.

In the hallway just outside the royal banquet hall, all one could hear was the deafening silence that came from an astonished prime beta.

Burke blinked, glancing wildly between Xaden and me as he slowly tried to process what we had just told him. "L-Let me get this straight," he sputtered, and for a split moment, I worried that we had broken him with the news of our little ruse. "Another alpha expressed interest in you... so now, I am somehow your fiancé? Am I missing the part where all of this makes sense?"

His confusion, I thought, was very rational.

Everyone directly connected to the royal family was well-versed in the idea that Xaden and I were going to wait to go public with our relationship for the time being. However, it would have been most logical to assume that, if things went haywire, Xaden would assume control and not hide away from the truth.

Not only was that not the case, but now it involved his innocent beta taking his place as my “mate.” No doubt, he was wondering why.

Xaden sighed. “It was the best way to get him to leave her alone."

That did not seem to clarify the situation for Burke any better. "Would it not have been easier to say that Maeve is a distant relative?" he inquired, throwing out different ideas that did not implicate me with another man. " Or a friend of Princess Charlotte's, or even a random guest you had no prior connection to?"

"Burke, if you have any qualms with being my mate's pretend fiancé, then please take it up with the true mastermind: my sister," Xaden grumbled, crossing his arms. "It certainly was not my idea to involve you in this."

I caught the nervous glance Burke threw my way as a thoughtful frown weighed on his face. Despite still not being too familiar with him, that one glance alone told me everything I needed to know.

If there was anything to be said about the prime beta, it was that his loyalty to Xaden could never be put into question. It didn't matter if the Alpha King or I wanted to keep this a secret. If there were even the slightest of hints that Xaden was not pleased with the idea, he would not go along with it.

Right now, it was very possible that everything could fall apart, and the thought made my stomach lurch. I needed to find a way to convince them both that this was for the best.