Hello again!
Thank you for reading. This chapter is back in Cinder's POV. I am in the process of writing chapter 6 which is in Kai's POV and I am already excited for it. He finally meets two of the Lunar crew. *squeal* Guess who!
"You have got to be kidding me!" Cinder said gawking up at the building in front of her. The Rising Blossom. The most luxurious hotel in all of New Beijing. She had heard numerous stories of this prestigious resort. It was associated with the most illustrious guests. Important figures, ambassadors and royalty from all over the world came to reside here when the palace was not available. Honestly, the palace looked more like a dump when compared to this world-class retreat. Its advanced technology and security features were on-par with the most elusive military strongholds and its extravagance was superior.
Cinder continued to gape at the entrance which included scrolled alabaster pillars supporting a large ballroom balcony which overlooked the New Beijing palace. Gleaming mosaic tiles depicted historical scenery and beautiful landscapes. The building was a sprawling twelve acres squared and five stories high. The carved mahogany and jade doors opened up to a foyer of gold and red. But that was as much as she could see because she didn't move forward. "Who planned this again?" she seethed. Thorne gave her a sheepish grin.
"Thought we could at least live in style. You're the queen and all, right? You deserve the best of the best. I know it is not in the palace and not as close to Kai as you like but I could only do so much." Cinder closed her eyes and tried to cool down. Her head throbbed.
INCREASING LEVELS OF ADRENALINE. HEART RATE INCREASING. BLOOD PRESSURE INCREASING. WARNING, WARNING… A red light flashed at the corner of her vision and she waved it away impatiently. Her breaths came out in gasps and she gulped in air like a beached fish. Cinder took a deep breath and let it out slowly. TEMPERATURE DROPPING IN FIVE, FOUR, THREE...
"Why New Beijing again?" she asked heavily.
"We have never visited your city. Ginger and Tobias were especially excited, weren't you darlings?" Scarlet asked her children. Ginger nodded looking up at her, eyes shining.
"You lived here?" she breathed awestruck. "Wow!" Cinder softened and rubbed the back of her neck self-consciously.
"Umm... not exactly. I'll show you around later." Ginger beamed and clutched onto the queen's arm, showing her adorable gapped teeth mouth.
"Really?" she squealed. "Yay!" Cinder laughed and took the girl's hand. They had flown in on Rampion with her second assistant Kayla in the pilot seat which made Thorne complain miserably for the whole ride, but they couldn't store Rampion anywhere so they had to get someone to drop them off. Cress didn't tell Cinder where they were going until they had arrived so she could not order Kayla to transport them somewhere else. Needless to say, she had thrown a bit of a tantrum.
After that catastrophe, they hailed a hover which took them to the Rising Blossom. Cress went into the hotel to check in while Wolf wandered off somewhere to check the security perimeters and procedures. Cinder could have told him not to. If someone had really wanted to kill her and ended up breaching the Rising Blossom's superb security measures, there was not much that could stop them anyway. Not even Wolf.
Scarlet bounced one year old Tobias on her lap. He was fussing. Again. Scarlet stopped, her legs fatigued. Tobias began to whimper slightly, enough that Scarlet resumed her jigging. Cinder let go of Ginger's hand and held out her arms in sympathy. "Here, I'll take him for a while?" Scarlet gave her a tired, grateful glance. Tobias had been fretting and squirming since Kayla had dropped them off. "Hello, Tobias," she said softly as she felt the warm bundle transferred into her arms. Tobias paused and blinked up at her in confusion. Where's mommy? His eyes seemed to say. "Mommy's tired," she murmured. Ginger tugged her Cinder's arm to get her attention.
"Daddy's coming," she said pointing. Wolf strode toward them. Thorne sighed.
"Finally!" he said throwing up his hands in the air.
"All clear," Wolf said. "We should be able to move in now, Your Majesty." Cinder almost flinched. He rolled his powerful shoulders. He held out his hands for Tobias, and Wolf easily carried his son in one arm.
"You can call me, Cinder, Wolf. You don't need to be so..." Cinder trailed off. "Formal." She said at last. Cinder looked around at the bustling capital. "And besides, you wouldn't want to call me that when we're undercover. It'll blow our facade," she joked. Wolf cracked a grin.
"Of course, Cinder," he said with a bow. Cinder smiled just as Cress sauntered to them.
"I booked the Royal Penthouse Suite," she said casually. Everyone stared. "Well," she amended, "I also booked a separate room for Scarlet, Wolf, Ginger and Tobias as requested."
"And that somehow makes it less awesome?" Thorne raised an eyebrow. "The Royal Penthouse Suite is the most expensive suite in the whole hotel. Not that I'm complaining," he said quickly, "but how much did that cost?" Cress shrugged.
"For everything? About 65 000 univs a night? Not really sure, I just scanned with Cinder's bank card. Couldn't use the ID chips because the numbers were too large to only use ID identification." Cinder choked and started to cough violently.
"What?" she managed to say. Thorne and Scarlet blinked.
"Well," Scarlet said finally, breaking the stupefied silence. "That was unexpected." Cress rolled her eyes.
"Not as unexpected as you and Wolf demanding a separate room from the rest of us. Afraid you were going to fall ill with our lunacy by osmosis? There's plenty of room in the penthouse. What do you need another room for?"
Thorne cleared his throat."Isn't that answer quite obvious?" He wiggled his eyebrows at Cress. She covered her mouth trying unsuccessfully to stifle a smile.
"Oh, ohhh. Okay. Umm. Never mind." Scarlet and Wolf both started blushing simultaneously.
"It's not that, oh, umm... " Scarlet stuttered.
"Oh don't worry, Scarlet. No one is going to bother you. Will we?" Cinder cast Cress and Thorne a wicked grin. They gave her matching cheshire cat smirks. "But really?" Cinder clucked, mock disapproving. "Thorne, such talk in front of children. Maybe they'll catch your dirty thinking by osmosis." Wolf scowled.
"That is not why we want a separate room. Tobias fusses a lot at night and we don't want you to lose sleep over it." Cress and Thorne exchanged knowing glances and Cress shrugged.
"Whatever you say." Clearly, they didn't believe Wolf's innocence explanation. Scarlet sighed and picked up her suitcases from where the hover left them. Wolf took them automatically and Scarlet smiled up at him in thanks. Cress and Thorne lifted their belongings and started toward Rising Blossom. Ginger followed, but looked back at Cinder. Her mint green eyes flickered in surprise when Cinder didn't move.
"Aunty Cinder? You aren't coming?" Wolf immediately paused and turned to her, ever the attentive guard.
"I..." Cinder gestured weakly. "I have to see Adri and Pearl. I haven't visited them since I came to Luna and I should see how they are." Cress narrowed her eyes.
"Your step-mother-"
"Former legal guardian," Cinder corrected automatically. Cress conceded with a nod.
"Fine. Your former legal guardian was horrible to you. Just as abusive to you as Mistress Sybil was to me. You don't owe her anything. Your adoptive family will be fine." Cinder's eyes clouded.
"They might not have wanted me," she said softly, "but they still stuck with me. They didn't throw me away. The fact that they let me stay, gave me shelter is still more than what anyone would have given to an orphaned cyborg." Ginger ran forward and took her arm.
"I'll go with you. You can show me the city afterwards." Cinder hesitated. Wolf shrugged.
"I'll go with you then, for protection. Scarlet and the others can check in and unpack first." Cress gave her a worried frown. She started to protest but Cinder held up a hand.
"It'll be fine Cress. Nobody knows who we are and where we went. We could've gone to the American Republic for all the press knows. Wolf and Ginger can stay at the marketplace to explore while I take a hover to Adri's," she said fusing a trace to authority into her voice. Something she knew her friends could not resist. They had given up their separate loyalties to their own countries once they swore to serve her. And through they might be her best friends - Cinder tried to avoid giving commands as much as possible - she knew that they would not disobey a direct order. That didn't stop them from going around it though. Scarlet put her hands on her hips.
"If you don't come back before six there will be consequences, Cinder." She took Tobias from Wolf and started toward the hotel. "Good luck!" Scarlet called over her shoulder. Cress waved and Thorne winked good-bye. Cinder and Wolf walked in the opposite direction with Ginger between them. She bounced along, her scarlet curls springing behind her. Her inquisitive green eyes took in one thing after the other and Cinder could practically see her brain working overtime in her head.
They reached the weekly market. It had barely changed at all. The square was filled with busy shoppers, merchants and vendors hawking their wares and expertise. The buzzing of scanners and netscreens trilling the latest news, events and gossip and ,of course, the conversations between acquaintances as they exchanged information about the recent escapade of the Lunar Queen. Cinder threw on her glamour as her skirted between booths. No one knows me. No one recognizes me. I am no one, she chanted to herself as she hunched back further into the shadows.
"Did you hear about..."
"... poor girl..."
"Do you think she was raped by..."
"Thought the queen was the one that was drunk..."
"...and I thought this queen would..."
"I don't think she..."
Shuddering, Cinder muted her auditory interface to a dull hum and ignored the glazed stares of the male species, and also some females, that were looking at her as if she was really juicy meat. Snow crunched under Cinder's leather boots and she pushed the hood of her coat over her head casting her flawless face in shadow. She didn't dare dissipate her glamour.
Wolf curled a protective arm over her waist and pulled her close. Cinder jumped. "Pretend," he breathed, his mouth close to her ear. The attention immediately shifted to Wolf as he navigated her through the dense streets. If jealousy could burn holes, Wolf would be scorched by now. Cinder gripped Ginger by the hand and tugged. The girl looked up, confused. Cinder bent down and kissed her forehead.
"We are going to play a game okay?" she tried to smile reassuringly." The game is called pretend I am your mother." Ginger wrinkled her forehead.
"That's a terrible name. But okay, it sounds fun!" Ginger sent her a goofy grin. She snuggled into her side and intertwined their arms together. The glares sent at Wolf didn't stop until they had rounded a corner. Huffing a sigh of relief, Cinder ducked into a dark, sketchy alley. She knew this place as well as she knew the back of her hand. Cinder had often taken this shortcut back when she worked in the marketplace as a mechanic.
Cinder crouched down to meet Ginger's eyes. "I'll see you later okay, Ginger? I have to go run an errand. Be a good girl and go with Daddy and if Daddy tells me you've been a good girl, I'll show you around before your Mommy makes us go back to the hotel." Ginger pouted and held out a pinky.
"Promise?"
Cinder curled her pinky with Ginger's. "Promise, darling." She smiled and hugged the girl close. Cinder rose and looked at Wolf sternly. "Take very good care of her, Wolf. Crowds in New Beijing can get pretty wild."
"Of course, Cinder. She is my daughter you know." Wolf reached down and squeezed her shoulder. "Be safe, my queen." Cinder nodded and with another smile at Ginger, slipped away.
The walk to her former home certainly hadn't changed. There was still that unending fear, apprehension, and dread. Cinder hadn't thought about Adri and Pearl for so long that she felt almost guilty. Maybe there was something in her wiring that made her so cool and detached to the world. Cinder hadn't even thought of visiting until Ginger had announced her intention of exploring. If Peony was still alive, she would have probably made more of an effort to keep in touch, but after the ball disaster six years ago... Clearly her adoptive family didn't care enough to keep her around.
Town center eventually merged into apartment buildings, built so close to each other that they were a hands-breadth away from crashing into each other. Cinder shoved her freezing hands deep into her pockets, her breaths billowing out in clouds in the harsh winter air. Now, this... this was what she had missed. The laughter of children building snow-androids in front of the apartments, the cheerful brightness of the winter season, and normalcy of just walking home.
Cinder paused as she turned onto her street. She knew what she was about to see. But it didn't matter anyway because every time she saw it, every time she thought about him, Cinder felt as if her fabricated bio tissue heart was about to be ripped into shreds and her stomach being sucker punched over and over again.
The New Beijing Palace. She could just barely detect it beyond the dense complexes and towering skyscrapers. She tried to prevent herself from thinking about him, but ended up realizing that she couldn't. It was as if there was a magnet in her body that always pointed to him and she was just to blind to see where it led. Cinder clenched her jaw. It was over. Kai had never liked her that much anyway, she tried to tell herself. Tried to convince herself. Cinder wasn't sure if it worked.
She scanned herself in the building and it beeped, admitting her entrance. Cinder stepped into the elevator for the eighteenth floor before she allowed her doubts to creep through her mental defences. What if they didn't live here anymore? What if they moved? What if Adri slams the door in her face? Cinder bit her lip and dismissed her misgivings. What could go wrong?
Cinder strode toward Adri's apartment warily. She knocked lightly. No one answered. Cinder knocked harder. Utter silence. There was a muffled squeak and Cinder's eyes narrowed. She sparked with anxious irritation. When the door remained closed, she let herself in.
Pearl was against the wall, her clothing ripped, and arms pinned above her head by a man with a scruffy jaw and dangerous eyes. She was crying softly but her face was splashed in shock as she recognized Cinder even in her glamour. The stranger whipped around and took her in. She knew what he saw. A goddess, beauty reincarnate. He leered dopily. The man was drunk. Cinder hated drunk men these days. They cause so much trouble.
"Did you call a friend, sweetheart?" Pearl shook her head, her eyes gleaming with tears. He merely laughed. "The more the merrier." The man made an obscene gesture and giggled at his own wit, which wasn't very witty at all.
Cinder's disgust deepened as she glimpsed broken beer bottles and shattered pottery, dust and garbage. Nobody had cleaned in a while that's for sure. "Who are you?" she asked, her face exhibited blatant revulsion. The man let go of Pearl and stumbled toward her.
"Do you want to find out?" he slurred. Cinder hissed out a sigh. She so wasn't dealing with this right now. Not to mention having to take care of Pearl's blubbering face later. She reached for the familiar tingle and pleasant, buzzing heat that came with letting loose her gift. She always felt it was wrong to use her glamour to trick innocent people, but sex-crazed perverts that touched her step-sister weren't exactly on her list of goodies. Cinder cringed at the soft lilting of her melodious voice.
"I want you to sit on that couch and cover your ears. Don't listen to what my sister and I are about to say. Do you understand?" The man perked up, eyes brightening.
"Okay." He shuffled to the couch and sat, covering his ears. The man started to hum and Cinder pulled her attention back to Pearl. She was staring fascinated at the man's eagerness to do as Cinder commanded.
"Pearl," Cinder snapped, "Who is that guy?" Pearl turned to face her, eyes cold.
"What did you do that for? He's my husband. It is his right to bed me." Cinder leaned back and looked at her sceptically.
"Why were you crying then?" Pearl reached up to touch her tearstained face, almost curiously. She opened her mouth, but shut it as Cinder held up a hand. "And don't bother lying. I can detect it." Pearl scowled.
"Freak," she muttered under her breath. It was truly a surprise to see that so many things had changed in her life but Pearl remained the only constant.
"Well?" Cinder prompted. Pearl swore.
"After mother died-"
"Wait. Adri died?" Cinder said taken back.
"Not that I expect you to care or anything," Pearl deadpanned. "Yes, she died."
Cinder eyed her curiously. "You're not sad or anything." Pearl shrugged nonchalantly .
"You were not the only one unhappy under her rule. Always going on and on about how we were draining her of her youth and resources and that we needed to marry to a rich dude."
"So you got married? To a drunk perv?"
Pearl's eyes flashed. "Not everyone gets a happily ever after, Cinder." She gave her a onceover, her lips curling in derision.
"Wait, so I got the happily ever after? You've got to be kidding me right? Hated and almost burned to a crisp by my aunt, then I was lucky enough to get sent to a household to be a servant. Arrested, then named a Lunar fugitive, then almost killed by my aunt, again. You called that a happily ever after? Where's my prince?" Pearl shrugged.
"You're not living the bad life right now, are you. I am sorry for being bitter if my cyborg step-sister gets the fame and fortune of a whole country while I get stuck with a dead mother, sucky husband and an overall dismal life." Pearl looked down and walked to her husband's couch. "I told him I wanted a divorce, but he wouldn't let me," she said quietly. Cinder watched her.
"Oh," Cinder whispered, "I'm sorry." Pearl shrugged then gave her a devilish grin.
"Can you get him to stand up?" Cinder eyed her cautiously.
"What are you going to do?" Pearl smiled mischievously.
"Nothing that hasn't been coming to him for a while." Cinder half-shrugged and pulled on her glamour.
"Stand up," she directed him. Pearl's husband stood, swaying. Pearl took a deep breath and smiled angelically at her husband. Then she proceeded to kick him between the legs, hard. He doubled over and crashed into the couch.
"We are over," she said calmly. Pearl looked over to see Cinder's cocked brows.
"Wow, okay," she muttered. Adopting, her sweet, glamour infused voice again, Cinder told him to never come near the apartment again. He'd forget everything about his life with Pearl and their rocky marriage and get out of the country. "Will that work?" Cinder asked finally. Pearl nodded grudgingly.
"Thanks," she said reluctantly. "I might have just lost my only way of supporting myself but I haven't felt this free in a while." Cinder started in surprise.
"You don't have a job?"
Pearl shook her head. "Daniel says that women shouldn't work after marriage."
Cinder snorted. "How very wrong he is. And don't worry about the money. Focus on getting a job. I deposited half a million univs into your account. It won't last you forever and you better not ask me for more," Cinder warned Pearl, "but it should be enough for rent and all necessary supplies for few years." Pearl shook her head.
"How are you so nice?"
Cinder shrugged. "You are still my step-sister and-" She frowned as there was a beep. Someone had commed her. It was from Wolf. Cinder's eyes widened as she read the message. "Look, I have to go, it's an emergency."
Pearl smiled sadly."Duty calls?"
Cinder sighed and started for the door. "Something like that. I'll come to visit you again sometime later." Pearl didn't say anything until Cinder reached the door.
"For all it's worth, Cinder," Cinder turned to face Pearl, "I never believed the rumors on the net. You were always too good to do such a thing." Pearl gave her a small grin.
Cinder smiled back. "Thank you, Pearl. I hope you will get your happily ever after." She closed the door, and took a deep breath. Cinder ran.
What do you think? Why did Wolf comm Cinder? You'll find out in the next chapter. *wink, wink*
Review, please! Feedback is a writer's greatest tool and it also gives the writer a look into the reader's mind. Reviews often affect, how much I write and the speed in which I update, so if you want more of the story, review. Doesn't take long to review. If you, my readers, are tired or not up to it, just give me a happy face, sad face, or meh face. That's all I ask. And, of course, if you have any ideas for scenes, I'm open to any ideas, just PM me and I'll try to add it in.
-Silverleaf
P.S. K- T rated scenes only.