Luna Queen

Chapter 1: The Birthday Party

                    Diana Stewart was a housemaid to the Newmans since the past eighteen years. She was thirty-eight years old and had been a single mother for fifteen years. Her husband had died in a car accident when their little girl was only two. Having no educational qualifications to brag about, she had not much of a choice when it came to opting for a career.

She did not dislike her situation though. She had a beautiful, talented, kind, loving and generous daughter. She was paid enough to sustain, and had been provided living quarters in the Newmans' land, along with their other servants. Few humans got as lucky. She hoped that she could give her Cassandra a better life, one where she did not have to be a thankless servant.

                    Cassandra Stewart was great at planning – long-term and short-term. She had her entire life planned and ready. She had spent the last fifteen minutes drawing up a detailed schedule for herself, so she could study for her upcoming finals. If only she was as good at execution!

While she was supposed to be studying for her history exam, she was trying to make soup and salad for lunch. She usually was not one to cook, but with studies staring her in the face like that, she would willingly offer herself up to a kidnapper – although it would not be kidnapping if she was willing. It was only a matter of time before her mother came home on her break and shoved her back to the room to study.

Once her mother was back, they ate together, before Cassandra was forced to go study. Diana meant well; she just wanted her daughter to be educated well. But Cassandra did not understand how her marks would impact her life, now that she had already been selected into a college of her choice, as long as she passed everything. Besides, she hated history!

She wished she had a study buddy, but Mrs Newman did not like people coming to their property, and of course – Cassandra had very few friends from school. Her best friend in the world was Alice, Mr and Mrs Newman's only child. She was the only one in her family – extended family included – to not be a complete bitch to humans. Naturally, she hated her family. Naturally, her parents did not approve of their friendship.

                    Alice had exactly three friends. Cassandra (a human), Penelope (a human), and Jennifer (an unturned Lycan). It was because Alice was a late bloomer, and could not tap into her wolf side until she was fifteen. By then, she had drifted away from the Lycans and become friends with the humans. Now, if given a chance, she would change nothing about it, though her mother definitely had a different opinion.

Cassandra's typical weekend was simple enough. Breakfast, one movie, lunch, meet Alice, snack together, home, cleaning, dinner, TV, sleep. Sometimes, if she had a lot of homework, she would squeeze that in somewhere. The day, however was different from a typical weekend. Because it was not a weekend. She had an off from school because of the ongoing exams. So it was: breakfast, study, lunch, study, snacks, study, dinner, sleep; except she did not study when she had to, instead delighting herself in some other task she would never do otherwise.

*****

                    Ideally, Cassandra would go to meet Alice after exam. But this particular evening, Alice was busy getting dressed. It was her eighteenth birthday the next day, and Mr Newman was throwing her a very fancy midnight ball to celebrate. It was an open secret though, that the true motive was to lure her into socializing with all the eligible young men of the city, hoping that one of them would turn out to be her Destined.

Cassandra was not invited, of course. The only humans in there would be the servants – not that many humans held any other position in the society anyway. However, she knew her friend, and she knew that Alice would not want to spend the night she turns eighteen among those pretentious people. So, she had already been plotting something.

"I could give you a dress from my collection. It could be your Cinderella moment." Alice had offered to her a few days ago. But she was no emotional fool. She knew that sneaking in there was a sure shot way of getting herself humiliated and her mother fired. So, instead, she baked a cake the best she could, snuck Penny and Jen into the grounds, and planned a small party.

Penny got a cheap wine, and Jen cleared out some space and dusted the room. Jasmine, who had unfortunately found out about their plans, invited herself, and brought flowers to liven up the dirty place. As they sat, waiting for the birthday girl, they were talking and bonding over gossips, because although they were all friends to Alice, they were not friends with each other.

"I heard that the Alphas are invited. Is it true? Are they coming?" Jen asked.

"Yeah," Cassandra knew all the details. "Apparently, the Luna Queen and Mrs Newman went to school together."

Penny was shocked. "What! I had no idea Alice's mother was friends with the Queen!"

"No no. Not friends. At least, not anymore. Mrs Newman is hungry for power and popularity, and the Queen is too nice to turn down an invite from someone she used to call a friend. I don't think the King will be here though."

At exactly 1:30 a.m., Alice came hurriedly to meet Cassandra outside the shed, as requested before. "I know you asked me to be here at 1, but it was so difficult to shake everyone off and leave that place, Cass. It's horrid. Everyone is smiling at me as if they know me and love me, when we all know that they gossiped not more than three years ago about my inability to bring out the claws," she said.

Cassandra led her inside, where the tiny gathering of her friends (plus, jasmine) put a smile in her face. "Thank you, guys, for making my eighteenth not suck entirely!" She squealed, as she hugged everyone.

It was not a perfect party. They had to quickly cut the cake, for they had not enough time to relax. The flowers were not fresh, the room was still dusty, and the wine tasted terrible. But the laughter was genuine and everyone enjoyed each other's company.

"Jeez, Cass. How much sugar did you put into the icing? It's too sweet to eat," Jennifer exclaimed.

"If you knew her properly, you would be saying that the cake turned out perfectly, Jen." Alice laughed. "Perhaps, asking her to bake was not the smartest thing to do."

Alice left the party soon enough, to go back to the ball being thrown in her name. If she was gone too long, someone was bound to notice her absence, and everyone would get into trouble.

Cassandra had already had a glass and a half of wine in the last half hour, and she did not have a good capacity for alcohol. Tipsily, she walked out of the shed towards the garden, humming to herself, as the others packed up to leave. She had no idea that her life was about to change forever.

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Author's Note:

I hope you like what I write. This is my first ever work, so I understand that there may be issues. Let me know, and I'll make it right.

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