A Royal Pain

chapter thirteen

"I don't get why the won't let me leave!"

I patted Auggie's hand in a comforting way. "They're only doing what's best for you."

"Still! I'm here for dehydration, not brain damage." Marina had left my brother severely malnourished, leaving him in the hospital for the past six days. Every time I came to visit we had the same argument-- him begging to leave and me convincing him that it was necessary.

The pack hospital was at full capacity now, too. Roughly twenty of my pack members and thirty royal guards had been found in the warehouse and most were being treated. As overjoyed as this made me, my heart was heavy at the thought of them being under Marina and Andrew's care for so long. "I know, Auggie," I say. "Do you want to play another board game?"

He rolled his eyes. "As much as I love you, Aurora, please leave so I can watch TV."

I grinned and leaned over to ruffle his hair before going out into the hallway. The pack doctor had diagnosed me with a severe concussion, and Mason forbid anyone from using electronics while I was in the room. He had been much more protective in the past few days, not that I was complaining. I felt like I was slowly destroying the walls he'd put up.

"Aurora! Come here," I looked over to see Daniel running towards me.

"Wh-" he nearly pulled my arm out of my socket as we ran to the pack house. "What's going on?"

"It's Malcolm. You need to hear it for your self." We eventually entered the pack house. Daniel lead me to the Alpha's office where I could hear loud voices.

"We are not telling her right now. Aurora needs to rest and stressing over this will not help," I heard my mate say.

I pushed the door open and stepped into the room to see Kim, Charles, and Mason in front of Malcolm, the head royal guard. "Tell me what?"

Malcolm sunk into a deep bow. "It's about the guard, Your Highness. They cannot be commanded without a king-"

"You can't be here," Mason said in my direction. "It's too much stress, you need to go."

I ignored his suggestion. "What are you saying? The guard is useless to us now?"

"Well," Malcolm glanced at Mason and I knew he wanted to say if this asshole had let me finish my sentence... Luckily he refrained. "Not necessarily. They need a King or  Queen."

"And? We have neither at the moment."

"Part of our training is learning about the Moonlight Ceremony, which was created for scenarios like this. During the full moon, we can summon the Moon Goddess and have a... coronation of sorts. We need to coronate you, Princess."

Maybe Mason was right. This did seem like a lot of stress, especially judging by the way my head started pounding. "I'll do anything it takes," I said confidently. Marina had taken far too much away from me. She would pay, I was sure of it.

"Uh," Kim said nervously. Her crutches made a clacking noise as she made her way towards me.  "There's a reason why it's called the Moonlight Ceremony. If the Moon Goddess deems you unfit, well... uh. You'll be cursed. Moonlight touching your skin will result in instant death."

"Which is why you cannot do this, Aurora. No way," my mate said firmly.

I pursed my lips. The Moon Goddess had showed her approval many times, but I couldn't tell them that. They would chalk it up to the concussion and send me to the psych ward. "I can and I will. I bet there's a very low chance of her actually doing that and besides, it's a risk I'm willing to take. We need the royal guard."