Chapter 32

“What do you say to us having a day out?” Rayne asked suddenly.

His question caught me by surprise, and I turned from where I had been standing and finishing some dishes. My head tilted as I processed the question.

“You want to go out today?” I asked for clarification.

It had only been a day since our visit with Rin and Aurora. Although things had been rather quiet, I hadn’t thought Rayne would wish to leave the glen again for a while.

At least, not until the planned celebration at the palace for us.

“I think it would be fun, and we haven’t gotten to go out a lot together yet. Besides, it would also help take some of the edge off of recent events, don’t you agree?” Rayne continued.

“You have a point,” I conceded, turning to face him as he came over to me. “But do you think it will be okay with me like this?”

“Everything will be fine. I’ll be with you, so they wouldn’t dare say or do anything,” Rayne promised.

And so it was that I went out with Rayne that afternoon. The heat had abated some, and there was a nice breeze that had picked up as we headed down the winding path through the woods.

I wasn’t certain where Rayne was planning on going, but I didn’t mind either. Just being with him was enough to make me feel at ease.

“So, where are we going? It seems like we’ve headed quite far out,” I noted as I took in the fields around us.

“Don’t worry. We’re almost there,” Rayne assured me.

He still wore that satisfied smile that he’d had since we’d set out, and I wasn’t quite sure of what to make of it. He must’ve had something more in mind, but he wanted it to be a surprise.

Not that I minded. I wasn’t big on surprises, but I certainly felt that I’d enjoy any from him.

I smiled as I thought that, brushing the red stone hanging from my neck. I loved this necklace, and I wore it all the time.

Rayne had also been right about its calming effects on me. I hadn’t felt the darker sexual urges half as much since he’d given it to me.

Yes, our sex life was still quite active, but at least I didn’t feel like I might inadvertently hurt him during it.

The fields stretched out before us, the path finally revealing what looked to be another small village. It wasn’t quite as big as Jumal but looked just as nice, and I could hear music from the distance and see where there were decorations all around.

It appeared they were having a festival.

“Is this where we are heading?” I inquired.

“It is,” Rayne confirmed as the two of us stopped on the path. “Danvers holds this festival every year and I felt it would be the perfect place for us to come to considering it’s not that big.”

“You’ve come to know me well, haven’t you?”

“I’d hope so.” Rayne gave me a quick kiss on my cheek. “Come. Let us let go and enjoy ourselves for the afternoon.”

I was more than willing to do this with him and happily walked with him down the path to the village. As he’d said, it wasn’t an overly big place, and though there were many creatures there, it didn’t feel half as much as Jumal.

I remained close to Rayne as we entered the main road, a slight bit of anxiety rising within me as the memories of all the side looks and whispers returned. It hadn’t been that long since all of that, and despite knowing that Rayne and his family were intervening along with friends, it still haunted me a bit.

As expected, we were immediately noticed, though this time, smiles greeted us. It wasn’t simply for Rayne either. They were actually excited to see me, and several quickly came over to speak to us.

“Welcome, Lord Rayne! It’s so nice to see you again!” a young female Fox chimed. She was very pretty, with expressive green eyes and long red hair that matched her large ears and two tails.

Her attention quickly darted to me. “And you must be Lady Luna! We’ve been hoping to have the opportunity to meet you!”

I was a little startled by this friendliness but did my best to go along with it. “Oh, yes. It’s nice to meet you too.”

“Now Felicity, you and your friends know better than to crowd others,” Rayne spoke up.

The three around us backed off a little, all giggling at themselves. While the one named Felicity was certainly a Fox, only one other appeared to be the same.

She had golden hair with a matching tail and ears and bright blue eyes. The remaining female appeared to be a type of imp, with long pink hair that fell to her knees and eyes that were a mixture of brown and red. Her skin tone was also darker.

Felicity grinned at us. “I do apologize. We were just so excited when we saw you. You’ve been so unfair keeping her to yourself, Lord Rayne,” she chided him.

“I did no such thing. Luna has been out plenty on her own too, unless you somehow missed the malicious rumors about her,” Rayne countered.

The three backed down a bit at that, and it was the imp that spoke next. “Yes, we did hear some awful things recently, but how in the world could any have believed it? Only the old biddies and pompous would!”

“Yes, Lavinia is very right about that.” Felicity decided to change the subject a bit as she turned her attention back to me. “But enough of such terrible things. You both are here now, so let us all enjoy ourselves. Lavinia, Octavia, and I would simply love spending some time with Luna too.”

“While I normally wouldn’t mind, this ~is~ supposed to be a day out for us,” Rayne reminded them.

“It is, but it would be nice if we could spend some time together another day if that’s okay,” I suggested.

“We could certainly do that, couldn’t we? We are always finding things to do together, and it would be such fun to have Luna with us.” Octavia beamed.

I returned her smile. “That sounds nice. I’m sure Rayne wouldn’t mind us doing that at times.”

Rayne was hard-pressed to argue against it. This was more of what he and his family had hoped to see happen with me.

It was acceptance despite what had been done.

“Perhaps not, but we will see in time. For today, it’s just us taking the day out together, if that’s okay with you,” he finally said.

“Of course. It’s not our place to interfere with you and your beta after all, though it is nice to finally get to meet her,” Felicity responded with the others agreeing.

Hearing this felt good, although I also took it with a tiny bit of doubt in the back of my mind. Perhaps they had heard the rumors and chose to ignore them now that they’d gotten to meet me, or their minds were changed because there were ones refuting them.

I couldn’t know for sure, even if I did pray that they were being completely honest with us.

It wasn’t long after our conversation that Rayne and I continued on. Of course, we also encountered more of the creatures there who wanted to talk to us.

Most were a lot like Felicity and her friends, very welcoming and friendly, yet I didn’t miss that a few kept their stares lingering on me. It was like they were studying me from a distance.

Were they still frightened of me for what they’d heard? I hoped not, but if so, then there wasn’t much more I could do aside from being here and proving that I was nothing like that.

I tried to push all of this aside as the afternoon went on, instead enjoying my time out with the one I loved. Rayne and I were able to mingle with the others there along with dancing and looking at different shops and stands.

I was even able to have a bit of time to talk to Felicity and some of the other females more and was starting to feel slightly more secure about those things. Even if some were a bit wary of me at first, they opened up to me easily as they began talking to me.

It was a good sign that I might be starting to overcome the stigma some had been trying to put on me.

As the afternoon waned and the evening began setting in, I ended up sitting with Felicity and a few of the other females on my own while Rayne spoke with some of the males he was friends with nearby.

This would be my first real opportunity to do something like this since I’d come there, and I confess I was a bit excited, not to mention hopeful. I wanted friends there outside of the royal family.

“It’s been so nice to have you and Lord Rayne here. Honestly, it feels like forever since we’ve seen him come out for anything like this, and now he has you with him,” Felicity was saying.

We were a group of four sitting outside at the table. I sat on the right, with Octavia on my left and Lavinia sitting opposite me.

The three had been around all day and had been nothing but nice to me each time we interacted. I’d dare say that they showed more than a casual interest in getting this chance to talk to me one on one.

“It seems like you know Rayne quite well. Is it through Rin?” I asked her.

“Yes. You could say that it is a family connection of sorts. I grew up knowing them not only because they are Lord Jekia’s sons, but because my father is the only remaining brother of Lord Jekia’s closest friend,” Felicity answered.

“You are Musket’s daughter?” I guessed.

It wasn’t that hard for me to put that one together. I’d heard quite a few times now that Sage had been Lord Jekia’s closest friend, and Musket was his brother.

“I am,” Felicity confirmed. “I confess that I am his youngest, and a bit proud of it too because he tends to favor me a bit more.”

“You do realize that there aren’t many left, and you are the only female, so of course he would pay a bit more attention to protect you,” Octavia chided her.

“Do not sound jealous. You know your father is the same when it comes to you,” Felicity countered.

“Why on earth would I sound jealous?” Octavia contended.

Lavinia grinned at me. “Do not mind them. They do tend to compete at times when it comes to their fathers. It’s simply the pride some foxes have in their bloodlines,” she assured me.

I returned her smile. “It makes sense, and I have heard that Musket carries a rather prestigious bloodline.” I looked at Octavia. “Is your father much like Musket?”

“He is. He’s also a nine-tail, and they’re rarities among the foxes,” she proudly told me.

“They also hear and see much, so it was a surprise when they realized that such vile words were being spread about you. I confess that we had not heard it until recently either, so it surprised us too. Perhaps Papa was right, and they were trying to keep it away from some ears because they knew it may be traced back,” Felicity suggested.

“There is the belief that they wished to do that, though I admit that it hasn’t made the aftermath of it much easier. It’s taken me a bit of strength to believe that coming out like this will be okay, even when I promised myself that I would be strong enough to stand with Rayne,” I confessed.

“You do not believe you are?” Octavia inquired.

“I’ve been unsure since all of that. I know that it’s already much to some that I am not from the Northern Lands. On top of it, I am also a mixed breed that they believe could be dangerous. It’s a lot to prove otherwise, much more than I’d originally thought,” I explained.

The three sympathized with me, nodding their heads solemnly.

“Your feelings are understandable, and many would crumble under the weight of that. It takes much responsibility to become a beta to one of the more powerful in this world, especially the rulers. I confess that being Musket’s only daughter has put challenges in front of me since I was young too for the fact that I’ve had many who wish to sway my favor because of him alone. That or they simply don’t like me for that fact. I can only imagine how terribly envious some of these females have become of you since you came here. So many have wished to catch the eye of one of Lord Jekia’s sons, especially Rayne, yet they managed to snag neither,” Felicity said.

“That’s what I’ve been hearing, especially about the matchmaking houses. They were even angry when Lord Jekia first chose Lady Lana,” I recalled.

“Very much so.” Lavinia leaned her elbows on the table. “My mother has spoken of it to me a few times over the years, and while she has never had any ill feelings about Lady Lana, she knew some who did simply because they didn’t like that Lord Jekia had chosen a human woman. To be honest, hearing what’s happened to you was rather disappointing. They are no better than any other, so they had no right to cast any judgment on you, especially when most had never even gotten to meet you.”

“She is right. There is nothing demonic about you, my lady. You’re quite sweet, and that’s been easy to tell as soon as we met you. It’s been incredibly easy for us to feel close to you too. Besides, I feel that it’s much like what my Papa says; one cannot judge another simply for what they were born to. It is who they are that makes the difference,” Felicity added.

“I do wonder if your Papa learned that wisdom himself or from Lord Sage. He was always one to accept others easily if he deemed them good at heart,” Octavia commented.

Felicity grinned. “I suppose that is for Papa to know alone.”

I smiled as I heard this, though my attention was becoming slightly diverted. I noticed that something felt off and casually looked around, trying to figure out what it was.

Nothing looked out of the ordinary, yet it was almost like I could hear this low voice speaking. They were whispering like they wanted my attention.

I glanced at the girls around me, but none appeared to notice it, still speaking casually to one another. ~Am I imagining things?~ I wondered.

That was when I saw him. A male figure was standing among the crowds near one of the stands about fifteen feet away. He was rather tall, with hair that reminded me of the moon and deep, dark eyes.

A strange tingle went through me as we caught eyes, and for a split second, I had this overwhelming urge to get up and go to him. It was like he was calling me there.

But just as I was about to get up, I was stopped by a hand on my shoulder. I snapped back to reality, looking up to see Rayne standing there. He flashed a friendly smile at the girls.

“Sorry for interrupting, ladies, but it’s about time for Luna and I to start heading back. We’ve got a ways to go before we’ll be home,” he told them.

“Oh, already?! How disappointing! We were just enjoying getting to know our new lady!” Felicity pouted.

“You will let us visit with her soon, won’t you?” Lavinia requested.

“It wouldn’t be fair for you to continue keeping her to yourself,” Octavia interjected.

Rayne took their pouting in stride. “It’s fine if you want to spend time with Luna, but let it be on her terms. Don’t just show up and assume she’ll have time as I know you three can do.”

“Of course not! We wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing!” Felicity huffed.

She and the others stood as Rayne helped me up. “But we are glad to have had this time with you, and I hope you don’t mind joining us again sometime. It would be fun to spend a day with you and show you around the Northern Lands. Perhaps we could go shopping in Jumal soon.”

“I wouldn’t mind, and that does sound fun. Thank you for hanging out with me,” I responded happily.

Yet even as I said my goodbyes to them, I kept glancing back toward where that figure had been. He’d vanished now, almost like he’d never been there.

A strange ache went through me as I realized this. Who had he been? Why did I feel like I needed to go to him?

Rayne put an arm around me as he guided me away, and I noticed that he seemed more alert. It was like he was paying more attention to what was around us, which was a bit odd.

“Is something wrong?” I asked him as we headed toward the gateway leading out of the town.

“It’s nothing. I just thought I might’ve sensed something, but it’s gone now, so perhaps I’m simply a bit paranoid with everything that’s recently gone on,” Rayne answered.

Could he have sensed that male too? I wanted to ask him, but something inside of me told me that it might not have been a good idea.

Besides, it wasn’t like anything had happened. I was still myself and things had been going well, so why ruin a good day?

“It’s all right, Rayne,” I reassured him as I hugged his arm. “I was getting a bit worn down as well, so perhaps it would be best for us to return home now.”

“I’m up for that, but there is one more place I wanted us to go before we did. Are you up for that?” Rayne asked.

“That’s fine. I’ll go anywhere you’d like,” I agreed.

Rayne smiled, easily picking me up. “Let us head on then. I’d like to make it there before the sunset.”