The Hidden Luna Queen 2

could she refuse?

Victoria smiled. "If you insist." She turned back to the waiter and ordered a glass of chardonnay and a small appetizer of steak bites, seasoned with garlic butter and finely chopped parsley. She hadn't come here to eat a nice meal, but if it was offered to her, how "And for you, Alpha?"

Kenneth, however, responded with a brisk shake of his head and waved his hand to dismiss the young man, who retreated to the kitchen.

It wasn't until the two were completely alone that Kenneth decided to speak up again.

"So... you came, after all," he remarked, sounding almost surprised. "You must truly be serious about this."

Victoria smoothed out the wrinkles from her lap. "Of course I am. I've wanted to meet with you for some time now."

"Well, you've got me right where you want me." He reclined against the back of his chair with an ease that suggested otherwise, crossing his arms as he stared expectantly at the luna. "I must say, in all the years I've held power, no one has ever dared to threaten me the way you did last night."

"I do hope you won't hold that against me. I needed something to get your attention."

His gaze bore into her. "So you did."

The conversation came to a brief standstill when the waiter returned with drinks, promising to serve Victoria's steak shortly before once again leaving the pair alone.

Kenneth cleared his throat. "So," he drawled, "what exactly is it that you want from me? Money? Influence? Connections?" He listed them off as if they were mere words on a list. Something mindless and meaningless he could simply hand out at his leisure. And to him, they were.

Victoria lifted her glass of wine to her cherry lips. "Nothing so base as that," she dismissed him before taking a sip.

"Then kindly spit it out," he demanded. "Contrary to what you might believe of an old wolf like myself, I am still Alpha of one of the largest and most prestigious packs in the kingdom. There are more important things I could be doing with my time." The following pause in their odd, mostly one-sided conversation would have been her chance to take back the words she'd practically hurled at Kenneth's broad back last night.

But, instead...

The luna lowered her glass to the table with a cool nonchalance, leveling with him dead-on.

"I know you want Maeve, and I want you to take her."

And that, admittedly, took Kenneth for a whirl. She was... willingly offering Maeve to him?

He was not so ignorant to believe she was close with Maeve-no, he could only begin to imagine how much she might've loathed raising her mate's bastard daughter. But surely she knew better than to demand things of an alpha as esteemed as himself. Especially when it regarded a daughter that the rest of the world perceived to be her own flesh and blood.

Surely she was smarter than this. So, he pressed again: "Excuse me?"

However, as her gaze locked with his, burning with intent and something fierce, he realized she meant every word with her heart and soul.

"I want you" she repeated with deadly ease, "to take Maeve away. Far, far away, where no one would be able to find her again, and where she'd never say a word to a single soul for the rest of her life."

Kenneth was stunned. She truly meant it.

"She's your daughter." He leaned forward against the table and stared her down... testing her. "Not only that, but you're doing this saying these things-behind your husband's back. Do you have even the faintest idea what you're asking?"

She laughed darkly, the sound bitter and pained. "She's nothing to me. It's because of her that everything in my life has fallen apart."

For the next twenty-odd minutes, she spun the most dramatic sob story Kenneth had ever heard.