Page 5 of An Enigma for the Lycan Crown Prince

*ELDEN*

Ispent the afternoon with Flora and her grandma. Her grandma is a sweet woman, and made us cookies and hot chocolate. She helped us replant the orchid Flora saved, telling us about the tiny white flowers and that it’s called a ghost orchid.

It’s so weird to be in their vicinity. It’s warm and comfortable in their cottage.

Flora and her grandma are smiling a lot, yet no one smiles in my home.

Flora talks about the dots of light she is seeing and how they lead her to places sometimes. I know the other kids make fun of her, but the way she is talking, the way her eyes look at me… I know she isn’t lying. I should find her weird, but I don’t.

I noticed her a couple of months ago; the girl who is always alone, the girl who is talking to something no one can see. The girl with the bright smile. When I first spotted her, I shrugged it off. My parents don’t like me hanging out with the ‘commoner’ kids, as they call them. With those who are not royal. So, I dropped the thought of ever talking to her.

But whenever I studied, I’d gaze out of my room on the top floor of the pack house, seeing her always attending to a flower or a plant. Mom once told me she is called Flora, and she has royal blood in her. I didn’t know that, as she is unlike any other royal lycan I have met. Flora means flower, and it’s like the sun is shining on her. Something invisible kept pulling me towards her and, then today, I finally gave in and followed the tug.

Flora chatted the whole afternoon. She didn’t mind that I was the alpha’s son and his heir, or that I was a prince. She didn’t care about my rank or the weird prophecy about me. My father has been teaching me about the prophecy ever since I was a baby, but Flora… she doesn’t care about anything like that.

She was just happy to play with me.

I have never played with another kid. The only other child my father tolerates around me is his friend’s son, Jace.

No one has ever talked to me about flowers. No one really talks to me at home. And I can’t remember the last time my mom or dad hugged me like Flora’s grandma hugs her.

“So, we are friends now!” Flora concludes, when I say goodbye to return home.

“Are we?” I ask.

“Yes,” she beams. “Best friends.”

“I have another friend, too,” I say. “His name is Jace.”

“That’s okay,” she reassures me. “I can be your best friend, and your other friend your second. But I want to be your number one.”

“But I am a boy,” I argue.

“And?” she asks, blinking at me.

I return her gaze with one of disbelief, before I give in with a sigh. “Forget it.”

“Then we will meet again tomorrow?” she asks.

“Yes,” I mutter. “It’s not like I have a choice.”

She beams at me, smiling brightly. It makes my cheeks heat up in embarrassment. At the same time, I’m feeling the weird pull again.

Before I can leave, her grandma hands me a plate with leftovers from the cake. “Maybe you want to eat the rest of it with Luna Carolina,” she says.

I look at the plate, not sure how to answer her. Mom hasn’t eaten any cake with me in what feels like forever. Flora’s grandma is so kind, though, I don’t have it in me to tell her the truth, so I just smile politely. “Thank you,” I say.

My father isn’t home yet, fortunately, and the Alpha Suite is completely empty. Mom isn’t living with us currently. She is residing on the floor above us so she can be alone. Dad says she is in a weird phase, and it will pass. He says it’s none of my business but that she is just mentally screwed. He always sounds annoyed when he talks about her and her issues.

Her gamma calls it asevere depression.

I don’t know what depression is, but I know that Mom spends hours sitting in her chair and gazing out of the window. I know she likes it silent, and that her ears hurt when I am too loud.

I once heard Gamma Tobias talk to the beta and Dad about her. He said something like he wished the luna would be brought to a psych ward with actual doctors and people who could helpher. Dad refused, though, saying it would be an embarrassment to have her evaluated like that, and that people would look down on him if his wife and luna was mental.

I find Mom in her usual spot, in her rocking chair, a book on her lap. It’s the same book she has been reading for weeks. I think she isn’t really reading it; she is just looking at it. She barely notices when I enter the room, as usual.

“Mom,” I say, taking her hand into mine while I kneel next to her.