He knows who she is.
Before she could respond, before she could ask how or when or what he means, he was already moving away. Walking back toward the exit they came through.
Two pretty she-wolves emerged from the back gate as he reached it, wearing dresses that covered them properly. He spoke to them, giving them instructions and gestured toward Adele.
Both women glanced in her direction, nodded, and started making their way up to the platform.
He didn't look back, sliped through the back gate and disappeared back into the villa, leaving Adele standing there clutching a piece of candy.
---
SPLASH!!
Cold water splashes over Adele's face, jolting her up from her sleep with a gasp.
She sat up abruptly, disoriented, her sheets soaked, and her wet clothes clutching to her skin, with her hammering heart.
Three castle maids were standing around circling her bed, one holding an empty glass pitcher, all three wearing identical maid uniforms and having identical faces with similar contempt on them. They were triplets, Kara, Kira, and Kyra. Omegas and polished brunettes.
"Finally awake, sleeping beauty," Kara the eldest said with malice in her voice, as if it were a private joke. "It's nearly seven. We were beginning to think you'd sleep the whole day away." And Adele was immediately wide awake.
She realized she had missed the alarm. She wipes water from her face with shaky hands, trying to catch her breath. "I didn't mean to—"
"We do this every now and then, and she still doesn't learn." Kira the middle one tsked.
"Of course you didn't mean to," Kara continued, she paced over to Adele's desk and placed the wet pitcher over her writings. "You never mean to do anything, do you? Just drift through life while the rest of us work."
"At least she's consistent," Kira muttered as she grabbed Adele's arm and yanked her to her feet. "Consistently being useless." Her wolf's grip was powerful and crushing against Adele's weak wolfless arms. Kira was culprit of her pain. Her fingers will leave a bruise.
But Adele's gaze was on the drenched sheets, her chest tightening with weary calculation of how long they would take to dry this time. It is summers, so this much was tolerable. She could carry them to the open area, spread them beneath the sun, and let the warmth do its work.
But winters were different, stretching over more than half the year in Frostfang territory.
Her wing of the castle had no modern heating. During snowy wintery days when the sun didn't appear for weeks, drying linens became an exercise in patience and quiet suffering.
Sometimes she draped them near the hearth, turning them again and again. Sometimes they never fully dried because she could not afford a constant supply of firewood on her meagre budget. And sometimes, when there were no fresh sheets left, she slept on the least damp side, curled inward, shivering through the night.
She cleans her room, sometimes the entire castle wing as well, depending on the sister's mood.
"Alpha Magnus has summoned you for breakfast in the summer garden," Kira announced. "Nine o'clock sharp."
Adele's internal thoughts were dispelled by this news. "Father summoned me?"
"Don't sound so surprised. Even forgotten pups get dragged out for appearances occasionally." Kara's eyes sweeped over Adele's soaked form with undisguised disdain. "Though goddess knows why they bother. Not like you add anything to the pack image."
"More like subtract from it," Kira chimed in under her breath.
"We'll be back in twenty minutes to check the room's condition," Kara the eldest said, already heading toward the door. "Make sure it's cleaned as usual. And try not to make more work for us than you already do. Some of us have actual value around here."
"Unlike someone who just consume resources," Kira muttered, casting a pointed look at Adele's untouched lunch tray from last day. "Food wasted. Space wasted. Air wasted."
The two sisters stepped out of the room, their laughter echoing down the corridor. Just before the door closed, Kyra the youngest paused and glanced back at the soaked princess, still standing beside her bed, lost in her own world.
"Kyra," Kira shouted, "Are you coming or not?"
"Yes! I'm coming."
Kyra would sneakily come to her room and help Adele with chores sometimes. Kyra didn't dare to help Adele openly when her sisters bullied her, but Adele never blamed her for it.
Adele blinked while trying to process their words, and her mind became a mess.
Father has summoned me.....Terror grips Adele's chest, squeezing until she can barely breathe. Does he know? Is it possible that he heard about her going out of the castle yesterday? Or did someone saw me coming back late?
H-he definitely knows. Someone must have seen me at that party. Someone would have recognized me...or the car...like that man did. Someone might have told him his eldest daughter was at a.....at a—
She couldn't even finish the thought. What will he do to me? What will he say? Adele's blood ran cold. Yesterday, she was in so much shame while stammering away, that she didn't register if anyone noticed her leaving the party or returning back to the castle. She didn't get a wink of sleep last night. How could she?
To Adele's horror, the first time she'd disappointed him, he'd locked her in the castle basement for three days with no food, no heat and no light. She was all alone, curled up on the cold stone floor in total darkness and the sound of her own breathing echoing back at her.
Adele was six maybe seven years old when she'd accidentally embarrassed him at a diplomatic dinner by fainting from illness in front of visiting alphas, and at that point, it was the first time he had locked her up.
Adele still hadn't recuperated from previous night's event, visuals still flashing in front of her eyes, yet now she needed to think about the consequences.
Her childhood was filled with many punishments that came from selected group of people, which included her father as well.
Even omegas tend to bully Adele for the smallest of things, and Kara is their ringleader. Over the years, Adele learned to keep to herself and to avoid them effectively.
Those days in the dark had taught her to hide her illness better, but no matter the number of times she was there, it had never taught her how to overcome her growing fear of darkness.
Her hands began to shake in tremors that she couldn't control. Her breathing turned shallow, uneven, until she started choking on her own air. And she slumped to the ground, clutching at her chest trying to take in long breaths.
On unsteady knees, she dragged herself toward the desk. Then, her fingers fumbled through the drawer until they closed around a small vial of medicine. She popped a tablet into her mouth, swallowing it without water. From the tabletop, she took her mother's photograph and pressed it to her chest, holding it there as if it was her anchor, crouching on the ground. Slowly her breathing began to steady.
After tidying her room, taking the sheets out, Adele was dejected while thinking about what to put on to her own sentencing.
She can't go in her normal Tee's. Her hands shook as she buttoned the blouse.
Maybe he doesn't know, she tries to tell herself. Maybe this is about something else. But she couldn't think of any other reason, he hasn't requested her presence in months.
She braids her damp silver hair, pins it into a neat coil at the base of her neck and leaves the room.
He'll be disgusted, more disgusted than he already is. Her stomach churns with nausea.
Adele was nearing the entrace to the garden when someone bummped into her in a hug.
"Adele!"
"Luna June!" Relief floods through Adele as she recognizes her sister-in-law, Caspian's mate. "You're back! When did you return? How was youy stay?"
"Just this morning," Luna replied, releasing the hug but keeping one hand on Adele's arm. Her other hand rested unconsciously on her pregnant belly beneath her elegant dress. "I enjoyed staying with my parents for the past two months, perhaps a little too much! Caspian threatened to come drag me back himself if I stayed away any longer."
Adele's eyes dropped to Luna's belly, "You're showing now."
Luna's face glowed with maternal joy. "It's a boy. Caspian is insufferable about it, already planning the child's future."
"Really? A little prince? I'm so happy for you," Adele said, her anxiety easing as she surmised that perhaps this lunch had been arranged to welcome June.
Luna June, a blonde is the only daughter of the wealthiest businessman Mr.Woodmayne in the Frostfang pack, and as such, she is respected and held in high regard among the royals.
She had always been kind to Adele and often made an effort to include her in social events. However, she and her brother were currently overseeing the outer provinces, which made their stays at the castle limited and infrequent in recent years.
But they still visits occasionally.
"Come," Luna linked her arm through Adele's. "Let's go together." she said, leading her.