Chapter 42
Freaks [Surf Curse]
It is later in the evening. My thoughts drift to whether Prince Reen will stick to his word and take me out to explore. The supposed date I keep emphasising, even knowing it’s not a date.
Far from it.
A mirror leans against the wall in the room I’m staying in, but it’s covered by a towel I took from the closet.
Turning away from it, my focus trails to the wrinkled burn marks slathered with lotion to stop the irritation from tingling across my skin.
It plagues a part of me, and whenever I undress, it’s a constant reminder of what happened to me.
The grey T-shirt hanging on the bedhead conceals the burns when I shrug it over my head and smooth it down my chest. To keep Prince Reen from staring intensely at where they are, I wear high-waisted blue denim jeans and white-and-red skate shoes.
When I’m ready, I leave and head towards Prince Reen’s room.
Darkness already consumes the sky, thickening with the layer of mist that overwhelms the air. As I head to his room, I wonder what I would do if I killed Prince Reen and gained my freedom.
I don’t have a family to bring me back in with open arms. They’re dead, either by my hands or another’s.
Xavier is a plague I want to get rid of, but if I kill him, I doubt Sara and Kylie will still be my friends.
There’s also nowhere for me to stay, and living in the apartment beside where Nancy died gives me the shivers.
What am I fighting for? What else is there outside this cat-and-mouse hunt between Prince Reen and me? Emptiness and loneliness? Do I still want to be alone? For a time, I thought I wanted everyone to leave me alone. But now…I’m not so sure.
I need more time to think about it. For now, let’s have some fun.
I knock on the door and wait. A moment later, Prince Reen opens the door…in a fucking towel. It’s wrapped around his waist, but even a towel leaves little to the imagination. Where the fuck does he put it when he wears jeans? Do they shrink? Under-tuck? Is that a fucking thing?
Whatever.
“You’re here early.”
I smile cheekily. “I couldn’t stop thinking about our date.”
Curling his lip, he swings the door open, invites me in, and heads to the bathroom, leaving the door slightly ajar.
My focus drifts around his room, but it’s as simple as mine.
So, my eyes linger on the door. Prince Reen takes off his towel.
I should stop myself and gaze somewhere else, but it’s as if I’m glued to the crack.
I stare at the freakishly long dick for a moment before my sights snap to his chest. Beyond tense muscles and broad shoulders, scars riddle across his chest, and as he turns around, longer scars slice down his back.
Curiosity piques my interest in wondering where they came from and what happened to him to gain so many scars.
“Pandora, I can feel your intense gaze from here,” he says.
My eyes widen, and then I quickly avert my gaze as he leaves the room, dressed and tucking his necklace under his shirt. Heat flushes my cheeks, earning a dark, breathy laugh from Prince Reen as he walks past me and exits the room.
We make our way through the city after we leave the ship.
Prince Reen seems more on edge. Red eyes dart left to right as if he’s waiting for an enemy to pop out at any moment.
It’s different from when we roamed, almost carefree, around the Kingdom of Cloud.
Without Astin and Alad, is he now more cautious in observing his surroundings?
I touch the necklace while looking around, wondering where we should go.
“That necklace,” Prince Reen says with a nudge of his chin. “It throbs like a heartbeat. If Kate is correct, does that mean you have someone’s heart on your chest?”
“Huh.” I hook my finger around the chain and grimace. “Funny if it were my sister’s.”
“Why?”
A tightness constricts my throat when I say, “I killed her.”
He eyes me, but he gives nothing away. “You keep surprising me, Pandora Hart.”
I smile. “And so are you.”
My hand tightens on the necklace, causing a sickly stir when I take it off and pocket it.
“Why did you take it off?” Reen asks.
“It feels weird wearing someone’s heart on my chest,” I say. “I will keep it somewhere safe instead.”
Loud voices overwhelm on the right side of the street. Bright neon lights and glowing stalls filled with clothes and handmade jewellery come into focus as we turn onto the street. Sweet, sour, and savoury smells cling to my nostrils, tantalising my taste buds with each open-mouthed breath I take.
Loud and animated music thumps through my eardrums with every enigmatic beat of my pounding, excited heart. Elemny dance to the music, and swarm the stalls with laughter on their faces.
“Night markets,” Prince Reen says.
I drink in the atmosphere of music, hearty food, and beaming faces.
I’m reminded of home for a moment. The Kingdom of Crystal had a week of street fairs, where families looked at Christmas lights, ate as they walked, and listened to Christmas carols.
Sadly, I never went for pleasure; instead, I stayed close to Dad while Typha and Mother entertained themselves with things I wanted to join in.
I want to experience this. The girl inside me needs this moment.
Linking my arm with Prince Reen, he goes stiff as I drag him by the arm and pull him toward the crowd until I’m consumed by it. The crowd feels alive, leaving a vibrant feeling in the air. A group of elemny dance in the street, holding hands and moving to the beat of the music.
I eye Prince Reen and nudge my head toward the dancers.
He gives me a do-it-and-you-will-fucking-die-tonight look.
With an irritable sigh, we keep moving through the crowd until we find the food trucks with salivating street food.
My mouth waters at the meaty, juicy burgers marinated in thick sauces and loaded fries smothered in gravy and sprinkled with crisp bacon.
“Do you, as an ice elemny, enjoy warm food?” Prince Reen asks.
“Yes. But we don’t like hot drinks,” I say. “What about you? Do you like anything cold?”
He grimaces. “Not really, no. But I’m not opposed to it.”
“So…” I point to the burgers and say to the chef, “Two loaded burgers and slush drinks, please!”
“That will be thirty-two.”
I step aside with a wicked grin and say, “All you, Reen.”
There is a battle in his mind, and I know he’s irritated with my spending spree today, but he moves forward in the end and taps his card. He does, however, mutter his complaints about the fact that I stole Astin’s money, so I should have more than enough to pay for my own shit.
The man gestures to the tables beside his food truck. We sit at the table with a colourful umbrella in the middle, covering the stars in the sky.
On the other side of the food truck, dancers sway to alluring, sad symphonic music that pulls at heartstrings. Two air elemny, with love and adoration in their silver eyes, gaze at each other as they dance seductively slowly.
“Who do you think will cause the other to die?” I ask, turning back around to look at Prince Reen. His intense red eyes fixate on me. “What?”
He rolls his eyes toward the dancing couple and twitches a smirk. “Commonly, they both usually agree on dying together instead of watching their lives decay.”
I purse my lips. “Are you tethered, Pri—Reen?”
“No.”
“What would you do if you were tethered to someone?”
“I’d put them in the cells so far down underneath the castle, where they cannot see the light, feel a thing, or cause disruptions to my life.”
I make a face. “You wouldn’t want to try at least to co-exist with them?”
“They would be nothing but a weakness to me. I don’t enjoy feeling out of control of my own emotions.”
I want to persist because I want to know what makes him tick and why, but the man comes with our food and sets it down before us.
As I take a sip of my drink, I eye Prince Reen.
He’s looking at the slushy with a curl of his lip.
Then I notice the ice melting along the edges.
I take the cup from Prince Reen’s hands before it turns into a sloppy mess.
He seems irritated when he looks at his hands as if they’re a weapon too hot to hold anything fragile and cold.
I move the cup to his mouth and say, “Take a drink.”
“Since meeting you, I have had a mental list of reasons to kill you. This humiliation will be another.” Prince Reen takes a sip, cringes, sits back, and then rubs his forehead. “That’s disgusting.”
I bark a laugh before taking a sip. “Tastes like raspberries. I wish we had cake for dessert, though.”
“Cake?”
“I never had cake before,” I admit. “I never had a birthday to have cake.”
“Not even Typha’s?”
“I wasn’t allowed.”
He tilts his head, eyes narrowing, analysing me curiously.
Setting the drink down, I take a bite of the burger. A moaning sound escapes my mouth as I taste the crunchy fried chicken in this creamy, smooth garlic sauce, complemented by the crisp, earthy beetroot flavour.
Through the bitter memories, a sense of fondness returns to me. Dad and I used to eat at this burger place whenever I finished at the academy. This fondness is hard to suppress, and now that it has surfaced, my lip trembles, and my nose flares as I struggle to keep the sadness at bay.
With his head tilted to the side, Prince Reen watches me, his frown deepening when he notices a stray tear slipping down my cheek.
After I put the burger on the paper plate, I wipe away the stray tears and sniff. “Sorry. Uh…I usually have a handle on my emotions.”
Prince Reen picks up a chip and says, “I’m surprised you aren’t more emotionally damaged, Pandora. Your upbringing doesn’t seem the most lighthearted. There is also what happened that night at the Kingdom of Crystal that neither you nor Astin wants to talk about or even mention in my presence.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say flatly. “But what about you, Prince Reen? Do you have any trauma? I see you have scars.”
“Many,” he says, matching my energy and tone of voice.