Chapter Nineteen #2
He gets up and walks into his connected bathroom and closes the door. I pull my knees up to my chest and scan the room. Not like there is anything in here I have not seen before.
Now that I know more about him, his room makes more sense.
When I first saw it, nothing about it said that it belonged to a vampire who lives in eternal darkness.
This is the room of a fae. All of the paintings and colors are all things to remind him of the small part of who he is. They remind him of his mother.
I stand up out of the chair and walk over to his bookcase, looking at some of the titles written in a language that I now know is from the fae kingdom. I grab one and open it up, seeing that it has been translated so I can read it. I flip through a few pages, scanning its contents.
“You can borrow them if you’d like.”
His voice makes me jump and I put my hand over my heart. He starts laughing.
I turn around to glare at him, seeing that he has changed his clothes and styled his hair. His waves that were unruly and tangled, are now smooth and laid flat, tucked behind his ears.
“I know how much you are interested in Faeria, so it may help you to read about it,” he says.
“Yes, I think I will actually.”
“You can come with me one day, if you wish to.”
I turn toward him, excitement written across my face. “I would love to, but how?”
“There are ways for you to see it while you protect yourself from the sun. It is how father and our guards are able to travel there.”
I nod my head in understanding. I would love to go over there and see it one day. Although it is very magical here, I can only imagine what it is like over there.
“So, what would you like to do today?” Draven asks.
I snap my head back up from the book to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“I am going to take the day off, so tell me what you would like to do.”
“But it has not been two weeks yet,” I say.
“Well, it is close enough. I do not think you could last another two days cooped up in this castle. I am ending your bed rest for you.”
“You’re not a healer.”
“No, but I am a prince.”
I roll my eyes at his arrogance. “You –”
I pause.
“You know what, why am I even arguing this. I would like to go on a walk and get some fresh air.”
“Deal, but only if you eat first.”
After we eat breakfast, we make our way down to the garden. Draven keeps me occupied with conversation as we walk, but I cannot help but miss my time out here with Ivorie.
We spend most of the day outside.
Draven shares stories of being in the garden with his mother when he was younger. He would come out here frequently and garden with her. It was her favorite place in the castle.
He talks in great detail about how meticulous she was about her garden.
She designed it herself down to where each flower would be planted, having every single one that can grow in Vryko, here.
Each time I come out here, there are workers constantly tending to it.
They make sure that nothing is out of place, even in her absence.
Before we leave the garden, he plucks a yellow flower off its vine and tucks it behind my ear.
The motion is so gentle in contrast to his tension.
I stare at him while his features are set in concentration as he places it there.
His finger grazes the shell of my ear as he pulls away and goose bumps erupt across my skin.
Reaching up, I go to touch the flower, but decide against it and drop my hand back down.
We continue to walk toward the barn to look at the animals kept on the castle grounds. We feed the horses and brush them before we decide to take a ride on them.
I spend most of the ride with my head tilted up as I look at the stars, only dropping it when he points something out for me to look at.
He shows me around the entire perimeter of the castle until we find a grassy spot to sit down on.
We sit facing each other as he shares different stories of him and Alaric growing up and getting into constant trouble.
They used to hide from their guards that were assigned to watch them and end up in trouble with the king.
They would do it all over again the next day.
His words chase away the hurt inside of me whether he realizes it or not.
I smile and listen to everything he says to me, holding onto every single detail.
The moonlight settles against his skin as he speaks, making the porcelain color of it glow.
But nothing compares to the way his face lights up as he smiles.
Every so often, if he does it hard enough, lines pull at the corners of his eyes and a shallow dimple appears on his right cheek.
I use the grass as a distraction and somewhere to look when I feel as if I want to stare. The blades are not as intriguing as him.
We head back inside as it gets closer to dinner time. I stop by my room to bathe and grab whatever I need, deciding to stay the night in Draven’s room again to see if I can sleep without the company of a nightmare.
When I open my door to leave, I realize Draven stood outside of my bedroom door waiting for me. I find myself embarrassed at the time I took because I figured he would have went back to his room and let the guards walk me back. But I found him as I left him.
When we get back to his room, there is already a dinner spread ordered and laid out on his coffee table and a roaring fire in the hearth. We eat dinner together and decide to look through one of the story books of the fae he pulled off his shelf.
I read most of it as he listens. He insisted on it.
At some point, we fall asleep reading on the couch next to each other, both of us exhausted over our lack of sleep from the last twelve days.
I wake up the next morning tucked back into his bed.
I did not have a single nightmare last night.