Chapter Twenty-One
As we make our way back into the castle, I walk a little wobbly. All of the turns still making me feel dizzy. We left town as the only people walking the streets other than the guards trailing behind us.
I am unsure as to where we should go. More so, unsure where I should go.
What happened tonight could be the start of something much deeper. It opened a door further into our relationship that I am scared to walk through.
If I go to his room with him tonight, I could do something stupid. Then he could wake up the next morning and think everything was a mistake. That we were a mistake this entire time. We were never supposed to enjoy each other like this.
I was never supposed to feel this way. I am supposed to be miserable here. Unhappy and trapped in a place I do not want to be, trying to find a way back home.
But I stopped thinking about home a long time ago. I have not thought about trying to escape once since my thoughts were replaced with ones of him.
He could very well be pretending to enjoy my company. He was forced to be with me after all, so when you are forced to be with someone, you have to make yourself like them.
Right?
I do not want to be the kind of person who makes someone else feel trapped.
He turns his attention to me. “What are you thinking about.”
I shake my head. “Nothing important, just trying to decide what I am going to do tomorrow.”
“Yes, I was going to ask you about that as well.”
A breath of relief rushes out of me as I realize that we are walking to my room. Forgetting his comment completely, I choose to tend to my racing heart instead.
When we reach the door, he stops and leans against the wall.
“I can wait out here while you get your things,” he says.
I stop and look at the door, then back to him.
“I think that I am going to stay here tonight,” I blurt out.
His brow furrows, then quickly straightens. “Okay, then I will go get my things. I can stay in Ivorie’s room again or on the couch. Whatever you like.”
“Alone. I think I am going to stay here alone.”
Draven stands up straight and walks over to me, shooting a sideways glance at the guards watching us. He tilts his head in a motion for them to leave and they walk down the hallway.
He leans toward me, his voice low. “But I do not want you to sleep without me close to you.”
I open my mouth to speak but his words cut me off.
“I mean that, I do not want to sleep without being close to you,” he says quietly.
I look up at him, seeing the truth in his words along with the unrestrained emotion within his eyes that he does not let anyone see. It makes me melt.
Without a second thought, I step forward until I face the center of his chest. I tilt my head up to him as he braces his hand over my head against the doorframe. He leans into it, so he is hoovering right above me. My eyes lock onto his, no words needing to be exchanged between us.
I rise up on my toes ever so slightly, his lips inches from my own. His eyes flutter shut and mine follow along. I lean in, feeling the lightest graze of my bottom lip against his. His breath is warm against my lips. Fire ignites within my chest.
Wanting to lean in further and grab his beautiful face, my body does the opposite. I jerk back before our lips fully touch.
A whisper of a kiss and I already feel undone.
My back hits the wall as I reach my hand up and touch my bottom lip. I look up at him, seeing that his eyes are still shut. A pained expression is set on his face while his chest rises and falls with great effort.
“We cannot,” I whisper.
His eyes open, his honey irises reflecting the pain his features showed. “I do not understand. I thought—”
He pauses and glances at me.
He leans upward, removing his hand from the doorway and taking a step away from me. My heart screams at me to follow his step with one of my own.
I shake my head. “I do not understand what is happening inside of my own head. I feel like there are so many things wrong with me.”
The weight pressing in on my chest is now making me feel like I am suffocating.
His eyes soften with understanding that replaces the hurt. He moves back toward me and grabs my hand, interlacing our fingers.
“Whatever is going on, the unwanted thoughts and feelings that live inside of your head, I want to fix it for you. Please just let me fix it so you do not have to.”
I look down at our intertwined fingers and consider all that he is saying.
For him to offer such a thing to me, then not follow through with it, would be detrimental.
For him to see every demon and fault that lives inside of my head, would change his mind quickly.
It would destroy me and everything we have created with one another.
“I do not want anyone to fix anything for me,” I say.
I slip my hand out of his grip and step back. Hurt flashes across his face once more, reflecting my own.
“You never even asked me about that night,” I say.
He gives me a confused look, but I continue anyway.
“You never even asked me what happened, or how I felt. You never even asked me if I wanted to be here.”
He pauses, taking a deep breath.
“I do not ask you about that night because I already know what happened. I know what happened in explicit detail because I made them tell me, made them explain every single minute that passed.”
His irises flash red then turn back to gold. He steps forward and I step back as I find myself pressed against the wall again.
“You think that I want to hear you tell me too? As if I want to listen to the story once more, but this time, hear those words spoken from you. To have to hear your voice and the fear laced under each word, knowing there was a time when you were that vulnerable and I was not there to help you. I have killed them already and I cannot bring them back from the dead to do it over again. Trust me, I would. Over and over and even slower each time if I could.”
I shiver at the menace in his voice. Shadows pour from behind him, lining the floor as they wait for the cue to attack.
He continues, “I do not ask you how you feel about that night because I already know. I do not ask you if you want to be here because I already know that answer as well.”
His voice cracks as he speaks.
“I do not ask you anything pertaining to any of it because I am too scared to hear your response. Too scared to hear that if it happened all over again you would choose not to be here. You would choose not to be with me. I am too scared to hear that you are only with me because you had no choice in the matter, that you were forced.”
I fight back tears of anger that start to line my eyes. The honesty in his words ring through my ears.
I step forward. “You think you would struggle to hear it again, then how do you think it would feel to actually live it? I watched the only person I had left in my life die right in front of me before I got turned into something I did not even know existed. Then, I was thrown into an unknown world and have been told what I must to do ever since. Now to top it all off, I am plagued with constant nightmares and the fear that someone is coming to take me. The reality of it all replays in my head constantly and I do not ever get a break from it.”
My chest heaves up and down as I continue to fight against the threat of my tears falling. I am so tired of crying.
“I am an empty shell of a person, filled with nothing but my own trauma and fear,” I say, voice empty.
I step forward, continuing to unleash my anger out on the one person who does not deserve it.
“You are scared of my answers, but I will tell them to you anyways. No, I do not want to be here. Everything I have done has quite literally been forced from me. If I could do it over again, I would wish to never know what this place is. If I could get a redo, I would wish to never be this—”
“This what?” he asks, voice low.
Moments pass as I stare back at him. The next words come out of my mouth, in the shape of a blade.
“This monster. I am nothing but a monster now. Just like you.”
He rears back like I slapped him across the face, devastation settling in his eyes. His gaze drops to the ground as he takes many steps back, creating distance between us.
When he looks back up, the hurt has been replaced with the stoic, blank mask of the prince.
Two hundred and fifty years of practice for him to be able to do that. For him to shut his emotions off so easily. Something I could never do myself, no matter how hard I try. I know hurt shows in my own eyes at what I have just done to us. I do not even try to hide it.
I have come to learn over the past few months that under Draven’s hard exterior, is nothing but a broken and lonely man, trying to heal.
I fear I may have just broken him even more.
He points his eyes back to the ground. “I wish you never came here as well,” he says, voice hard.
My heart has shattered enough in my lifetime, but it manages to do it one last time. Surely no pieces will be left of it to put back together again.
He clears his throat. “I am leaving to go to Faeria tomorrow. I do not know when I will be back.”
“Draven,” I say.
He was going to ask me to go with him.
“I will make sure to keep extra guards posted outside while you sleep and ensure that one escorts you to wherever you need to go.”
I step toward him, he steps back. Reaching out my hand, I drop it back down to my side.
The damage has been done.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He nods in response then turns around and walks down the hall.
I watch him until I can no longer see him. The two guards replace his presence as they turn the corner and work their way toward me. They line up on either side of my door, but I still stay where I am at.
Unsure how much time passes, I continue to stare down the hallway.
He does not come back.
When I step into my room, I walk over to my bed and fall onto my back. Red hot tears stream down my face, burning as they fall, angry at me for keeping them in for so long. My entire body shakes with anger of its own.