Chapter 41 Azalea
Azalea
“Zel!” Rhoden practically screeches as I bury my face in my hands.
“I know! Tell me I’m a bad person. I need to hear someone say it because me telling myself clearly isn’t enough.”
“You’re not a bad person.” Rhoden scoots closer to me and places her hand on my forearm.
I just finished telling her the full truth of everything that happened in the library. It was easy to write off the first kiss when it happened while I was piss drunk, but I was completely sober in that library, and we did far worse things than kiss.
“Rho, I have a fiance. A fiancé. A man who loves me and is waiting for me to break this curse and come back to him.”
Rhoden pulls her upper lip between her teeth and nods.
“What’s that face?”
“I’m not making a face.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I am not. This is just my face.”
“Rhoden,” I push, sitting up straighter.
“Alright, fine! I wasn’t going to say anything, but I always thought it was weird how a man who is as in love with you as you say Phillip is has been idly sitting back and waiting for you to figure a way out of this.”
“As opposed to?”
“I don’t know, storming the castle, challenging Braxton to a duel, fighting for you.”
“You’re a romantic. And a dramatic one at that.”
“I’m a friend who’s pointing out what you deserve.”
I huff. I’d be lying if I said those thoughts hadn’t crossed my mind once or twice. Recently, I hadn’t even gotten a letter from him, so I didn’t anticipate him storming the castle or fighting for my honor anytime soon. Not that it feels like I have much honor left after what I did tonight.
“However, Phillip not coming to storm the castle doesn’t make Braxton the better man.”
I wrinkle my nose at her. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying they both suck. Braxton is a pompous, monsterous asshole, and Phillip is a coward.”
“Harsh.” I wince at her words even though they aren’t about me.
“It’s the truth, and the truth sometimes is painful and ugly.”
I let out a sigh before lying back on my bed and draping my arm over my face.
I want to sink into my mattress and never come out of it.
I feel a tentative soft touch on my elbow, and peek my eye out from under my arm.
Luna is nuzzling me softly, and I can’t help but smile and give her an appreciative pat in response.
“Be careful,” Rhoden continues. “You have a bigger heart than you let people see, and sometimes big hearts break the hardest.”
“Ugh,” I groan. “I can’t believe at 32 years of age, I’m sitting here discussing boys. BOYS Rhoden! I’m being a child.”
Rhoden giggles. “It does feel mildly juvenile, doesn’t it?”
I snort. “That’s putting it mildly.”
We both fall quiet for a moment. Me drifting into my thoughts of home. I feel as though, in this last week, I’ve nearly forgotten what I’m fighting to go home to.
“I think I’m going to retire early tonight.
” I give Rhoden a grateful smile, so that she doesn’t think I’m upset by anything she said.
One of the things I value the most about Rhoden is that she’ll be honest with me even when it’s hard.
Plus, she’s right. I’m literally cursed to live out my eternal days in a castle, and I’m complaining about the mind boggling orgasms, because clearly Braxton is an overachiever and one wasn’t enough, I just received from my literal captor.
“Do you want me to brush your hair before I go?” she asks.
I shake my head and bid her goodnight. I sit on the bed for a moment longer before bringing myself to my feet. I shimmy out of the dress I wore today, but before I toss it in the basket to be collected for laundering, I bring it to my nose and inhale.
Exactly as I anticipated, the dress smells like the perfect blend of my floral scent and Braxton’s smoky one.
I never imagined smelling my dress after spending the day with him would be so enthralling, but here I am, thinking about him all over again.
How his lips felt pressed against mine. How perfectly he filled me.
How he had me screaming his name even though I’d rather cut my tongue out than ever succumb to giving him that level of satisfaction again.
Rhoden’s warning rings in my head, and I quickly drop the dress in the basket before grabbing a night slip and silk robe from my closet.
I’m closing up my wardrobe when I hear my bedroom door open.
Assuming Rhoden forgot something in my room, I chuckle under my breath and turn to face the door, thinking nothing of the intrusion.
“What did you forget this—”
I stop because it’s not Rhoden standing there.
“Gravesley, what are doing here?”
The hairs on the back of my neck rise as my stomach churns.
I can sense something is different about him.
He looks… unwell. His lips are chapped, and his usually fairly defined wrinkles seem to be practically concaving his face in.
But apart from the weathered look of his skin, his eyes aren’t filled with their usual spark.
No. There’s something dark in them, as if they’ve been filled with a deranged glimmer.
I watch as his hand reaches up to the lock on my door and turns it once, clicking the bolt into place.
“I think it’s time to get some sleep, Azalea,” Gravesley says, and he starts walking towards me.