72. Angélique
72
Angélique
T his is all my fault.
I walk after Elhyor in a daze. I saw myself grab his hand when he held it for me, but then everything looks like it’s happening in a blur.
This is all my fault.
I accepted to marry Elhyor.
I said I would kill him.
And when I didn’t keep my word, my father decided to punish me by attacking Léandre.
And now we might have set fire to the servers, but we don’t know if they’ve been destroyed or if everything is still intact, and we’re missing eleven men and one of them is the father of the girl I came to consider my friend.
I can’t help the feeling that all those shitty things happened because of me.
And now I have to announce to my best friend that maybe in a few hours he won’t remember me.
It’s probably going to be harder on me than him. Or, it’s going to be harder for him to swallow it down and then he’ll forget all about it.
”Where is Léandre?” I suddenly ask. Because yes, it’s surprising that he isn’t here with us when we went there to try to find a way to save him.
It’s not like him not to be thankful.
“He wasn’t feeling well,” Cassiopé answers after a beat.
Something isn’t adding up. More because she’s not spitting sentences after sentences. She doesn’t sound like herself.
“What happened?” Elhyor asks, beating me with asking the question.
“He said it was a migraine, but it came in an instant so I made him rest,” Cassiopé says and she sounds like a mix of sheepish and sorry.
“And where is he?” I ask.
“In my room,” she answers, and now she looks more sheepish than sorry, and even if I want to tease her about the fact that she decided to install him in her room, I don’t feel like it’s the right time.
Still, I want to see my best friend. I want to know he’s alright, and that everything is going to be okay.
So, instead of wherever Elhyor and Cassiopé had decided to go, I pull on Elhyor’s hand and get him to follow me up the stairs leading to the bedroom corridors.
“Maybe I should go first,” Cassiopé says when we reach her door, but I don’t wait for her and barge in.
My best friend, half-naked, tangled in sheets that look like he wasn’t the only one in them not long ago, wasn’t what I expected.
But what can’t be missed either is the distinct smell of sex inside the room. With all my lessons in Versailles, that’s something I know I could never mistake.
I probably should have listened to Cassiopé and let her enter first, after all.
That’s not like I don’t know he has a healthy appetite—and that’s not like I didn’t sleep with Elhyor last night either—but somehow I wasn’t expecting them to have already jumped in bed together.
I backtrack and close the door as I face Elhyor and Cassiopé.
“I’ll be in your office,” I tell Elhyor, “Get him to wake and dress and join us,” I say for Cassiopé.
I don’t miss the way she blushes at knowing what I just saw, but I don’t care. I like Léandre and I won’t say a single thing because he might be about to get his brain blown out, but I need to go away and fast.
Because it doesn’t sit well that while we were trying to save his ass and risking our own in the process, this little asshole was getting down and dirty with my new friend.
It also didn’t take them long.
As if he feels like something is wrong with me, Elhyor doesn’t try to talk to me while he follows me to his office.
I’m fuming, but I’m not going to explode while I’m in hearing range.
I might want to kick my best friend’s ass—preferably with studded boots— but I won’t forget what he is going through.
So, I’m holding it in for now.