33. King Lawrence
King Lawrence
If I had thought I’d gone crazy at Penelope’s disappearance, it didn’t compare to how maddening I was becoming at her return.
Four weeks.
Four fucking weeks and I still couldn’t find her.
How was that possible? How was it that she was alive, but she was being hidden from everyone, including me? It was almost unbelievable that any of this was happening. I saw no proof other than the stories that appeared in the paper. I had no control or say concerning her wellbeing.
I was the king!
If anyone should have been overseeing her traumatic return, it should have been me. After all, she’d been held against her will. She’d been taken and…
My eyes nearly rolled, and I held in the moan at my own fantasies.
Taken and tortured. Or so the papers claimed. It’s not like I could see proof. I knew only what the rest of the world did, and that’s what the papers reported. I couldn’t stand it. How could I find her? How did I bring her here?
It was impossible.
No one seemed to know anything but the damn papers.
And they only knew what they were being fed from an anonymous source.
When the palace demanded truth behind the speculation at the beginning, we got it.
Pictures of Penelope, beaten but well. The slight bruising on her cheek had been fading, but she was alive.
And… she wasn’t the same woman I remembered.
She was harder around the edges.
Angrier.
Cold.
I wasn’t sure how I detected it from three photographs, but I had seen the softness in her before. It was still there, but it was guarded now.
I wasn’t sure what to think about that. I was torn. The guilt had faded but what replaced it was desperation. I felt like I was losing my mind. What was replacing it was her.
I would find Penelope, and when I did, this time I wasn’t going to let her go. But I wouldn’t rush her either. Her fear wouldn’t allow it. Balance would be key, and once I figured out exactly what that balance required… she’d be mine.