Again, the sting of tears snuck up on me. What my mother had always called my foolishness was, in fact, the most simple and basic part of me. I had always felt that despite my circumstances, some part of me remained untamed. Marriage would surely change all of that. And I’d become as dead and dry as one of my hunting trophies. The thought of it was more than I could bear.

Fighting back my tears with all my might, I looked at my mother through bleary eyes. I forced a yawn and blinked a few times to stem the flow of tears. Or to excuse them, if I couldn’t stop them after all.

“I’m so tired, mother. Do you think we could talk about this more tomorrow, before you leave?”

Do not let your chin quiver. Do not. Any sign of weakness and she’d be on me like a hawk on a mole.

“Fine. I’ll speak to you in the morning before we leave,” she said, scooping up my dress and taking it with her, like she was the keeper of the jewel house and didn’t trust me to be left alone with something so valuable. “While we’re gone, Maksim will have charge of you.”

Here again, she focused hard on my face for any sign of emotion. I gave her none. What I was feeling about Maksim was such a torrent of confusion, I hardly knew how to place him in my own mind. Brother? Lover? Tormentor?

My mother needled me a little further.

“I warn you now, your stepbrother is known to have a very heavy hand. If you step out of line with that one, you’ll find yourself in the dungeon. So behave.”

I nodded quickly, keeping my gaze down, keeping my emotions hidden. She was surely exactly right; if I angered Maksim, I’d be in a world of trouble. But some deep, secret, forbidden part of me wanted just that. To test him, to learn him. To be his prey.

I shivered at the thought.

My mother raised her chin again, putting on her public face, and held her back straight. Unnaturally straight and rigid, like she was stone not flesh. She gestured at Maria to open the door.

“Or perhaps you and Maksim will finally get along.” She chuckled to herself. “Two weeks of peace between you before you say goodbye. Stranger things have happened.”

I was at the limit of my composure and then she had to hit me with that. The room went blurry with my tears. I feared him. I loved him. I despised him. I needed him. The thought of losing him and all those maddening emotions he brought out in me…No, never. Ever.

Maria showed my mother from the room, saying a polite, “Goodnight, Your Grace,” as she left.

The door swinging shut was like an arrow hitting me in my chest. A powerful, overwhelming wave of grief seized me from head to toe, and I clapped my hands over my face to stifle an overpowering sob.

Maria had me in her arms at once. My knees buckled beneath me and I sank to the floor, held tight as I crumpled into a ball. There on the floor, the two of us stayed, me clinging to her like I was drowning as I cried. And cried. And cried.

The next morning dawned windy and dank. I’d barely slept, both because I was so upset and so caught in my whirlwind of emotions, and also because I’d been so stuffed up from crying that I could barely breathe.

Finally, I must have caught a few hours of sleep because I woke up with the dawn light coming through my window.

Determined to avoid any contact with Prince Galen, I didn’t attend the early breakfast in the great hall. I knew my mother would be angry about it, but there was little she could do—she was leaving, too, and avoiding her as well as everybody else would keep me and my raw emotions away from further pain and hurt.

Maria fetched an apple and some tea for me from the kitchens, as well as a lump of ice from the ice house. Taking turns holding freezing pieces to my swollen lids, we decreased the swelling enough to make me look somewhat presentable. But since the moment Maria had returned from the kitchens, I could tell something was bothering her.

“Tell me,” I said, as I put on my dress, and tried to do something with my hair.

She shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’m not sure yet.”

Frustrated, I eyed her. But I knew better than to push for information. She never told me anything without being certain. If it was worth telling, I knew she’d tell me, given a little bit of time.

Together, she and I made our way out to the front of the castle to await the departure of the procession, including Prince Galen and all his people, as well as my mother and stepfather. Now we stood, with her slightly behind me as was the unfortunate custom, waiting for everybody to leave.

Tags: Dani Wyatt Fated Royals Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net