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A low murmur of voices droned on in the distance, but the warmth and comfort told me I shouldn’t bother with them. I should just go back to sleep. Stay in the darkness, where nothing mattered except the soft cushions beneath me and the warm blanket over me. Stay asleep.
But I had this nagging feeling that I needed to wake up…
“She…the dose…waking up soon…”
That was Clavis’ voice. The fog of sleep broke his words apart and scattered them beyond comprehension, but that was his voice. I was slow in coming to that realization, but once I reached it, everything came flooding back to me.
“I’m awake,” I mumbled, pushing myself upright and away from the pillow’s siren call. My eyes focused on him, leaning casually against the mantelpiece over a crackling fireplace with his usual carefree smile, and my mind sharpened with my vision. “Explain,” I demanded.
He laughed. “If you’re trying to sound threatening right now, it’s not working. You look too adorable.”
“Clavis,” I warned.
“Relax,” he said, dismissing my irritation with a wave of his hand. “We have plenty of time to kill until Chev gets here. So.” He moved toward a lounge chair across from me, sitting gracefully and crossing his legs with all the poise and elegance of a smug prince in complete control of the situation. “Whatever happened to us, Ivetta?”
For a moment, all I could do was stare at him in shock. Sometimes, I wondered if he was living in his own world, and this was one of those times. Why was he acting so normal about this? How could he ask me something like that?
Then again, this was Clavis.
“Are you seriously asking me that now?” I finally asked, my incredulity dripping from every word. “After you just drugged and kidnapped me?”
He shrugged. “Well, now is as good a time as—”
“No, now is not as good a time as any!” I exploded. “The time to ask me that would have been before you decided to drug my tea and kidnap me. Are we even still at your estate? Or have you taken me somewhere else, just for fun? Maybe this is all a game for you, but I’m not having any fun, and now is possibly the worst time for you to ask me something like that!”
His smile fell. “You’re more upset than I expected.”
“How did you think I would react?” I snapped, anger surging through my veins. “No, don’t answer that, because I don’t want to know more about the delusional picture of ‘us’ you have in your mind. There was never an ‘us,’ Clavis. Never. And not because you treated me like your new favorite toy when we first met, and not because Chevalier did a better job of winning my heart than you did. Actually, he made a worse first impression than you did. What he did better than you was realizing what I needed, really needed, and he’s able to give me something you can’t. Stability. Because I don’t like every moment of every day to be another surprise. After a lifetime of ‘surprise’ being a bad word that means new nightmares, I need someone who is calm and steady, and you are the definition of wild and crazy. So, even if there were no Chevalier, you and I would never have happened. Never. Does that answer your question?”
I was panting, my cutting words lingering in the air between us, and the hurt in his golden eyes was obvious. And that stung me. He’d never intentionally hurt me before, even when I was just his new favorite toy, and I hadn’t meant to lash out at him like that. No matter how frustratingly oblivious and obnoxious he might be.
“Yes, I suppose that answers it,” he said quietly.
I took a deep breath, trying to make myself calm down. “No, Clavis, I…” I took another deep breath and said, “I’m sorry. You’ve always been a good friend, and I don’t dislike you at all. I’m just…frustrated. Could you please explain what’s going on?”
“Ah, yes. Well, you’re right. We’re not at the estate anymore. This is my private villa,” he said, forcing a smile to his face. “And, um, funny you should say that: ‘even if there were no Chevalier…’”
The slight slowing of my heart rate reversed track as I watched him shift and fidget across from me, and the sinking feeling in my stomach mirrored what I’d felt when I realized he’d drugged my tea. My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears, I could barely hear myself ask, “Why…why are you saying that…like that…? You’re not…?”
“Ah, well…” He shrugged, still holding that unconvincing smile. “You know how important traditions are for royalty, Ivetta.”
“Why did you say ‘even if there were no Chevalier?’” I asked, my voice strengthening. “Clavis?”
“It’s something we’ve been doing since we were kids,” he continued, dancing around the subject. “Sort of a birthday tradition. And I started planning this back when you were his maid. You remember the first time I drugged you? I was testing the dose.”
“Clavis.”
“I didn’t have the specific details until recently, since I couldn’t have foreseen you and he actually getting into a relationship, or you becoming a princess, and you really don’t know how tightly he controls your travel schedule…”
“Clavis,” I ground out between gritted teeth.
“It just seemed a shame to waste such a great idea. And he said last year I was getting better at this, so I couldn’t very well disappoint him, could I?” Clavis continued, looking everywhere except my eyes.
“Clavis!”
“This will be the last time, I swear!” he insisted, holding his hands defensively in front of himself. “If he survives, I’ll never do this again, and we’ll laugh about it later! It’ll be funny! …Later. M-maybe.”
I stared at him, my gut clenching. Part of me wanted to jump to my feet and shake something that made sense out of him, but part of me had fixated on that phrase, “If he survives,” and fear had paralyzed that part. A fear that was growing.
“Clavis…” I said weakly.
An explosion rocked the room, reverberating through my skull and shaking the sofa beneath me. I dug my fingers into the cushions, more to ground me to reality as my heart beat a frantic rhythm against my ribcage than to steady me from the blast.
“I try to kill Chev every year on his birthday,” Clavis said in a rush, the words tumbling over each other as he leapt to his feet. “And he’s here, so I have to go, but you don’t have to worry. He knew all about this, remember? I still have to give it my all, or there’s no point in doing any of it, but I’m sure everything will be fine. Just fine. Ah…”
His traveling voice stopped somewhere behind me while I focused on a single point in the fireplace, the tightening of my chest making it harder and harder to breathe. His footsteps returned. I felt his hand on top of my head, sliding down the side of my face to lift my chin up, forcing me to meet his golden eyes.
“Ivetta, I’m sorry,” he said softly. “It’ll all be over in a few minutes. Just…”
He sighed, and then he was gone, leaving me with panic flooding every ounce of my being and a tenuous grasp of reality. Every breath came faster and harsher than the last. Clavis was trying to kill Chevalier. Using me as bait. My thoughts spiraled around and around that point, sinking deeper and deeper into a darkness where there was no Chevalier to pull me back into the light. He couldn’t die. Couldn’t. If he did—if I lost him—
“Little dove.”
The voice calling to me from outside the void wasn’t Chevalier, or Clavis, but I knew it. I knew it, and I didn’t know why it was here. I turned my head slowly to the left, to the weight shifting the sofa beneath me, to the single blood-red eye next to a black eyepatch.
“I must admit I was looking forward to this, but I’m not enjoying it as much as I anticipated,” Gilbert said, brushing a stray strand of my hair behind my ear with an icy, black-gloved finger. “It is extremely unlikely Chevalier will receive so much as a scratch tonight, little dove.”
I swallowed hard, opening a narrow passage in my throat to squeak out a trembling question: “W-why…are you…?”
He smiled and shrugged. “On the off-chance Clavis succeeded, I wanted to be here to take you back, since I have far more loyalty to my personal agreement with Chevalier than I do to any treaty with Rhodolite.”
Right. Because reminding me about the political ramifications of Clavis, a Rhodolitian prince, killing his brother, Chevalier, the king of Rhodolite, made this all so much better. Especially with the implication of me triggering a war.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Little dove.”
The darkness was closing in. Each heartbeat was faster and louder than the one that came before it, echoing in my ears, echoing in my head.
“Little dove.”
I was asleep. That had to be it. This was a nightmare. Any moment now, Theresa would shake me awake and tell me it was all over. That had to be it. Because if this was real…
The suddenness of a cold embrace and the next explosion shocked me back to the sofa, where Gilbert held me close against him, every squeaked, whimpering breath that escaped my lips absorbed by the stiff black fabric of his military uniform. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t Chevalier. But the explosions were getting closer, and the clashing of metal on metal filled the air as the rumbling faded away, and I wasn’t in a mental state that allowed room for choice, even if there were another option.
I clutched at him and prayed for this to end.
It lasted what felt like an eternity, although it was probably less than an hour. The crashing and banging seemed to come at me from every side, and the incessant clanging of sword striking sword ensured there were no gaps in the chaotic sounds assaulting my senses. I couldn’t tell if my difficulty breathing was from the fear or from Gilbert holding me too tightly. Maybe both. He didn’t murmur soft words to shift my focus, as Chevalier would have done, and he didn’t stroke my hair, either, although I couldn’t even remember if my hair was up or down. His heartbeat was softer than Chevalier’s, too, or maybe I couldn’t concentrate on it enough to hear it clearly.
But when I heard the door open, when I felt Gilbert’s arms loosen and I heard the heavy stride of hurried boot steps towards me, the wave of relief was a breath of fresh air that brought a sharpened clarity to everything that had just happened. I stood as Chevalier pulled me to my feet, and I slapped him as hard as I could. The sound rang out in the sudden stunned silence.
“Don’t you ever keep something like this from me again,” I warned him, glaring at his wide crystal blue eyes. “I don’t care how invincible you think you are. You’re just as human as I am, and if you…if you…”
He wrapped me in a warm embrace as the sobs shook my body, and there it was. The strong, steady heartbeat in my ear, the fabric that felt like it was made for my fingers to grasp, the murmured apology only I could hear, the hold that was comforting and not restrictive.
“Get out,” I heard him command, and I didn’t have to look to know Gilbert and Clavis complied immediately. He scooped me up and carried me to the sofa, and I curled up against him, crying out the terror and anxiety as he held me. His soothing voice washed the last dregs of panic away, apologizing, telling me he was okay, telling me it wouldn’t happen again, and his soft kisses to my cheek made his presence even more real. When the tears were gone, all that was left was exhaustion and oblivion.24Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzeIkNQFe5Q
