"No…" I mumbled in panic, looking at Sariel and Draven.
For a while, I could hear nothing but the sound of my overwhelmingly pounding heart. I kept staring at them, petrified. I think they argued… violently. Leo and Ari had to step in to separate them before their outburst escalated to an actual fight. I couldn't breathe. I had to get out of there. I had to get out of there now!
I ran towards the door, struggling to push air into my lungs. Then I rushed towards the corridor, ignoring Patrick, who probably ran after me. I couldn't tell if he did or not. I kept running. I ran outside, and before I knew it, I found myself in the hedge maze, taking turn after turn as if I wished to get lost in there. I stopped when I found myself at a dead-end. I leaned my back against the green hedge wall and slipped down to sit on the ground. I panted heavily. My whole body trembled. Did Draven just say that I was his mate? I loved to hear about the wolves finding thei
Sariel showered me with sweet kisses. He wasn't trying to arouse me; instead, I think he wanted to make me feel loved, and that was how I felt that night. We were lying naked in each other's embraces yet did nothing but gently caress each other. We kept smiling, as if we had found ourselves inside a magical bubble that kept us away from reality. My heart was at ease during those couple of hours, allowing me to sleep soundly. The sound of Sariel getting up from my bed woke me up. I slowly opened my eyes, trying to focus, and saw Sariel getting dressed. I looked through the window. It wasn't even dawning. "You are leaving already…?" I asked, and immediately all yesterday's pain came back. Sariel glanced at me while buttoning his shirt. "I cannot leave Elora alone for too long…" He suspended his voice as soon as the words sounded out. "Wow…" I laughed bitterly, "Now I really feel like the mistress…" My ribcage tightened, squeezing my lungs. I cou
I read the decrypted message once again, trying to extract the meaning of it. I remembered that Nura was Kanan's mother's name, and I remember Kanan telling me that Elora wanted to poison her while she was pregnant… However, the message proved something different. Elora must have wanted her dead before she could get pregnant, but for some reason, she had failed. One message was highly insufficient as evidence, but what if other notes created wider content?I took another note and looked at it closely. Considering the handwriting, it seemed to be written by the same person. This fact made me a little hopeful that using the same keyword to decode this message would work. I sighed in relief when it did. I truly prayed that this one would bring me something significant."Our spy became the King's concubine's maid. The spy's name is Aine. The King's concubine believed that Aine is a human. She will deliver the poison with the concubine's food."When I read tha
I wished I had never heard Sariel's words. I wished I had never come there and heard the sounds of him and Elora making out. It was nauseating. It was painful. It squeezed a long stream of tears from my eyes. I was hurt and angry, but the worst part of it was that I couldn't even barge in there to make a scene, because legally… Sariel belonged to Elora, not me.I kept my mouth covered, fearing that my cry would betray my presence. My heart hammered erratically, as if it was trembling, just as my whole body was, yet some masochistic whisper told me to keep standing there, by Sariel's chamber. Perhaps some part of me was waiting for Sariel to say something else…but truthfully, I didn't know what I was expecting him to say, and of course, he said nothing else. Instead of words, I could only hear Elora's soft giggles and moans.I felt my heart crack.My feet turned back by themselves, and, in some self-defense mechanism, I returned to my chamber. Just
I opened the balcony and let the flow of cold wind brush my face. The sun was rising lazily in the perfectly clear sky. It seemed to be the beginning of a beautiful day, but I was far from enjoying it. I felt as if my heart weighed a ton and my chest could barely carry it.I could now see it as clearly as never before: I had been amazingly naïve. Sariel and Elora were husband and wife, and the king and queen, whereas I could barely earn the title of "respectable" mistress. If a royal prince from the human world asked me to become his wife, it would be obvious to assume that I was way below his status and I would never become the queen, so what made me trust that it would be different with Sariel? I believed in the cheesy slogan "Love conquers all", but even though my life was far from ordinary, it had always been the furthest away from romantic fantasy.I wanted to believe Sariel. I wanted to trust that he would make me his Queen soon, but how long would I be able
I wasn't certain how, but I forced myself to walk away from them. My feet turned around slowly while struggling to maintain balance. My heart dropped a thick curtain on my emotions. I stopped feeling anything at all. As I walked away, I met Mr. Parson's eyes. He grabbed my wrist worryingly."Are you all right, Lady Lilith?" The distorted sound of his voice hardly reached my ears.Slightly curling up the corners of my lips was the only sort-of-tactful response I could give him. I walked past him and bumped into Beta Ari. His questionable gaze on me made me wonder what kind of expression I must have had. Unfortunately, the trick with the pretended smile didn't work on him.I heard him say, "Wait here. I will find Alpha Draven."Of course, I didn't wait. I could hardly control anything about myself. Seeing Draven could have only triggered the surfacing of the worst, weakest version of me. I kept walking forward. I knew that no one could fix my state. My stat
We drove in Draven's car for about an hour. I stayed silent the whole time, constantly recalling the last view of the Palace the those whom I left behind. I hoped that they would forgive me for leaving without saying goodbye and that they would respect my decision. Draven kept glimpsing at me, checking if I was all right, but he didn't force me to be more sociable. I tried smiling at him a few times, silently thanking him for taking me away from that place, but for now, my smiley-grimaces couldn't be called sincere… I kept asking myself if I was doing the right thing. I still loved Sariel, but the relationship we had suddenly became polluted. I kept telling myself that he had to have a plan to act this way… He simply ignored me in it. In the end, when I saw him with Elora, looking at her the same way he had been looking at me, I started to question every single bit of the thing we had. I realized that if I wasn't able to tell the difference, he might have lied to me as well.
I looked around my new room. The wooden boards were framing a huge, wall-size window in front of me, which opened onto a small balcony. It let out a magnificent amount of light, just enough to brighten up the dark wooden floor. The white, raw walls perfectly corresponded with the dark brown flooring and the wooden furniture's skeletons wrapped in light-cream leather. But the most stunning part of the room was my new bed. The massive ebony frame went up to the ceiling, crowning the bed with a beautiful cream-white canopy. Below the falling layers of a silk-like fabric were a soft quilt and multiple down pillows. It was all amazingly cozy, but at the same time, unquestionably sexy. Just looking at it put me in a mood to…My heart ached again.I started to question whether that stupid bond-breaking formula, which I said aloud as if I had casted a spell, even worked. Maybe it did… on Sariel. Perhaps I didn't feel any change within me because I was a human&hel
Ian took me to the town center and parked the car right in front of a cell phone shop. It was a lively street, full of stores and boutiques. It resembled a high-end shopping district… only smaller, far less crowded, and much more friendly. As I walked out of the car, I instantly saw the smiling faces of people passing me by. They all looked carefree and peaceful… I narrowed my eyes, scanning their almost unreal happiness, which made me wonder if their smiles were genuine, or false, and I found myself on the Truman Show's set. Ian walked out of the car and glanced at me questionably."Aren't you going to go inside?" He pointed at the shop's door.The sound of his voice broke me out of a daze. "I am… I just…" I looked back at him, not knowing how to explain my weird behavior. "I'm going inside right now." I shot him the beamiest smile possible."Fine. I'll wait in the car," he tossed, opening the door on the driver's side."Actua