Nolan splashed his face with cold water and looked at himself in the mirror.The hangover had him groggy, and his reflection was blurry.His skin was pale and greasy. He could even smell the sour smell of alcohol sweating out of his skin.Wake up, he told himself, rubbing his eyes to get them to focus. They were puffy, with dark purple circles underneath.Nolan gave himself a hard slap across the face, to force himself to his senses.It helped sober him up.A fast, hot shower helped a little, too.He needed a shave but didn’t have time to call for an attendant come and do a proper job of it for him.Going a little too fast with the straight razor, he wound up nicking himself right in the center of his throat. It bled more than he expected and took a while to stop.And now he was definitely late for whatever appointment was waiting for him.He looked down at the white towels he’d used to soak up all the bright red blood. And started thinking about Yena.His own blood smelle
YENA“Can we talk?”I nodded as Nolan walked into my studio. I’d been pacing the room, looking at all my stuff, thinking about how I couldn’t take it all with me when I left.I sat on the couch. Nolan followed me and it looked like he thought briefly about taking a seat beside me, but then he sat down in a chair across from me instead.“I just talked to my mother. She has a plan for how we’ll move forward with…”It annoyed me that he couldn’t bring himself to say it.“The divorce?” I asked. My voice came out sounding even sassier than I expected.He gave me a blank look. I might have stunned him a little.What did he expect? To serve me divorce papers out of nowhere, and have me be happy about it? How could I not be angry?“She wants us to take some time apart, starting now,” he finally continued. “Before everything is finalized…”“So, what? You’re kicking me out today?”“No. Yena, that’s not the idea. I…”It seemed like he was about to say something but decided against it.He shook h
NOLAN “We’d love to have Yena join us here at the university,” the woman was saying. “What a talent she has… we of course saw her performance at the werewolf university she attended last year, and we’d be honored to have her in our design program.” Nolan was on a video call with an admissions officer at the School of Fashion Design, where Yena had applied. “I know you spoke to my colleague,” the lady continued. “About our security concerns. I’m sure you know this, but our school won’t be able to provide the extra security that would be needed to keep her safe here, at cost to our university.” “Yes,” Nolan said. “I understand that, and of course we will be covering all expenses.” His brain was still not working its best. But this call was urgent for the school, and Nolan needed to get everything in order for Yena. “I can tell you now that the palace will most certainly be contracting some private security agenci
“I don’t want the money,” Yena said, “because I don’t regret marrying you.”“What does that have to do with it?”“Everything.” She frowned at him, like he didn’t understand. “I don’t want you to think I only married you for the money.”He sighed and said, “I know, Yena. I know you believe that.”“It’s true,” she said. “I know things started off strange between us, but I married you because I wanted you all along. And then… I loved you, too, Nolan.”She looked like she was shaking. Nolan wanted to reach out and hold her, but it wouldn’t have been right.“I’m willing go back to my regular life now,” she said, “without you feeling like you have to compensate me for anything. You don’t owe me. I wanted to be here with you all this time.”Nolan felt tears start to well in his eyes.He didn’t dare blink, for fear they would fall. He waited until Yena looked away before wiping his eyes dry with his hand, hoping she didn’t see.It might’ve been the first time in his life that he was about to
The deaconess looked lost for words as she walked over to me. Her mouth was opening and closing, like she didn’t know what to say or how to start. “I guess you heard that I’m moving out,” I said. “They had us sign contracts.” She frowned. “Promising not to tell anyone outside of the palace, about what is going on with you and the prince…” “That makes sense,” I said. “I’m sorry to have to tell you goodbye, but I guess this is it.” Rafaela stood there for a moment, still looking like she couldn’t bring herself to speak. “Thanks for everything,” I told her. “Miss Yena,” she finally said, “You must know, there will never be another princess like you again.” Her big, round eyes were filling up with tears. “Thank you.” I wasn’t sure what else I could say to that. She shook her head and said, “You don’t understand.” “Understand what?” Then she reached out and to
EVAN He was lost in thought, breathing in the fresh, cold air outside, when Evan heard the car approaching and rose to stand. The driver opened the back door for Yena and she stepped out of the car. Evan sighed. Somehow she’d gotten even more beautiful. It was incredible, how that was happening… Yes, Evan had been loving Yena for a long time. But her transformation recently was nothing less than amazing. When they were in high school, his feelings for Yena made him act like a jerk to her sometimes. He just hadn’t really known what to do with himself around her. For a long time, he felt like it was wrong, because she was his sister. But Yena was adopted, and so it wasn’t quite the same. And when she left home to run away with Nolan, that was a real wakeup call. Evan had waited too long and he’d missed his chance. It all happened so fast. Yena was still only eighteen, and the prin
Yena dove into her bed, landing in the middle of all the new, big fluffy pillows and laughing. “It’s weird,” she said. “Everything’s so different now. It feels really good to be back here though, that’s for sure.” She grabbed a pink velvet pillow and held it to her chest. Then looked at Evan and smiled. “You’re different, too,” she said. “Like you finally grew up or something.” Evan shrugged. “Guess it had to happen at some point, right?” She giggled. He had a vision of diving onto the bed on top of her, pinning her down, and kissing her. Yena raised an eyebrow at him and asked, “What?” “Nothing.” Evan shook his head. “I guess I was thinking that you… you really grew up, yourself.” Yena looked up at the ceiling and sighed. Suddenly she started looking very sad. Evan’s mind was still running through the vision where he was lying on top of her i
It sent Evan right back to memories from childhood, when they did that a lot, any time their parents were being too annoying. It was a little bit of a secret language between him and Yena. “Well, I dunno about all that,” he said. “Last week the neighbor’s cat got stuck way up at the top of one of the big overgrown trees in the front yard. That was pretty exciting.” Yena laughed, and Tina joined in. Peter grunted defensively and mumbled, “I’ll do the trees this week.” Evan and Tina both looked down and tried to suppress doubtful laughter at that. Under the table, Yena gave Evan’s ankle a light little touch with her foot. It gave him an unexpected shiver. He looked up at her and she mouthed, Thank you. All he could do was smile back in response.#YENA Tina had made all my favorite foods. It was like a big “welcome home Yena” themed feast. I hadn’t been expecting to feel so happy tonight… but