A LORD'S WEAKNESS

26. TRUTH

She turned to him, seeing his eyebrows curved up with his mouth open slightly.

"One moment your cold and harsh and the next your kind and playful and it gives me hope!" Mariann you cried out.

She wrapped her arms around her stomach, as her voice died down into a whisper, "and I know it's stupid. I know it's hopeless but my heart doesn't listen to what my mind has to say." Blinking she tried seeing through her tears.

She expected him to break her heart. To tell her it was useless and that she was dumb for hoping. In a way she needed him to tell her that she meant nothing to him anymore so that she could finally move on.

"Do you really think it is any easier for me? To see you lay in my bed and watch you suffer?!? To see you clean my manor and work from morning to evening when in reality I wish to have you by my side more than anything?" He spat.

Marianns posture turned stiff as she let her tears run down her cheeks. This wasn't what she'd expected at all.

"Nothing has changed, Mariann," the Lords voice turned weak and when she finally met his eyes she could see that he was fighting his tears as well.

"If I could, I would hate you. Because even as a slave you are still my enemy. You are one of the people who I've devoted my life to killing."

Marianns heart rate quickened as his words seemed to echoe in her ears.

With a shaky voice and a tear rolling down his face the Lord added, "But,"

Mariann sniveled as she watched her Master choke on his words. "When you are with me, I feel like the king of the world and all the evil seems to dissolve. I feel the urge to protect you, which is why we are here."

Mariann could barely wrap her head around his words. "I am a warrior and this is a war, and once I die I want you to be strong enough to make it past the boarders to safety."

She heard what he said but she couldn't understand.
To safety?

"You're a liar," she said tightening her hands into a fist.

"If that was true then why keep me here?! If you only care about my well-being and making me stronger then why didn't you just let me leave?!"

Rowan looked downwards as his tears began dripping down his chin, before turning his head up as a smile so short lived played his lips that Mariann wasn't sure if she was imagining it.

"Because I am selfish," his words came out in painful sobs. "I lied to myself about thinking that I could keep you safe. And of course I wanted to have you around. I wanted to live in my peaceful bubble with you for as long as I could even if it meant I wouldn't speak to you."

He placed his hand over his eye and rubbed it. „Even if it meant I could only see you so your work."

Rowan had said everything, he'd been thinking. He'd finally said the things out load that had been haunting him since he'd failed to protect her from Lord Girard.

He turned and hurried out of the training room, as he made his way up the stairs leaving Mariann alone to process what she'd been told.

Sitting down in the chair by the fire place in his sleeping chamber he pinched the bridge of his nose trying to fight the tears that had already spilled further.