When vengeance strikes in the form of a bullet out for the princess's blood, Princess Aleia VonAuclair must flee the heart of her country in order to protect the people she loves and take back the pieces of her soul she'd lost to the girl she once l...
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I made a left down the hallway, my steps hurried and my heart racing as I crossed over the lobby of the exhibition center the hospital's charity event took place in and bounded down the concrete steps.
My heels clacked like lightning bolts in the midst of the silent night, the stream of conversation fading the further down the staircase I went.
My car winked at me from the far end, and I cursed myself for parking so far away from the building's entrance, but at the time, it was the only available spot left. Now, the parking lot sat half empty and cars of all shapes and sizes slowly trickled out one by one.
I was already halfway across the lot when I heard thunderous footsteps on the staircase. My already frenzied pulse accelerated to monstrous rates and if I weren't so determined to leave before Edrian caught up to me, I might've gone over to the hospital across the street and gotten it checked out.
But then I heard the weight of his steps racing towards me at lightning speed and I knew I had no chance of escaping this night unscathed.
That didn't mean I couldn't try, though.
My legs picked up their pace, but they didn't even manage two more steps before muscular arms wrapped around my waist and trapped me into a solid chest. The breath I'd been holding this entire time whooshed out of my lungs in one fell swoop.
"This is the third time you've tried to run away from me, Peaches. I think it's enough for you realise that I'll catch you every single time," he whispered above my ear.
I shuddered at the gravelly scrape of his voice against my skin. Heat poured into my veins.
He was a menace to my brain and self-control - a woven spider web that never failed to trap me in his tangly net.
I sucked in a deep breath and pulled myself together to push away from him. An unreasonable amount of anger threaded through me, and I wasn't sure if I could stop myself from drowning in it. I was afraid of my feelings for him, and I was projecting it as anger.
Because it was easier to feel anger than to face my fears, easier to let the fear cage my heart into solid iron than to leave it bare for him to see. Open and vulnerable.
"Just go back inside, Edrian. I want to go home," I said, stepping away from him.
His face twisted with confusion for a moment.
"Did I do something? Did I hurt you?"
A leaden weight slammed into my chest at his genuine concern, and I shook my head with a sigh.
"Then what? What happened?"
"Nothing. I just - I just want to go home. Let me go home."
My foot angled back in the direction of my car, but Edrian's hand shot out to mine and stopped me from going any further. The anger slowly gave way to frustration, simmering beneath the surface of my skin until they prickled my blood with something I couldn't understand.
