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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Song Dedication: what do i do now by Hanniou
"Cause I finally found what I searched for, I finally had you. How am I supposed to let you go?"
I poured myself a glass of cold water from the fridge and brought it to my parched lips. The distant voice of Matt as he talked with the group about the assignment floated to reach my ears in the kitchen.
Poison coated a sickly layer over the columns of my throat and even the icy water paid me no relief as I chugged down the entire glass. The contents of my breakfast churned in my stomach mercilessly. It took everything in me not to throw up right then and there.
Agents. Paid in full by the end of today.
Never your friends.
Paid.
I slapped a hand over my mouth as I dry heaved into the sink, and it was a miracle the water didn't regurgitate out of my throat. My chest lurched with every gag. Even breathing through my nose ached.
My heart felt heavy, and my head was spinning with the beginnings of a migraine. It pounded behind my eyes, and all I wanted to do was hole myself up in my room and never come out.
I straightened away from the sink after the urge to vomit waned just enough for me to breathe without the feeling of sharp needles poking my lungs. The open window above the counter beckoned me then, the sprawling trees and watery sunlight, the meandering roads and bustle of the city.
In. 1...2...3...
Out. 1...2...3...
I repeated the breathing technique five more times before the frantic drumming of my heart slowed to a pulse and I no longer felt it banging into my bones. My whole world had turned upside down. I could only hope I would be strong enough to survive it.
I survived it once. I could survive it again.
After all, we could never grow if our hearts never bled, and our tears never fell.
"We need to talk."
Never mind.
My heart jolted in my chest, and it was like the past five minutes of wrangling myself together never happened because my heart slammed even harder and screamed even louder than before.
I whirled around to the kitchen door, my insides in shambles and my thoughts in disarray, and a fracture split down my chest at the void on his face.
Edrian looked at me as if I were a stranger, as if I were a mere passerby at the store on his way home from practice, and it immediately shattered whatever composure I had left.
The visible tautness of his shoulders and the coiled tension in the muscles down his arms sent an arrow straight into my gut. My nerves were little more than fried strings in my body.
