“Why? What did that bitch say to you?”
I couldn’t find the words, tears blurring Royce’s face.
“Get out, Jo.”
“But she needs me.”
“Get the fuck out, now!”
I heard the door slam a moment later before Royce walked over to me, sitting himself next to me on the bed. He didn’t even ask as he wrapped his arms around me and I fell into his chest, sobbing uncontrollably. He was warm, his scent familiar, and I never wanted to leave the circle of his arms, my heart fractured. “Shh,” he whispered, rubbing his hand over my back lightly. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay. There was nothing about my life that was okay. I had nearly committed suicide! I should be locked up in a crazy house now.
He held me tighter, pressing his lips to my temple. “Tell me what I can do.”
I shook my head, clenching my hand in his shirt. There was nothing he could do.
Nothing at all.
So, I cried. I cried about my mother and what she had to deal with.
I cried about my father who was a bastard himself, so crazed with power that he thought it was okay to force himself on a woman.
I cried for Isauros, for her loss of her child and the bitterness she held so tightly that it was going to be her downfall one day.
I cried for the family I never had, the dreams that had been crushed by her words, and the fact that I had thought suicide was the easy way out.
All the while, Royce held onto me, occasionally pressing a kiss into my hair.
Finally, I pulled back, my face splotchy and my eyes itching from the number of tears I had shed on his shirt. “Sorry about your shirt.”
He arched a brow. “Really? That’s all you can say?”
I leaned against the pillows next to him, looking down at my hands. “I don’t know what to say really.”
Royce shifted as he draped an arm around my shoulders, drawing me against him. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
So, I did. I told him every word that the headmistress had said to me and how she had left the razor blade, clearly an indication that she wanted me to kill myself. “I can’t even think about what my father did,” I said after I had finished the story. “I thought he was—I mean, I hoped that they might have been in love and I was a product of that.”
“Oh, pauper,” he sighed. “Love doesn’t exist in our world. We marry for money or titles, not for love.”
I breathed in his scent, allowing it to wash over me like a balm. “That’s not true. Surely someone has been in love before.”
“If they have been, they aren’t now,” Royce stated, releasing me. He turned and I took in the anguished expression on his face, as if he was worried about me.
A king, worried about me. That was one for the books. “What?”
He looked over at the blade that lay on the floor. “I would have lost my fucking mind if you had gone through with it.”
His words caused me to inhale sharply. It was the last thing I would have expected a king to say, but then again, they all needed for me to stay alive to further their ambitions. I didn’t want him to confirm that fact, so I didn’t respond, my tongue thick in my mouth. “I’m good now.”
His eyes roved over me. “You look like shit, pauper.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “It’s been a long day.”
He shook his head, though the worried look didn’t leave his handsome face. “You would have let her win, Anna, if you had followed through. You can’t let her win.”
“I know,” I admitted. She had beaten me down so much that I had thought the only way out of this was to remove myself from the situation altogether, but Royce was right. Then she would have won, and life would have continued.
I couldn’t let her win. I needed to fight back. I needed to show her that I wasn’t scared by her hollow words and that she couldn’t make me just disappear whenever she wanted to.
I wanted to make her shake with worry next time, to go to the dark place I had gone and contemplate ending her own life.
Royce stood and kicked off his boots, stripping off his shirt next. My mouth went dry at the sight of his body, my cheeks heating as I thought about how I knew every crevice of his chest. “What are you doing?”
“Relax, pauper,” he said, pushing me over and climbing into my bed. “I’m just going to stay until you fall asleep.”
“You’re worried I will do it again, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe, but mostly I think you need someone here with you.”
He was right. I did. Instead of fighting him, I cut out the lamp by the bed and slid under the sheets, my arm brushing against Royce’s. His hand found mine and he curled his fingers around it, giving it a soft squeeze. “Go to sleep, pauper.”
I closed my eyes, the weight of what I had just gone through weighing heavily on my heart. What had I been thinking? I would never have considered suicide before.
I loved my life. Well, not loved it right now, but I enjoyed living. I enjoyed the snow here in the Alps. I enjoyed sparring with Royce or laughing with Johanna.
I didn’t want to die. “Thanks, Royce,” I whispered, turning to face him in the dark. “I-I’m sorry if I scared you.”
He turned to face me, his other hand brushing the hair out of my face. “It’s okay, pauper, really. I didn’t need those ten years you just took from me.”
He sounded
