Loving a Prince Charming - By Danielle Monsch Page 0,18
pulling her like always, and while six months before she would have stopped and told him—punishment or not—that they were not entering those doors, at that time she’d begun to realize how her feelings were something besides childhood friendship. Because of that, she’d kept her silence and let him lead her into a situation that didn’t feel right.
Seth wouldn’t have lied to her all this time. Not about that. Her world might sometimes feel as though it was perpetually on the verge of crashing down on her, but she kept that truth dear, the truth that said no matter what his duty might force him to do, their relationship was important, sacred, and none could intrude on it.
He couldn’t have a secret with Rosamund. He couldn’t have excluded her.
“I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want to betray her.”
The words punched through her chest. Betray her. Poor, poor Rosamund. That poor pathetic princess, who had only taken everything from Kira. And now she took this.
“Sorry I forced myself on you.” The words came from Kira’s mouth, but she didn’t know where they came from. She never planned on saying this, didn’t even know she felt this. But now that the words had come out, she couldn’t stop them, couldn’t stop the pain pouring through them, couldn’t stop the venom against a woman she had never met – but he had. “If only you had explained the situation sooner, I’d have let you come alone. Stupid me, thinking you needed me or trusted me. Or that I was anything other than a guard to you. Stupid me for thinking I was important. How could I be, when you had your fairy tale princess waiting for you at the end of the story? I apologize for saddling you with my company.”
His head swiveled in her direction, his brow furrowed in confusion. What a ridiculous expression. He couldn’t understand what he just did? “What are you talking about?”
Her lip curled, and the fleeting thought baring your fangs flitted through her mind. “I didn’t know how close you were with Rosamund. I hope I didn’t keep you from any other secret rendezvous.”
His arms rested on bent knees, his hands hanging down, now curling and uncurling into loose fists. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he began, his voice lowering into that rarely visited range, the one that said he was losing grip of his seldom-seen temper. “But you should stop right there. I’ve met her once, and I kept that one meeting, that one secret from you. Whatever else you’ve made up in your mind is false.”
“Then why keep it a secret?” she challenged. “Why was that meeting so important, so precious that you couldn’t share with me?” What was so special about her that you hid it from me?
It was only a beat, but his face went from edge-of-temper to mournful, an old, deep longing shading his eyes as he stared full deep into hers. “You don’t know why? Will you really have me speak it aloud? Once the words exist, Kira, we live with them as a harsh reality instead of a bittersweet thought. Is that what you want?”
And there it was, where every moment of their lives led them. It had been inevitable, hadn’t it? No matter how hard they tried, this had been inevitable.
The fire threw sparks in the air. Her nose was cold. She rubbed the tip with fingers she only now realized were even colder. “I want to understand.”
Seth closed his eyes, resigned acceptance in every line of his face. He opened them only to look up at the stars. “She was so small and so scared. She’d never seen trees or touched water from a lake. She was kept separate and alone from everyone, and she had this fate that she couldn’t fight. No one would help her. Not her father. Not my father.”
He fiddled with the ring he wore on his pinkie finger, this way and that, connected to this memory he had held sacred, reserved only for himself, the one memory she had no part of.
And yet, how could she hate the little girl he spoke of? How could she rail against this unfairness when that child experienced tragedy beyond comprehension? She who had Seth’s friendship and surrounded by friends and comrades, she half-hated a girl who had less than nothing. Self-loathing pricked Kira’s skin, an ooze no amount of scrubbing would remove.
“I made her a promise that day. I promised