you were a princess who would rather be anything but a royal; he was the knight her father forced her to marry-a true match made in hell if there ever was one. but, as the wedding inches closer and closer, it seems that, perhaps, your father had fin...
series summary: you were a princess who would rather be anything but a royal; he was the knight her father forced her to marry—a true match made in hell if there ever was one. but, as the wedding inches closer and closer, it seems that, perhaps, your father had finally done something right by you.
chapter summary: you are saved. but it's not over quite yet.
word count: 2,492
warnings?: vague descriptions of fighting bc i can't write fight scenes lmao, angsty, a shorter chapter, pet name (dove)
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You felt numb. The kind of numb you felt when your mother took you to the carnival and let you sit in the dunk tank, when the ball struck the target and seat fell out from under you and all you felt was water so cold you forgot what it felt like to just breathe. With every breath you took, you were convinced it would be your last. That it was all over. Worse, perhaps, you thought that it was better that way.
At least you wouldn't hurt anymore if you were dead.
There was a bang! on the door. Your heart skipped a beat. Was Harrow coming back? Had he thought of another ingenious torture method? You wished he would just end it. You knew Benjamin wanted to break you, but hadn't he already done that? Weren't you already broken before you were kidnapped? Hadn't he already done enough to damage you, make you think you were worthless, every day of your life? Was all of this necessary to prove his point? You already knew he would never love you. You already knew he hated everything you did. Wouldn't it be more cruel to kill you without all of this fanfare?
Bang!
You flinched, trying to shimmy yourself further into the chair you were bound to. You knew you couldn't escape whatever was coming for you, but dammit, you didn't want to die. Even after everything that had happened, even after everything you'd been through, you would rather live than die. It's just...Well, if you were going to die in this basement, you could accept that. You could accept that the man who was torturing you will be the man who would kill you. If you were going to die now, you just wanted it to be done quick.
From the other side of the door, a voice cried out. That wasn't Harrow. Or, at least, you couldn't imagine Harrow screamed like that. Who could that have been? Was this the new torture method? To hurt someone else so that he could hurt you? Bile rose up in your throat. That was so much worse. It was one thing to hurt you. It was another thing entirely to hurt an innocent.
(Because, yes, you believed everyone involved to be an innocent. You didn't know everyone's circumstances. You didn't know everyone's motives. But you knew enough about people to know that they were all being influenced by circumstances outside of their control. Even Benjamin. You didn't want to admit it, but he had some innocence to him, too. Royal families aren't reared to love. They're reared to rule. If he thought his power would be delegitimized, he would do what it took to mitigate that. You didn't like it, you didn't respect it. But you understood it.)
