Seduction of a Princess

Chapter Twenty-Five

Quickly, while he's still out...

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          She woke up from singing.

           It woke her up in a nice way though, letting her slumber for a while as the tune and the words slowly reached out for her and asked her to join them in the world outside her dreams. She lay on her bed, eyes closed, and listened to the music, the melody that resonated in her head. Her sharp ears allowed her to hear each high and low, every single note that passed through the room.

           Safely wrapped in the covers, she hummed with.

           “Lie and sleep, let dreams seep.

           “My home's in ash, my past a mash.

           “My money little, my neighbors brittle.

           “At the end of my rope, I have lost all hope!

           “But I'm asleep, yes I'm asleep.

           “Cause there I dance with you, dance in nights deep.”

           June's tail wagged—the singing stopped suddenly, Terrance's voice going back to its usual self. She could actually feel him grin at her.

           “You awake, Princess?”

           She had herself completely surrounded by her blanket, her whole body wrapped inside and even her head. Muffled, she answered, “Yes.” She was awake. But she didn't want to get up, though. She wanted to stay right here, in her warm and cozy spot. Right there, where she was completely satisfied with listening to his songs.

           “For how long?”

           “How long have you been singing?”

           There was a slight silence in which Terrance counted the verses. “Some time,” he finally said.

           “Me too.”

           This time, his grin was audible even through the blankets. “Sure you are. But don't you think it's time to go and get up?”

           “I don't want to.” She clung to her cocoon of covers, in case he might try and get her out of bed. He didn't. In fact, he didn't say anything. The silence made her wonder, what was he planning?

           Careful not to give up her position, which would result in loss of the Battle of the Bed and Blanket, she stuck out her head, for some intel on enemy movement; Terrance was out of bed, standing at the other side of the room, minding his own business. He was looking at his reflection in the glass jar, inspecting his face. The healing potion had worked: his black eye was gone and so were the cuts. And the stab wound in his guts, it had been reduced to little more than a scrape and a scar, she noticed when he took off his shirt.

           When he saw her watching, he wasn't embarrassed, though her immediate reaction was to avert her eyes—a girl shouldn't be watching bare men. His grinning, though, made her return her gaze, to prove to him she wasn't some uptight, chaste girl.

           His chest was a bit pale, though not as scrawny as she had expected. It carried quite a number of scars, most of which located on his chest; as if he had been stabbed repeatedly in the heart, the scars formed strange patterns she couldn't decipher. What estranged her more, was the black mark in between all of these scars.