A Siren's Crown (Book Two in the APK Trilogy)

(31) With All My Heart

3 Days Later (Present Day.)

(Circe’s P.O.V)

I was running, flying desperately through the forest to where I knew they would be. Branches lashed at my arms and legs but I frantically pushed them aside as I forced my legs to move just that little bit faster. Gasping for breath I felt sobs choking up my throat, tears forming in my eyes as the horrible feeling of dread in my stomach grew until it weighed me down and I stumbled to the mossy forest floor.

My chest heaved as I forced myself up, ignoring the call that I heard behind me. He should have told me. He should have said something. I gritted my teeth and the tears that fell were of sadness, anger and betrayal. They all should have said something. They knew, all this time.

The forest was thinning now and I began running upwards. I knew where it would happen, his eyes had been filled with remorse as he had divulged the information. I could see that the sun was close to setting on the final day of the festival and I willed for it to slow down, knowing that I would be too late. There would be nothing I could do …

I banished the thought from my mind and kept running. It was getting hard now though and I was slowing down. The thought that I might fail because of my own physical weakness angered me so much that I forced myself to pick up the pace. I had to get there. I just had to.

*

Earlier that Morning

(Circe’s P.O.V)

It was the final day of festival and I had seen none of it. I felt as though I was on some kind of ridiculous high whenever I was with him which was a lot. I had been studiously ignoring everyone’s questions as to where I had been and managed to avoid them most of the day by creeping out of my room early in the morning to find him. We had then run off out of castle, via a secret back door that we had discovered, (disadvantage of living in a tree, there were countless exits,) and disappeared off to while away the day under the cover of the forest.

Neither of us paused for a moment to think it odd that there were no guards outside of his room. Nor did we try to figure out what we were going to do next. I had been deprived of him for so long that there was no time for worry although these were the most dangerous times that we had ever spent together.

“Let’s run away,” I had suggested one afternoon as we lay on the mossy forest floor, as bare as the earth beneath us. My hair was tousled and my cheeks flushed after he had made love to me thoroughly and at that moment I truly felt as though nothing would stand between us again.

His finger traced the skin of my breast and I shivered in his warm embrace. “We can’t my Love. I couldn’t leave my brother behind. I-“

He paused as though he was going to add something else but then shook his head.

“What is it?” I pressed, leaning over to capture his lips with mine in the sweetest of kisses. “Tell me.”

He groaned and cupped my face, pulling me back into the kiss, deepening it. “It is nothing Darling, nothing for you to worry about.”

“But I-“

He had silenced me then with his lips and his hands and not unwillingly I had been pulled back under into the heat of his passionate love and all thoughts were gone from my mind and were replaced with the way he smelt oh so heavenly and the contrasting roughness of his skin against mine.

*

A knock on my door had pulled me from my day dream and it was with a sinking feeling that I realised I had not been able to get away as fast as usual and my suspicions were confirmed as Zalas stormed into the room without hesitation, his face thunderous, the door slamming shut behind him.