The Crown cannot Help You

Chapter 36: The Gift

Audelia felt herself being tugged backwards across the bed. She peeled one eye open and took a quick look around, only to see Flynn's arm had snaked around her waist.

She bit down on her lip to hide the smile that threatened to appear as Flynn finally managed to close any space between them.

Audelia moved to rest her head against his bare chest, placing her hand next to her face as she re-closed her eyes.

She listened to his slow heartbeat that gently sounded in his chest. He was fast asleep. Audelia was sure of that, which only made him pulling her closer that much sweeter.

He was warm. That was Audelia's favourite thing about this moment. He radiated warmth off his skin, and it flooded her face, reddening her cheek.

It wasn't an overbearing heat, as the bedroom was an icy cold temperature, so his warmth was just comforting.

Audelia snuggled against him and felt a peace settle over her. Warmth and peace. Two things that she'd been without for a very long time. The two feelings combined in an odd, creating this deep sense of safety. Flynn made her feel safe. And that was the only thing that mattered to her.

She tuned out her thoughts again and listened back into his heartbeat until she drifted off back to sleep.

~

When Audelia awoke again, she noticed it had turned to turn day.

As birds started to sing just outside the boarded-up window, Audelia wondered what this night meant. They'd both been so wrapped up in the moment, there were so many emotions, and everything happened so fast that it could easily be put down to a mistake. And yet, Audelia didn't want it to be that.

It wasn't a mistake, not for her.

She found her head was still resting against his chest alongside her hand, and as she didn't wish to move, she remained there.

Her eyes were now wide open, and she started to watch her finger drawing patterns against Flynn's skin. The patterns that she traced started out as just circles, her fingers looping around and around before Audelia eventually started to spell things out.

'Audelia'. Her name was the first to be spelt out, an unoriginal notion.

Then, she spelt out 'Flynn', smiling as she did.

She moved her head back slightly to leave herself more space to spell longer words. 'Predictable' was the next word as she recalled the memory of Flynn and herself fighting deep in the green hills.

Audelia spent the next few minutes hiding her finger along, spelling out all the words she could think of, which was a vast number of words. And then, her hand spelt out the word, 'Princess'.

She hadn't thought much of it as she traced each letter, but the moment she had finished, it was as though the word materialised before her eyes.

She was staring at the word as though she'd actually written it with ink across Flynn's chest. Audelia stared harder, deeply confused as to how this was possible, and then the colour of ink slowly began to morph, changing from a plain black into a deep scarlet.

And then suddenly, the neat lettering she'd spelt out with her finger started to drip, the red liquid running down Flynn's chest. Audelia quickly flung her head away, placing a hand to her cheek to see if the liquid had soaked into her own skin.

And as she pulled her hand away, she saw how her pale palm had been stained red, and Audelia knew she could no longer deny that the red liquid was blood.

Audelia snapped her eyes shut and let out a shaky breath, not wanting to look.

Eventually, she regained the courage to reopen her eyes, only to see there was nothing there. Her hand and face were without blood, and Flynn's chest was bare.