In The Woods ➳ H.S.

☙ t h i r t y - f i v e

"You're thirsty." Harry confirms himself as if he read my mind. "Bring me a glass of water." He yells, and I'm momentarily confused before I realize he was probably addressing the guards outside the room.

I feel a hand settle down on my arm and I don't shrug it off. "Are you okay, Anna?" He asks.

I don't reply again. Every time I blinked I could see the blood dripping from my siblings' heads.

"It was just a nightmare, you know?" Harry tries to comfort me. "Whatever you saw, it's not real." He cooes.

I decide to speak up, no longer wishing to to dwell on the dream. "Why are you even here?" I question. I had intended it to sound harsh but it comes out as a whisper.

"My mother kicked me out of my room." He says.

Before either of us can speak up again, there is a knock on the door. "My prince, your water is here." A voice sounds up.

Harry mutters a quick "come in" but I could still feel him staring at me.

The door opens and I finally sit up. My eyes slightly widen at the sight of Charles, but he doesn't seem to care that I'm in a bed with Harry.

He hands the glass to Harry, bows, and leaves immediately after that.

I grab the glass from Harry's hands and chug down the contents as quick as I could, relieved at the refreshment it game my drying throat.

I sigh lightly when I finish it, placing it down on the floor next to the bed and made a note to watch out for it if I stand up.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Harry asks.

"No." I immediately say, laying back down on the bed and pulling the blanket over me.

I hear him sigh before the bed dips and I'm guessing he had decided to lay back down too.

"Can you go back to sleep?" He asks softly, making me know that he was only concerned.

I can't even blink without seeing my possibly-dead family. "No." I say again.

"Okay." He says and I feel his hand tug me towards him. I was going to shove my elbow into his ribs but the moment his front is to my back, I stop. His body covered mine and I felt warm and - for the first time in a long while - like I was safe without having to fight for my own protection. It was a nice change really, from the constant fighting.

"Then let's just talk until you fall back asleep." He says and I shrug. We'll be awake all night then.

"About what?" I question.

Harry hums before he speaks. "What did my mother talk to you about?" He asks.

"You." I answer.

I feel him shift and I turn my head to see him using his arm to hold his head up as the other one remained around my waist. "What about me?" He asks, a slight redness visible on his cheeks even in the dark.

"How you were as a child. How you insisted on building your own house in the woods when you were twelve so you had a place to runaway from your tutors." I answer him, not surprised at all when his mother told me about a spoiled twelve year-old Harry asking for a house of his own.

His eyes widen a fraction. "Did she say what the tutors were for?" There was a slight worry in his voice.

I bit my lip and nodded. "Yes. Fighting, literature, etiquette - and...dancing." I suppressed a smile at the last one when Harry plops his head back down on the pillow with a long annoyed groan.

"I don't dance." He defends himself.

"Really? I always had a small adoration for men who can dance. I mean it just takes so much grace and -"

"I'm an expert dancer." Harry immediately says, contradicting his first statement.

"But you just- "

"No, shhhh." He says, a smile breaking through as he watched me with amusement.

I smile back at him, turning my body around so now I faced him too. He brings his other arm under my head and I'm thankful for it.

"What else did my mother say?" He asks, green eyes looking into mine.

"That the tutors were never nice but they're all the contact you had as a child." I say and his face falls.

"They were cold." He says. "Always so cold. They would just scowl at me whenever I did something wrong and then do nothing when I did something right."

"At least they never harmed you." I mutter, flashes of my own drunken father's fists go through my mind but I shook it off again.

"They did. Specially the one who taught me manners." He says, a smile coming back on his face. "She and her metal ruler haunted me at night as a child." He jokes.

"Is that why you like me?" I question and Harry visibly stiffs up. His eyes wide and I could barely tell if he was still breathing.

"Wha-"

"Your mother said you liked me." I say, recalling the way she left with those words and a smile on her face.

I held my breath as Harry held onto his silence. I didn't know which answer I honestly wanted to hear.

"The people I knew growing up were cold, Anna." He starts to speak. "Slaves, tutors, family members. They were all just so cold to me." He says.

I stare right into his green irises as he continued. "But when I first saw you, in the woods. The first thing you ever told me - your name - was a lie. Second thing you tell me is laced with sarcasm. You fought me off when I came onto you instead of laying down and giving up. You even hit me." He says, recalling the day we met when the wolves had chased me down.

"And then I thought you were dead, and I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that your fire was extinguished so easily - but three months later your on the other side of a door insulting me. Fire still burning bright.

"You've shown more emotions in front of me than everyone I knew my entire childhood combined. And whether you were cussing me out or crying on my shoulder there was always so much life behind your eyes. So much passion and fire." He rambles, hand tightening on my waist to bring me closer.

"And when you looked at me that time in the woods when you broke down. The way you asked me to make the pain stop, it was like you trusted me, Anna." He smiles. "No one's ever trusted me with anything."

I look away from his eyes and stare at his chest, only now noticing how he didn't have a shirt on, but I figured it wasn't the right time to point it out.

"So you do like me?" I ask, the answer already quite obvious after his short speech, but I wanted him to say it.

Harry doesn't speak up, instead his hand comes up to smooth through my hair a couple of times and he hums a short tune.

I sighed, figuring he wasn't going to say anything else so I decided to break the silence. "Harry?"

"Mm?"

I pull back from him to finally look at his eyes. "Please put on a shirt."

❦

Some fluff for you guys right after the smut.

Lmao I did say I was gonna try and make this a balance of thriller, smut, and fluff, right?

How am I doing so far? More smut or?? (I kept laughing at how you guys reacted to the smut in the last chapter ily guys omg.)

The action picks up again in the next chapter! It includes the queen's fantasies that Liam mentioned, can u guess what it is????