Red

33. Needing You (Bonus Chapter)

thought i would treat you all to a special short little chapter. can you guess who's POV? LOL of course you can...

& you've guessed correctly 😏 (pictured above)

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Rome

Thwack.

The knife imbeds itself deep into the target, splintering the wood around its sharp edge with a satisfying crack.

Curling my fingers around the next blade, I prepare to throw it when the voice of my chamberlain stops me.

     "Your Majesty," Daniel feverishly makes his way across the yard, letters in both hands. "I have news from the border of the Islands."

     My hair clung to my forehead, so I push it back with a hand as I turn to look at him. "Do tell."

     "Well, your Highness, it's—" He stops before me, dark hair in array over his aging face. Because he was of lesser fae, their aging process was much quicker than ours. To see the people around you aging and dying so often while you lived a near-immortal life... It did things to you.

     Dark things.

     "It's strange, sir." He plucks up one of the many letters in his hands and passes it to me. I put the knife in my hand back into its holster against my hip and rip the seal of the crisp paper. "King Mathus' troops have marched towards our border, but they make no move to come closer. They've seemed to... Expand just south of the border and have been building makeshift shelters as if their preparing to wait it out. To wait for our move instead of acting themselves."

Skimming through the letter detailing the border dispute that was written by one of my lieutenants, it began to make sense.

Mathus wanted us to come to him. Which only meant that whatever source he was using for power was internal, and getting to that source would be unquestionable. As soon as Scarlett got back from her trip, it was vital that we immediately vacate the palace to find it.

"Keep soldiers on their watch. Have them report anything and everything happening on their side. I want full detail of their every move, and track them if they pull back from the front lines. Do not allow a thing to go missing, or I will personally have whoever's head is responsible for undetermined information." Passing the letter back to Daniel, I don't wait for his response as I move to gather my target and thrown knives.

     He bows deeply and stammers out a, "Yes, Your Majesty. Right away." Before scampering back inside, disappearing behind a column of marble pillars.

     I wrench the knives from their firm hold in the wooden target and take a few steps back, surveying the damage. It had been damaged greatly from my hard throws, the head of it hanging off with just a tendril holding on.

     I would need a new target.

                                     ~~~

     Under the light of the moon spilling in from the windows, I laid in my bed—my mind far from thoughts of sleep.

     I willed them to come, though. Begged the soothing darkness to come and let my racing mind rest, but thoughts of Scarlett and her safety kept me up far into the night.

She took up a lot of my thoughts during my day, the image of her burning into my brain like a vivid picture. Even when I was knee deep in working to follow Mathus' plans and movements, and filing through seemingly thousands of papers and documents—she ransacked it all. It was a wonderful plague.

My hands fist painfully into my hair as I stare at the wooden posts above the bed, watching the way the canopy swayed gently from a draft coming in from a partially open window. It was too hot in this room. It was so stuffy it was almost suffocating, and I had thrown the button-up shirt I was wearing off to the side as soon as I could get the damn thing off my body.

     The room was far from small, and so was the bed. But I felt trapped. Enclosed. Maybe it was mental enclosure, but it physically hurt me. My lungs constructed and my throat tightened up, forcing me to breathe slowly, deeply.

     I couldn't get her out of my mind.

     Sitting up, I will myself to swallow lungfuls of breaths and tell myself that she was okay. I hadn't felt any negative energy coming through our bond—as thin as it may be at the moment due to distance. That was at least some reassurance.

Though a sliver of doubt remained.

Getting up off of the bed, I make my way across the room towards a standing mirror against the wall. My reflection stared back at me, empty and tired and unnerving—just like how I felt internally.

The green of my irises were dull, and I found a void in the space where my pupils resided. My untamed and red mound of hair sat wildly on top of my head and some strands had fallen across my eyebrows, shadowing the hard planes of my face. My cheekbones seemed to stick out more than normal, making my cheeks appear sunken. The sharp lines of my jaw were razor hard and honed in the moonlight that splayed across my skin.

Was mating her the right decision to make so soon to her departure? Not that we had known she would leave, but our bond was now so much more powerful on all levels because of it. And the distance between us... It was doing something to me. Not just mentally, but physically.

I had been eating regularly even though it had become a chore, and I spent my free time working out and pushing my body to the limits when I wasn't busy with work around the kingdom, so expecting more muscles mass was natural.

But I looked... Skinnier. And not in a way that was healthy.

The muscle in my arms and abdomen seemed to jut out more than normal, and against the light and shadows of the room, it made me realize even more how greatly her absence had affected me.

She had been gone for a few days. By now it would be expected that she would've arrived at the twin's home.

Was she experiencing physical affects from being apart from me as well? The thought of her in pain or discomfort had me more on edge then I already was.

Dragging myself back to the bed, I fall back onto the plush comforter and close my eyes in hopes of sleep. Eventually, the darkness comes to take me home, but before I let it take me completely one thought dwells from deep within...

I hoped and prayed to the Elders that she would come back before I lost my mind completely.