Cinders [Completed]

Chapter 21: Reliving

"Your Highness," I begin, my voice shaking.

The Prince flinches like I struck him.

I'm not Alpha, not Prince. Not for you. Not ever.

"Orion," I begin again, and my tone is softer this time. "I wasn't thinking - about how you would feel it - "

"You should get some rest," Orion says, not turning around to look at me. With this, he walks away.

Wait!

I don't even know your name!

Why are you running from me?

I close my eyes, unable to watch him go.

-

I can't go back to my room. The idea of sitting there, swimming in my thoughts, is enough to make my lungs feel like they're full of gravel.

So, I walk. I make my way outside, into the huge stretch of land surrounding the palace. I walk until my leg hurts, and then I would keep going, but I remember that Orion might feel it, so I sit down on a bench resting under a tree, almost pressed up against the tall, dark wall of the palace.

For a moment, I take a breath. It's cold, outside, but not snowy, a clear December evening. The sun seems pale and distant in the sky as it makes its way towards the horizon.

Of course, he could feel my pain. But I wasn't planning on him feeling my pain for the rest of my life. After I leave, time and distance would lessen the bond between us until it dissolves; it, happens with mates. I've met people who have had dissolved mate bonds.

But I keep seeing Orion walking away from me on loop, like a broken recording that regurgitates the same 10 seconds. His head lowered, shoulders tight, hands gripped into fists, the door swinging shut behind him. I wonder if, wherever he is, he's thinking about it, too.

I bury my head in my hands.

"It's - it's Lee, right?"

I start suddenly. I hadn't realized that someone had walked up to the bench, but a figure stands slightly to the side, wearing a familiar apron over dark clothes.

"Joanna?"

Joanna, the girl that had taught me how to clean rooms, gives me a small smile. How much information does she have? Does she think I'm Orion's mate? At the very least, she knows I covered up that I'm an upper beta's daughter. I can imagine how surprised everyone downstairs must have been when it was revealed that the dishwasher was nearly killed by her beta father and is now living in the Royal wing.

"Hey."

I blink at her, temporarily dumbstruck. She seems to have come from a different world: a world before Dad was in prison and Mom was crazy, a world before Orion knew me enough to hate me.

"I don't mean to disturb," she continues, her accent even more Georgia-peach than I remembered, "It's just - we'd all heard what happened, and that you were stayin' in the palace, but none of us downstairs have really seen you."

She plays with her hands nervously, and I recognize a small difference in the way she addresses me - before, I was a friend, and now I'm an upper Beta. Still, her expression is genuinely concerned when she says -

"Are you okay?"

It takes me a moment to respond.

"Of course. Yes. Just tired."

Joanna nods with a small smile. I sit up straighter, trying my best to smile back.

"I'm actually happy that we ran into each other," I say, "I've been dying to know what they've been saying about me."