Underwater

Chapter 20: The Craving

"Sire, the last of Lady Sylvia's things have been moved out of the Empress's Wing," Osharus said. Delwyn nodded.

"Good. Have someone do one last check on the premises to make sure she hasn't left us any more surprises."

Osharus nodded.

It had been a week since he'd officially broken things off with Sylvia. Her attempt at fooling both Reina and him by claiming to be bearing his child had given him the perfect excuse to end things. He'd been brooding over a way to end his relationship with Sylvia for a while, but he hadn't felt an urgent need to confront her until she started directly taking action against Reina... and drugging him.

She'd divulged everything to him while he'd kept the curse on her. She admitted to trying to sleep with him and conceive a child between them, but it had failed. Delwyn wasn't sure why his body hadn't reacted to her touch, but he was incredibly glad that had been the case.

It still made him shudder to think that if his body had been more willing, Sylvia would have forced herself on him. It didn't matter that he was the man and she was the woman in the situation – rape was still rape.

When he told Sylvia that, she looked at him in dismay.

"But you're the one who said you were looking forward to sleeping with me! Yes, I was impatient, but I'm your lover, Del! What's so wrong with me trying to have sex with you?!" she demanded.

"It would have been wrong, even if we were married, Sylvia! Doing something like that without my consent... how skewed is your judgement, that you believe something like that is okay?" he argued back.

She fell silent. Delwyn ran his hand through his hair.

"I can't do this," Delwyn said. "Let's stop this already."

Sylvia looked up at him fearfully. It wasn't the emotion he'd been expecting.

"Are you... breaking up with me?" she asked in disbelief.

His expression was grave as he nodded. "Yes. I'm doing what I should have done the moment Reina was announced as my Chosen. We should have ended things there when we realized we weren't meant to be." That's what he should have done, as the Crown Prince of Aquina, instead of hurting all parties involved. Delwyn had ground his teeth in frustration when he'd heard of Sylvia ripping up some of Reina's school plans. Maybe Sylvia would never have harbored such ugliness in her heart if not for him giving her such useless hope. "I hold some responsibility for drawing this out, so I'll make my amends to you in the form of some alimony."

"Alimony?" Sylvia echoed. "Alimony? You think some money is going to fix things, Del?"

"You should be grateful I'm not throwing you in prison for what you did to me, Sylvia!" he snapped. Sylvia shrank back – her lover had never risen his voice to her before. "Or for what you tried to do to Reina!"

Sylvia started wailing. "She's deceiving you, Del! She's deceiving you. I was only trying to save you-"

"Enough! I don't want to hear any more about it. You have a few days to pack up your things and leave the Empress's Wing. Go back to your family or go live with Alune. Whatever you want. But you can't be in the palace anymore."

Delwyn thought he might have had a heavier heart to be leaving his lover of two years behind, but he felt very little beyond relief as he stepped out of Reina's room. The siren left behind in the room bawled and cried over her loss, as if she had just been told that a member of her family had died.