Accession || Ongoing ||

Thirteen: How Does That Sentence End?

When Alyxia woke up after a fitful sleep, she was greeted with deafening silence and the sight of a grey wall. It took her a good minute to remember that she no longer lived in a resplendent palace, her father was gone, Aunt Ember was trying to kill her and she was hiding out with the boy who had tried to kidnap her.

Staring at a house lizard that scuttled across the unimpressive floor, she watched as it ran towards Reiley's general direction and snuck under her hand. Reiley, sprawled on the floor, grunted in her sleep and smacked the lizard away. Alyxia could almost hear the lizard squeak in terror and scamper away for its life into some crack in the wall.

She noticed that Farron was nowhere to be found on the floor. Normally he would be sleeping on the floor near Reliey; close enough to make space between him and the cockroach-laden walls, and far enough to avoid Reiley kicking him in her sleep. But he was conspicuously missing; where could he possibly be?

A soft snore which sounded close by made her nearly jump in fright. She turned around, propped on her elbow, to find Farron next to her on the bed,  soundly asleep.

Her first instinct was to scream and jump out of bed. But something in her made her stay and simply look at him, and how peaceful he seemed. The edges around the sharp and rambunctious Farron Lennox seemed to soften in his sleep, in rare moments that made butterflies erupt in the young princess' stomach.

She reached out to touch his face in a moment of weakness, but quickly decided against it when she saw his eyes move behind his eyelids. The warm brown of his irises burst to life as they stared at her all but hovering over him, with shock at first and then amusement.

"How long have you been doing that?" Farron mumbled, his speech slightly slurred from drowsiness. Alyxia felt like burrowing into the wall with the lizards and cockroaches in her embarrassment.

"How long have you been sleeping on this bed?" Alyxia nervously replied. She had never shared a bed with anyone, not even Reiley, and she hadn't planned to do it anytime soon. But then again, a lot of things had happened to her which weren't planned at all.

She adjusted her position in order to allow him to sit up and rub his eyes. "Reiley unequivocally decided that I was unwelcome on the floor," He explained. "I'm terribly sorry, but you were on the edge of the bed, and I-"

"No, it's alright," Alyxia assured him as she brought her knees up to her chin, feeling her face burn. "I will not lie, I was a little surprised. But just ask next time, yeah?"

"Of course-" He paused. "Alyxia." The way he spoke her name seemed tentative,  almost as if he was experimenting with how it felt to speak her name. "You know, I still don't feel comfortable, calling you by your name."

Alyxia couldn't help but giggle at his dilemma. "It's perfectly fine; from now on, I'm just your regular Alyxia. You heard the Alpha, this is not a place to flaunt titles."

He nodded in agreement, and then his eyes widened at something in front of him, and behind her.

"What is it, a cockroach?" Alyxia cringed, unwilling to turn behind.

"Worse," Farron grimaced. "It's a Reiley."

Alyxia whipped around and saw a seething Reiley, clearly awake and ready to smack living beings much bigger than a house lizard. "What on earth were you doing on her bed?" Reiley demanded coldly, a terrifying undercurrent of something in her tone.

Farron held his hand out in front of him in a placating gesture. "Relax, I didn't do anything-"

"And how can I be sure of that?" Reiley retorted. "What if you've done something to Alyx without even her own knowledge?" It was then that Alyxia found out what was different.