Ella groaned.
From frustration,
Confusion,
A severe headache.
From whatever maddening reason.
Ella groaned hard.
Thick streams of perspiration trickled down her jaw and settled on her collar bones like shiny, lustrous beads. Her curly brown strands were a plain disaster, firmly stuck on her neck and utterly wet from all the spurts of sweat.
It was winter, wasn't it?
So why did it feel like her entire body had been set on flames, burning hot and blazing with fire?
Her slim back leaned against the solid, wooden door after the prolonged struggles of pushing and nudging Prince Theodore out.
It was almost like he intentionally did that, putting his strength and muscle on display, setting a reminder in Ella's head that he wasn't an easy opponent,
That he was a man, made out of steel.
Ella's energy had drained and long left her body.
Her fingernail was tightly bit in her teeth,
And her foot constantly tapped against the hard floor.
She sighed, her eyes drifted around the spacious room in uncertainty and her mind rambled back and forth searching for answers.
Clearly shoving Prince Theodore out of the room wasn't the greatest hassle she had experienced in the past hour, but hunting for the reasons of his clingy and unbelievably adamant behavior certainly was.
He wasn't supposed to be like this. At least not from what Ella had observed and heard.
Her tooth clipped off the nail from her pinky finger harshly, her eyelids closed as she repeatedly thumped her head against the door in defeat.
Prince Theodore was a fairly brutal man.
Those were the dreadful rumors that had circled around every Empire to ever exist, for years.
He had killed people.
Racked enough bodies in a pile to have him climb up the throne that was shortly to be his.
He was the Mubeven Empire's crown Prince after all.
A soon to be King.
Months ago, those rumors had caught on to the Dalia Empire like a bush fire,
They had taped on Ella's window as well, back when her mother was still alive.
The old her shuddered at the mention of his deeds and prayed to God that their paths would never intertwine. She lived assured though, not an ounce of fear in her since a little part of her knew that destinies of the Royals and commoners,
They never intersected.
Oh, how the fates played.
Ella chuckled bitterly.
So their paths?
Intertwined, tangled, raveled, knotted, and definitely messed up.
And their stars?
Probably aligned.
At least that is what Prince Theodore had always forced upon Ella, whenever they crossed each other.
But what was he doing wasting his time on a commoner such as herself?
Certainly, she had no bundles of gold on her, nor a mighty status or even a prestigious bloodline.
Ella squinted her eyes, her brain throbbing more cruelly than before.
It all only narrowed down to one thing if not the other;
Did Prince Theodore have a plan up his sleeve?
Did he want something from her?
But then again, there was nothing much to offer to begin with.
So was it something else?
Something she wasn't aware of?
Irritated, Ella scratched her neck, .
Should she be wary of him?
Avoid him at all costs?
Everything about him was sketchy and cynical, nothing about Prince Theodore sat right with her.
He was like two different souls trapped in a single body.
A beast-full, merciless soul that would slash hundreds of throats on the battlefield without sparing another glance.
That was him to the rest of the world.
And a silly, easy-going soul that would throw a couple of terrible jokes here and there and shamelessly flirt.
That was him to Ella alone.
But why? Why does he act so differently when he's with her?
Ella landed her slim, pale hands on her waist, her brows quirked at all the dangerous possibilities as a faint presence of terror lingered in her heart.
Perhaps she was a part of something much bigger,
A part of a fatal, deadly chess game.
Perhaps she was a pawn being played with,
By Prince Theodore.
But for what reasons? Still unknown, to her dismay.
She shouldn't forget he too is a Royal,
And the Royals were never trustworthy.
Ella turned her body to the side, her forehead now faced the wall.
She stared into the air for a while, her mind flooded with heaves of questions taking over her being completely.
She banged her forehead powerfully on the concrete wall,
Again.
The loud thud echoed around, clinking the glassy decorative pieces on the table beside her.
Everything seemed so impossible at the moment,
And quite contradicting to how they had worked out in her head.
Ella lifted herself off the wall as her eyes caught sight of an unfamiliar object placed on the table beside the decorates, she raised her brows as she picked up the white lidded bottle and keenly inspected it.
Ointment.
It was an ointment for muscle pain,
The pain that was inflicted by Alexander's punishment earlier that morning,
The stubborn pain that still inhabited her arm like an animal adhered to its prey.
Ella sighed deeper this time, the questions from the past few minutes clouded her again, engulfing her in dense smoke of bewilderment.
She felt suffocated and muddled.
There was only one person who had entered her room this evening.
No.
There was only one person who had " Intruded" into her room this evening.
Prince Theodore.
Ella glanced at the creamy paste-like medicine clenched in her hand.
Sneaky little bastard.
She cursed.
Did Prince Theodore genuinely care for her?
Or was it all just a pretend?
༶•┈┈⛧┈♛ ♛┈⛧┈┈•༶
Part 2 -----> Up ahead.
A/N: Ella is doubting Prince Theodore's intentions and I mean.. she really should ;)