Something With a Prince

Chapter Fifty-Two: Heroes

Lansing

I woke up sometime later, a book splayed over my chest as I stretched over my bed. After what happened, I thought it best to cool down, reorient myself, but all I ended up doing was subjecting myself into a vomiting session. Recurring sensations of Thea's hand pushing up my skin and over that wretched scar had my head bent over the bowl for longer than I would like to admit.

So, I took to reading, which helped get me out of my head for a couple hours. However, I hadn't planned to sleep. My plan was to find Thea and explain...especially after seeing her face. Even now my stomach turned to think back on it, but I was quick to shut it out. There was nothing left to throw up, and I would rather not dry heave for the next twenty minutes.

Sitting up out of bed, and setting the book to my side, I quickly dressed. It was early evening, which made putting trousers on seem a little pointless, but it would be better than lounging around in my pajama bottoms. Part of me wanted to go back to her room under the excuse of retrieving my shirt, but that seemed a little pathetic, so I put on a new one and walked down the hall. If I was going to go, I might as well just go and face it head on. However, when I came to her room, I found the door wide open, and her nightgown left on the floor. The sheets were still all tangled up, which made me swallow hard. It wasn't just her hand I remembered.

Almost all my life I had wondered what it would be like to kiss Thea. To be near to her and hold her to me like there was no such thing as distance. For a moment I had that. Thea was under my hands, against my body, and was smiling because of it. She had pulled me closer. Kissed me. At first it was safe, full of boundaries, because I didn't know how she felt...I couldn't tell if it was just about skin and an opportunity. But then Thea pushed me down to the bed and gave me that smiling look... like I was the only other person in the world. I lost it then. All restraint vanished. My skin burned at the memory of her lips on mine, her hands moving down my back, the way she smiled against my throat and wrapped her legs...

Stop it. Get it together. Taking a breath, my eyes fell to the floor beside her nightgown, and a random white shirt which looked too small to be mine, where an open piece of paper rested.

Crossing the room, I picked it up, raising it to my eyes just as Delphie entered, her face a little red and sweaty.

"Your Highness, stop! I beg you, please, don't read that letter."

I wrinkled my eyebrows together, "Why?" Then I noticed her wringing her hands, "What's wrong? Why-"

She practically ran across the room to snatch it out of my hand, but I held up above my head, "Delphie! What is wrong with you?"

"Please, Lansing, I beg of you. I promised her I would---Damn, I got distracted by Clive and, --but never mind. She made me promise that you wouldn't see it, and I never break a promise."

Had I not heard the word "she" in there, I would have thought Delphie was having a stroke, but the more I looked around, the more I noticed in Delphie's appearance...the more my stomach sank inexplicably at the sight of the door being thrown open. A single piece of yellow glass left by a toppled table. Water pooled on the floor, and the scent of dead flowers filled the room.

Every ounce of warmth left my body, draining slowly from my face and lips. Air compressed around me like chains as every inch of my focus was captured by that piece of glass...stained with blood.

Delphie must have seen my face change, because she started to fumble out her lines, "You need to stay here until you hear from your brother--"

Sickness turned over my stomach as Clive stepped into the doorway and stopped, looking at me as if I were an object to be stopped. A sheep that might escape.