Bonded

Chapter Thirty One

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India

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Try as I might to try and not feel so aware of myself I cannot seem to rid myself of the eyes I feel scrolling all over my body and reading me as if I were a scroll left open for all of them to spy upon...

I do not remember the last time I truly felt as exposed as I do right now... The flowers woven into my hair a look that I know is unfamiliar enough for me to have actually deserved some of these stares... But I also know that it goes beyond that... It's also because of the way we walked in... Kavya and Ronin basically sweeping me off of my feet all the way in here...

It had felt so magically before it felt like the obsidian walls shattered only to come crashing down on me...

It's not as if I fear my peers might tease me or give me a hard time for having suitors and for accepting their sweet gift so readily... It is just that I fear that I will attract the wrong attention... Jealous attention... Or the attention of those above me...

For what if they see me and assume that I am spending more time being courted and being flustered than I do focusing on my studies and chosen path? What if they see me and assume that after such a short time and then i find myself relieved of my position...

Other than here... Living in the palace amongst my peers... I have nowhere else to go... If I were to be asked to leave...

I would have nowhere to turn to while waiting for Kavya and Ronin... Assuming they would still want me after being stripped of my future title and tossed out... And I've got no idea if they would welcome the thought of helping me arrange something so that I might stay close by to them without risking the possible wrath of anyone above us who found this infatuated version of me distasteful enough to remove me in the first place...

It's a terrifying thought and one that seems to make me freeze no matter how warm my beast tries to make us... No amount of fire burning inside of my belly can truly disrupt the fear I feel over being placed into such a strange situation... Especially one I should have already understood was bound to happen...

I know that we should have at least some small claim to being able to keep our courting just among ourselves and our chaperones... but I doubt we will actually get any... Not with the way Master Qiao and Jian keep focusing their eyes on me while all of us chat over our morning meal after getting seated together... And not with how it feels as if the number of eyes watching me so closely is directly tied to how hot my face feels over all of the stomach-turning attention...

It would be one thing if the three of us were left alone instead of being engaged in conversation... We would be able to tap on the shoulder of a chaperone and then run down to the kitchen for another picnic basket like the one we shared yesterday... And then we would have been able to sit amongst the roses with smiles on our faces while continuing to discuss all of the important plans that we each have made so that we might figure out how to approach them all together...

And instead, we're sitting here near the head of the table so that we might be close enough to Master Qiao for Jian to derive comfort from the man by holding his hand under the table with no real way to leave... I have nothing I can think of that would justify excusing myself and my suitors from the table simply so that we do not have to be watched so very closely...

So instead I am made to sit here and try to keep myself calm so that I do not fall apart here when so many people are already watching...