Evening Tales: Dark Academia Short Stories

The Princess and the Poison Pt 2

The light of dawn poured across the sweeping foothills in tinges of yellow and orange. I sighed from my spot at the flap of my tent, my head resting on the pole. It had been a year since I had found out about my true heritage, and since I had begun staying with the Dark Riders. A year since I had found that my father had killed my mother with poison; my mother who had grown to love a man that she was never meant to have. 

As for me...

A gentle kiss pressed into the soft spot between my neck and my shoulder, fingers making small circles on my lower back. 

"Come back to bed, Princess," Dimitri said, his voice raspy with sleep. 

I smiled and tilted my head to the side: a silent request. He huffed a laugh and continued to trail kisses up my neck, over my collar bone, over the ridges of my cheek. Finally, I turned to look up at him. His raven hair hung in a disarray of angry curls, his brown eyes soft with the morning, yet glazed with lust.

"As you wish," I said after studying him. He grinned lazily and swept me up into his arms, carrying me to the fur pallet that served as our bed for the time being. 

He crawled onto the bed beside me, my robes now hanging loose, leaving my shoulders bare. 

"Are you ready for tomorrow?" Dimitri asked, his eyes crinkling with concern. 

I heaved a breath and pulled him close to me, savoring his scent. "As ready as I am able." 

Dimitri pushed away from me softly, still holding me by the waist. "This kingdom is yours, and it belongs to no one else. With your training this past year, and my knowledge of the castle, nothing is stopping us."

I nodded and buried my face into his chest. A year ago. It seemed like a different life that I had truly hated Dimitri for being the right hand to my tyrant of a father, and had loathed his company. Now, I would do anything to get a moment alone with him. Those moments were rare, given the amount of training we went through each day, and the preparations for tomorrow. 

Tomorrow. The day that would change it all: marching to take back what was rightfully mine, from a king who wouldn't give up his shiny seat without a fight. If we won, I would sit the throne as the rightful queen with Dimitri at my side. If things went south... I never let myself think that far. 

Sensing my body tense, Dimitri tilted my chin to look at his face. "We do this together," he whispered. 

"Together," I repeated. 

"And when this is all over," he brought my left hand to his chest. "I will make you mine. The proper way." 

I smirked softly as I looked down at the finger he was now playing with. A cool white band decorated my ring finger, plain and simple but representing a promise so deep that our souls had become intertwined at the mere prospect of it. 

I smiled and placed a deep kiss to Dimitri's full lips. "You swear?" I said against his lips.

His reply was simply deepening the kiss, and pulling me under the covers.

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The day grew hot and stuffy, my armor clanging softly with each stride. However, I trudged on, my men behind me. The castle- my father's castle- grew larger in the distance with each step, as well as the pit in my stomach. I looked over my left shoulder to Dimitri, who gave me a small nod and a smile. 

It's just for today. Then we have the rest of forever together, his eyes seemed to say. So I kept my gaze locked onto the horizon, and marched toward my destiny.