Royally Bounded

Chapter 50

Hayden

"Happy Birthday, Clara," I whispered as I stared out at the window.

The clock struck midnight, and it passed Clara's twentieth birthday. She would have been here to celebrate with me, but because of my fucking mistakes, she was gone. Dead or alive, I wanted to see her once. I didn't trust that she was dead, but it had been months. My team looked for her every single day without stopping, and they still had nothing.

I heard a knock on my office door. My family stepped inside, and I heard their footsteps. I stared out at the window without looking at them. Cold hands went over my shoulders, and I glanced to see it was my mother standing behind me.

"Hayden," my mother said quietly. "You haven't eat much for the past two weeks. I'm worried about you."

"There's nothing to worry about," I muttered.

"Hayden," Ivor sat on the other side of my desk. "You locked yourself in the office for an entire day. It's starting to scare us."

I sat in silence. I was so fucking tired of dealing with everything around me. People only want me to please them. No one else knew what the fuck I wanted.

"It's Clara's birthday," I suddenly spoke. "She's supposed to be here with us."

"Hayden," Jo frowned, her voice falling low. She knelt beside my chair as she held my fore arm. "Don't blame yourself for it. You need to stay strong for Clara to come back."

"She would have love the mango cake you got for her last time, Jo," I let out a cold chuckle then bit my lower lip. "I was the reason why she is fucking out there. She probably saw the news and decided to never come back."

"Hayden," my father shook his head. "You have to concentrate. King Marco is busy with saving Verdeniao's reputation, but he still has plans to take over Nascadia. He will avenge you for hurting Maisie and his country."

"God, this is so fucking tiring," I complained, my voice thick with rasp. "I should have ran away with Clara when she told me to. We would have a simple life that she loved."

"You need to make a decision, Hayden," my father said sternly. "You can't keep doing this. You only care about Clara. What about Nascadia?"

I lifted my head up slowly, staring straight dead into his eyes. "Are you fucking kidding me?" I was unbelievably stunned at what he was thinking about right now. "It was because of you that I made this choice. You made it seem as if I had no choice. You're threatening me to make a choice between Clara and Nascadia now?"

"Look at you," he gestured his hand over at me. "What have you become? You only choose to search for Clara. King Marco is going to take the moment to take over our country."

"The country is all you fucking care about," I snarled, standing up instantly. "If you want to protect your country so fucking bad, then take your role back. I don't give a shit anymore."

I shoved passed him and walked out of my office. My father always thought about himself, and he left me no choice but to drop the role behind. He kept forcing me to make decisions. I trusted him once, and it turned out to be the worse choice I made.

I wasn't letting him do this to me anymore. I was stupid enough to be sucked into the hatred and betrayal that made me turn against Clara. I would never let history repeat. From the moment I chose to lose the alliance, I knew what I wanted.

It would always be Clara.

Clara

I kept pushing with all my strength. The pain was stabbing me in the stomach, but with every breath, I took the power to push. Isabella was beside me, her hand clasping over mine. She didn't care about the pain. All she did was assuring me and telling me to push for Xander.