The Princess's Guard ✔️

39

Word Count: 1576

~Kiva

A throbbing in the back of my head accompanies as I wake.

For a moment I'm just still, reabsorbing my memories. Ark drugged me after I revealed his plan to kidnap me.

Something deep within me is staring to rot. Trust.

I blink my eyes open, fighting the temptation to remain sleeping. I'm not ready to face this new reality. The only thing that prompts me is my gratefulness that I'm alive and that he didn't just kill me.

Taven sits at the edge of my bed, looking down at his hands.

"What's going on," I ask shakily, pulling myself up.

My skin is clammy, my mouth dry like I've woken from a nap. At least I'm in a bed, my legs under stiff covers. The room we are in is unconventional though, with no furniture and no windows.

Is this a prison without the metal bars?

"Ah, you're awake. Good." Taven turns to me, round blue eyes examining.

If I'm with Taven I'm with the rebellion. Ark, the guilty, untrustworthy monster has taken me to the rebellion that I assume he also works for.

When I see him I'm going to kill him...

"You sound surprised," I note, shaking some feeling into my quivering limbs. Whatever Ark dosed me with still lingers within me, keeping my lids heavy and my body weak.

"Not surprised," he immediately amends, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably before his shoulders deflate. "Okay a little. I wasn't sure whether you had been injected with something to put you to sleep or to kill you."

"Kill me?"

How lucky am I to be alive? Taven's unease is scary, but if I'm not dead now, there has to be something else going on. In the back of my mind I remember Ark begging me to trust him, but right now, I can't scrape together a reason why.

"I didn't think they wanted you dead, but you never know." He shrugs casually.

"Taven. Tell me where I am," I say steadily. Wherever I am, I need to put as much distance between Ark and I as possible.

"I can't tell you our location exactly, but you're here, with the rebellion."

My head falls into my hands. "Fuck."

I thought that if I ever came to be in the hands of the rebellion, it would be through another break in. Little did I know I would be decieved from inside the palace walls.

"If you're not dead now, it's not likely they will kill you at all," Taven assures me. His awkward manner of speaking isn't very comforting.

"You do work for them?" I don't even know why I'm asking. I know he does, but I want to see him say it here, while I'm sitting in a place filled with people who want me dead.

He nods. "I do."

"You lead?"

"No!" His eyes widen as if I just said something ridiculous.  "I mean, not even close. I'm bottom of the rank really."

I sigh through my nose. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. I don't want my mate to be working with the rebellion, but it would be much more convenient if he did. Then, he could get me out of here and punish Ark for drugging me.

"So there will be consequences if you let me out?" I clarify.

"I'm not going to do that. It's not part of the plan," he tells me decidedly, smoothing his hand down the front of his shirt.