Love & Duty

Chapter 23

Prince Amir did his best to run back to the ball as fast as he could; he needed to call for someone. As he turns the corner, he bumps into someone.

"Prince Amir, please be careful around the corners." Nikki says as she helps him up.

"P-Princess Sophia is in danger! She needs help!" he says, shaking.

"What do you mean? Was she alone? Where is she?" she asks; Rowen was supposed to be with her; how could she be in danger?

"I-In her room, people came and hurt her and someone else." he replies, trying to control his shaking hands.

"It's okay, go back to the ball and to your sister. Please don't tell anyone about this. We don't want them to be scared, okay?" she tries to reassure him. If word goes out that something happened to Princess Sophia... It would be a disaster.

Nikki runs towards Sophia's room, hoping to find that everything is alright. Unfortunately, the scene she saw made her heart thump faster and faster.

"Rowen!" she runs to his side and tries to wake him up. "Rowen. Get up, come on." she tries again by tapping his face.

He stirs and slowly opens his eyes, feeling a sharp pain in the back of his neck. He holds it while stretching his neck, trying to ease the pain.

That's when it clicked.

"Sophie!" he yells and stands up directly, losing his balance.

"Slowly, Rowen. She isn't here..." she says sadly. "What happened?" she dares to ask.

He clenches his fists, the anger building up inside him. He failed. "They took Sophie... She was right there! I couldn't do anything!" he hits the side of his leg.

"Rowen, who is 'they'? What did they want with her?" she knows this is hard for him, but she needs the information to tell Ren or... Damon. Even though she would like to avoid that.

"I don't know, they moved too fast, and it was dark. I was too busy trying to save her than to analyze them." he says, frustrated by his failure. Then he remembered what Valerie had told him.

"He is always scheming to get what he wants. He has always been after Sophia to break her down and have her give in to him."

And his anger took over. "It's him! He did this." he seethes and storms out of the room.

"Wait, Rowen!" Nikki runs after him. "Who are you talking about? Where are you going?" she tries to stop him.

"Julien! Valerie said he is after Sophia, to break her!" he explains while rushing to the ball.

"That's absurd! Rowen, you're crazy. He's a Prince. What do you think you're going to do?" she grabs his arm, but he snatches away; before she can catch him again, he busts through the doors, making everyone in the ball turn to him.

Rowen is looking around for his target; once he sees him, he starts to make his way toward him.

"Tyler! Stop him. Now!" Nikki yells, she doesn't know where Tyler is, but she is sure her voice will reach him.

And this time, she was right. Tyler didn't question it; he stopped directly in front of Rowen, and with one glance at him, he knew he would have caused a lot of trouble.

"Get out of my way Tyler." Tyler, however, doesn't answer; he just tries to calm him down with his look. "Don't you care about 'your' Princess?" Rowen's anger could not be hidden anymore. He just wanted answers about her whereabouts now.

Tyler didn't like that sentence at all; what was that supposed to mean? "What are you talking about?" he says slowly, warning him to pick his following words carefully.