The Stolen Prince

Chapter 3

Arden

    I awoke to a splitting headache. I felt as if an entire team of horses trampled me. Repeatedly.

As my head cleared of the cloudy, murky fog, I noticed my surroundings. There was green all around me from the towering oak trees that made up the forest, some crooked from unknown causes. A small camp was set up around me. But I could not see anyone who could have made it.

    I slowly attempted to reach my hands up to my throbbing head. So devastatingly slow. I didn't want to alert my capturer that I was awake. This could be my only chance of escape.

But as my hands continued to travel up towards my head, they stopped short of my chest. I saw the reason when I glimpsed at the rope that circled my hands tightly and when I looked down I saw the same case on my legs. I tried to get up from my position on the mossy floor, but I was pulled back by some unknown force on my torso.

There was another rope tying me to a tree.

This was pathetic. How could I let myself get caught? I turned my head slightly to the side and I finally realized who I was to blame for my situation.

There was a girl sitting on a log near the fire. She was sitting on the outer edges of my vision, so I had not been able to see her before. It seemed she enjoyed seeing me stumble through consciousness.

My kidnapper, a slim amber-skinned girl with lovely green eyes, sitting across from me sharpening a knife, sitting on a mossy decomposed log. And was giving me an impressive death stare.

"Good morning Sleepyhead." Her lips curved slightly. A small smile.

I watched as her rose-colored lips formed the words but barely heard her speak. She gave me a cocky grin and twirled her knife around her fingers, proving the amount of skill she had with the blade.

"Please untie me at once."

I tried to use my most regal voice and gathered up as much of my pride as was left.

"Jade Coreley at your service Your Highness," she gave a mockery of a bow and I realized that her eyes were jade, not just green. The name fit her well. "You should be thanking me for your capture. Plenty of people in that caste wanted to do much worse things. You should be glad I'm so good at my job."

She gave me a sly grin that was more feline than human.

Jade, that was her name.

I was entranced by her stare and the way she glared at me. No one had ever looked at me like that aside from my family. With a look of distaste.

"And what is your job exactly Jade Coreley? Kidnapping princes?"

I gestured to my bound hands and my predicament with the tree.

"That was a precaution. What would happen if you woke up and decided to run or slit my throat? Though I suppose now we won't be needing them since you are such a gentleman."

She walked over to me as soundlessly as a fox and started untying the ropes that bound my body to submission. After I was freed from my prison of woven thread I played the part of rubbing my wrists. A defeated, insolent prince.