𝚂𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚍 ✔

Chapter Thirty-Eight

All night I tossed and turned after Henry's visit. Face flush and thoughts jumbled. I could hardly focus on the important bits, not when the feeling of his warm touch was still fresh in my mind and lingered on my skin.

Even his scent remained in his absence, intoxicating me as I curled inward on myself in the warmth of the feathered bed, imagining his large arms wrapped around me. His huge body pressed against my back as we laid there.

I shouldn't have wanted him like I did, but I could not stop myself. He had started to invade every crevice of my mind, consuming every thought, every dream.

All I could do was hope he had not felt the same, because if he did, I was surely headed down a path of ruin.

However, once the warmth faded and the sobering chill of danger took its place, I started to feel like I was suffocating.

His terrible news found its way through, forcing itself to the forefront of my mind, demanding to be seen. And seen it was.

Who could have possibly wanted something so horrid, so vile, done to me? Why? I wanted to suspect Castellana, but there was no way any woman could have wished something like that on another. But then again, even women were capable of committing unspeakable crimes.

Perhaps my own mother? Had she been so twisted and full of hate to have had something like that done to her own child? Her insanity and malice knew no bounds, after all.

Surely not the Queen herself? Her little games and trials couldn't have meant that much to her for her to have gone to such lengths, could they?

There had been no men that I had any knowledge of upsetting, so if it had not been any of the questionable women in my life, then I had no idea who the culprit could have been.

Though whoever it was, had to have been a very disturbed and perverse individual indeed.

The next morning it took everything in me to get out of bed. I had hardly gotten any rest and the heavy, dark bags under my eyes made it very evident.

I pushed off the fluffy bed, joints in my legs and hips cracking as I softly padded across the silent room.

Cordelia had not yet awakened since the sun was not even in the sky, and I was left alone with myself and my turbulent mind.

Gently, I pulled back the tall, flower embroidered, cream curtains and opened the doors to the balcony. Once outside, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply through my nose.

Rain.

It was coming, and fast. The sky was the deepest blues and blacks I had ever seen it. An endless void, without the subtle silvery-blue light of the moon and generous peppering of the stars. Even the sun, who had just begun to peep its head up from behind the horizon, was hardly visible through the thick, angry looking clouds.

Perhaps it had been an ill omen for the night to come?

I stood there, in the stillness and silence waiting for the rain. Soft grumbles of thunder had started to become more and more audible by the second.

A knock on the apartment door ripped me from the serene emptiness, sending a chill down my spine as my stomach clenched, "So they have come anyway."

I stood there, staring out into the abyss as Cordelia rushed to answer the door. A crack of lightning crawled across the sky, followed by a rolling rumble of thunder.

It was almost here.

"Miss, the Queen and the royal physician are here to see you." I could hear the nervousness in her voice.