I woke to the warm familiar smell of gardenia and jasmine. Adrienne. We had arrived back at camp late into the evening and by the time I had finished telling her everything that had happened, we were both exhausted.
I could tell she was nervous to be in the woods so far from home and anything she knows. I would've offered my tent to her and I would've taken Roman's but I knew she didn't want to be alone, not again. And it's not like we hadn't had sleepovers before. She often spent the night in my chambers with me, in my bed even. This should have been no different, but knowing that did nothing to calm the pounding of my heart.
As gentle as I could, I managed to slip from our bed without stirring Adrienne, she needed more rest. I could at least make her some breakfast so she'll have some comfort when she wakes. The past two weeks were a lot to go through, for both of us, and I'm sure she's still processing everything I told her last night on our trek back from the castle. I hadn't even told her about nymph stuff, not fully, not what I can do. It seemed like too much, too fast.
It was still early, the sun had just peeked above the horizon, the dew dusted the logs I had set around the campfire. Adrienne would likely be asleep for a few more hours, I may as well start trying to get a fire going.
Scrounging around, I managed to find some dry twigs and sticks and convince the flame to take. It took more attempts than I'd have preferred but I finally got a small blaze to ignite. Sitting at the campfire I took a deep breath and finally took a look around.
The amount of flowers and plants were still concerning, but something else had caught my eye. The flap to Roman's tent had been pulled aside. It was closed when Adrienne and I retired last night, but now it was wide open. There's no way the wind caught it and pushed it up onto the catch, this was intentional, someone is here.
I drew my dagger from its sheath and crept towards the tent. I could see through the middle and it didn't seem like anyone was inside but that didn't mean they weren't coming back. Where's Daphne when she could actually help me, why didn't she tell me someone was here?
Creeping inside Roman's former tent, I noticed his stuff had been strewn about. Someone was here overnight and they were looking for something.
Who knew we were here? What did he have? They clearly weren't here for the bounty on my head or trying to find where Adrienne ran off too, we were undisturbed. We never even heard anyone and I was only asleep for a few hours, we're dealing with someone who knows what they're doing.
I snuck over toward a pile of Roman's belongings, there were maps and pages scattered across the floor. A concerningly large stack of wanted posters featuring my face were against the back of this tent, he never mentioned collecting them. Maybe he wanted my autograph and ran away because he was too shy to ask for it. Yeah obviously.
A twig snapped behind me and whirled around to be face to face with a deserter.
"Let me explain." Roman said.
"Yeah I obviously want to know what you have to say. You spend an ungodly amount of time looking for the nymphs and end up with a dead sister and best friend due to this inane obsession of yours, you see that what you were searching for is literally right in front of you, and you leave." I retorted, "Furthermore, I needed you. Daphne told me so much and I discovered I have powers and I needed you and you left."
Roman just looked at me, his lips pursed.
"You're right." He responded, "I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?! You're fucking sorry?! That's all you have to say? You know what, I don't care what you have to say. There's nothing you could possibly have to say to me that would make me not hate you."
YOU ARE READING
Between Two Vines
Adventure(Formerly The Forest of Life) Saviors aren't always as expected. They're people too. They make mistakes. But how they choose to live with those mistakes is what matters.
