ROYAL HIGHNESS

35.parties with 🎭

Her eyes flitted from one group to the next until they stopped.

There.

Across the room, half-shrouded by the crowd, was him. Amyardh.

Her fingers stilled on her glass. Her spine straightened as if some primal part of her had sensed a shift in the air. Slowly, she adjusted her position, turning just enough to get a clearer view.

He was standing near one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, the warm glow of the city lights outside casting sharp shadows across his face.

Ovie's breath hitched. Her fingers curled tighter around the glass.

He wasn't looking at her. No, his gaze was pinned on the man in front of him. A smaller man, fidgeting with his cufflinks, his eyes darting to the side every few seconds like he was searching for an exit. It was the same reporter who had asked nonsensical questions to Ovie. His smile was too forced, his laugh too high-pitched. It was the laugh of a man who knew he'd stepped on a live wire and was praying not to get shocked.

Amyardh, though- wasn't smiling. He didn't need to. His eyes spoke louder than any words ever could.

Rage.

Not loud, explosive rage. No, this was something far more lethal. His rage was cold, deliberate, and slow-burning. It wasn't the kind that exploded all at once. It was the kind that crept in like a storm, dark clouds rolling over the horizon, quiet thunder rumbling in the distance before the world went still. That's what he was. The moment before the downpour. The quiet before the chaos.

His eyes blazed like fire behind glass-contained, but you knew the glass would crack eventually. The man in front of him must have known it too, because he was gesturing with his hands now, fast and desperate. Explaining himself. Ovie could read it from his frantic movements, the wide-eyed expression, the way he shook his head like a child caught in a lie.

But it didn't matter.

Ovie didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until she exhaled slowly, quietly, her eyes never leaving him. Her gaze was pinned, locked, captivated.

Amyardh's jaw was tight, the muscle ticking as his teeth pressed together. His hands-large, rough hands-hung at his sides, fingers flexing and curling into fists. Relaxing. Flexing. Curling. Like he was holding himself back from doing something stupid. Or maybe from doing something that felt too right. His lips moved slowly, his words low, precise, like blades being sharpened mid-sentence.

A moment later, Ovie watched as the Reporter was dragged out forcefully.

The music pounded through the air, a relentless wave of rhythm and bass that seemed to thrum through the very foundation of the grand engagement hall. Laughter, clinking glasses, and the murmur of conversation swirled together, a chaotic yet strangely intoxicating symphony of celebration.

But Ovie barely registered any of it.

She stood abruptly from her seat, her pulse hammering like a war drum. A mere ten minutes ago, an entirely different emotion had surged within her-an uncontrollable, almost primal urge to end someone's existence. Now, in a complete turn of fate, she was possessed by an equally powerful compulsion: to dance. To move. To lose herself in the music and the wine-sweet air until nothing else remained.

Her champagne glass, still half-full, tilted precariously in her hand before she carelessly set it down. She had indulged in more glasses than she cared to count, the golden liquid swirling inside her, making her limbs feel light yet dangerously unsteady.

Her gaze darted across the room, searching for something-anything-that could anchor her, but the faces around her were blurred, a kaleidoscope of joy and frivolity she could not partake in. No, not like them. Not when her heart ached with something raw and venomous.