Prince

Chapter 16

Daniels POV

The light was fading, creating new shadows and dark patches around us as we walked further into the forest. The wind wailed between distorted trunks, carrying the sickly sweet stink of rotting wood to us. We moved quickly hoping to get out of the bitter winds soon, ignoring the thorns that caught at our trousers.

The trees stood utterly still, statues in a living museum where no leaf dared to fall. My left hand absorbed the warmth of Joeys as I gripped on tightly for reassurance, I wasn't all too keen on the dark, but Joey made me feel much safer.

'There it is, just over there see'

Joey lifted his arm and pointed into the darkness, I followed his gaze and could just see a little wooden cabin hidden behind the trees.

'It's not much but-'

'It's perfect'

He looked over at me smiling and placed a tender kiss on my cheek and then continued to tug me over to the little cabin. When we got to the door he bent down and lifted up a small wolf ornament, revealing a little metal hoop with two small keys.

'You leave the keys here?'

He un hooked one key and passed it to me, while using the other to unlock the door and push it open.

'I guess it's such an obvious place to leave them, people don't even think about it'

When we stepped inside he closed the door behind me and set himself on a task of turning on the few gas lamps that were scattered around. He then took a box of matches out of a draw and lit the logs in the fire place. The warmth immediately began to spread through the small room.

I watched him remove his jumper and sit down on the little two seater sofa, he tapped the spot next to him and looked at me expectantly.

'I guess you probably want to talk huh?'

I guess it's been a long time coming, I've been putting off talking to him on the way here, well there's no time like the present. I pulled the sleeves on my jumper up instead of removing it completely and sat beside him.

'You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I'm just glad that you're here now.'

'No, you have a right to know, but before I start I want you to know that I would do literally anything for you and I never wanted to leave you. You don't understand how conflicted I was.'

He sat back as if to get comfortable and looked at me with those beautiful green eyes of his. I couldn't get over how beautiful he was in front of the fire, the flames illuminated his face in shades of orange and gold. He was stunning.

'Well first of all, your dad is a bullshitting scum bag who was lying through his teeth when he said 'any friend of yours is a friend of mine'. He came and found me when you said you were taking me out for a picnic, he told me that if I came back to the castle he'd make you suffer the consequences.'

'What?'

'Hold on. I was going to tell you when we were at the lake, but then I was completely thrown off and I didn't want to ruin things. I sat at the lake all day before I realised I couldn't...I couldn't live without you.'