Everything's Fair in Love and War - An Amourshipping story

Chapter 18 - Hearts and emotions

Alec's face twisted itself into a malicious grin. "Hurts, huh?" he said, smirking a bit more.

Ash, who was grasping onto Serena's hand, firmly jerked her forward. Her eyes were covered by her bangs and she wore a distressed look.

"Can't believe she'd do something like this" Ash huffed "After all the trust I had put in her"

"There there" Alec said and took long strides towards Serena; his figure towering over the girl's bent head. "You did give him the file, right?"

When she refused to reply, Alec's smirk turned to a frown. "Tell me" he ordered.

Ash's stomach tightened. A bead of sweat trickled down his face- please don't hurt her, please don't hurt her.

Luckily Alec only tilted her head up by the chin "Don't irritate me".

"I did" came a feeble response "I did"

He smiled, satisfied. "Good" he said. Looking up to face Ash, he said "I can get it now, right?"

Ash drew in sharply "I need some explaining first"

***

The room was musky. The pungent smell of dust was very prominent; there was a thin layer of it on every piece of furniture. By furniture, I mean the tarp covered structures which were pushed away into a corner.

Alec inhaled slowly. "You really thought I was gone, didn't you?" He walked around fingering the grey, now faded, walls of the room. It was a gentle touch, as though he was scared that they would collapse on him.

Ironical, because he was a man who took lives for pleasure. "We did" Ash said, in reply "It scared all of us"

A silence followed. Alec and Ash - it had been ages since he had been here - took in the new room, if you could call it that. Their minds comparing it to it the last time they saw it.

The bed, which had already been very lightly decorated, had been taken apart. The head board and the foot board were lying flat, slightly cracked and forgotten in a corner. The legs of the bed were thrown haphazard on them and all the bedding seemed to be missing. The curtains were gone and it gave the room a very creepy, afternoon glow. But the room always had that glow.

A voice came from behind them "It's hard to believe an innocent five-year old used to spend all his nights running around here"

The voice only startled Ash who turned around to face Delia. Her hands were clasped and pressed against her chest; she had a sad smile on her lips. "Did you ever miss this place, Alec?" she asked, taking a few elegant steps towards her older son. "Did you ever miss playing in here?"

"I miss that Alec" she continued, shrugging off his cold silence "I guess he's never coming back"

The statement threw Ash off balance. The Alec he knew would never be caught dead without that scowl or that condescending look on his face. A mere five-year old. A child, pure and innocent. It sounded ridiculous.

"What would you tell your past self, Alec?" she asked "What would you tell that little guy who would go on and on about being the best king he could ever be? What would you tell him?"

The reply came almost immediately. He didn't face her, though. "I'll tell him this - The world is made of money." He said "You don't need to do anything unless you get something out of it."

He turned around, hands tightly placed in his pockets and his cold red eyes piercing her brown ones "And by something I mean money"

Ash realized. He understood everything and the new knowledge did anything but surprise him. He should've known that every decision and step taken by Alec was solely governed by his father. That was the only reasonable answer.