Royal Blood

Chapter Eighteen

I run faster than I have ever run before. Following Max and Jasper's lead, I run down a hill away from the graveyard and away from the family. The only problem is that by now that family will have alerted the authorities that I am here and the guards won't be that far behind us. I keep looking over my shoulder to check if there is anyone after us but so far I can't see anyone.

"How. Much. Longer. Do. I. Have. To. Run. For?" I ask through panted breathes when I have finally caught up with the other two.

"I'm not sure we will ever stop running, princess." Jasper says to me, not sounding out of breath at all. I know he is right.

The three of us end up running through numerous fields, all which never seem to end. We are lucky that it is the middle of night so there is no one else around to watch us run through the fields. I feel calmer being out in the open where I can see if anyone is approaching us. There's nowhere for anyone to hide, meaning we have a clear advantage. That is until we reach a town.

"Where are we?" I ask as we reach the outskirts of the town.

"I don't know but we can't stop. We have to keep going until we know that we have made enough distance between us and them." Max says.

"We've haven't even seen any guards. How do we know that family ever got in touch with them? They could have been bluffing. Anyway we have run for miles so far, we really need to stop." I try to explain to him.

"I don't know. It seems risky. Where would we stop anyway?" He asks and all I can do is shale my head at him because I don't know where we would stop.

On one hand there are certainly more places to hide in a town compared to an empty field but that also means there are plenty of places for the guards to hide.

"I don't know but I'm sure we will find somewhere. We always do, don't we?" I finally reply.

Just like the first town that Jasper and I travelled through, there is no one on the streets at all. The lights in every building are all off and it looks like no one is around. There are no cars or any vehicles on the streets either. I would call it peaceful if my heart wasn't beating so fast and my palms weren't sweating.

"Where is everyone?" Max asks while he is looking around confused.

"Curfew." Jasper and I reply in unison as if that explains everything. Max's facial expression to begin with is just a blank stare but he soon realises what we mean.

"We really should find some cover. The three of us will get in trouble just for being out on the streets, never mind the fact that we have a runaway princess in our presence." Max says having a change of heart.

"The only problem is where...?" I mutter mainly to myself and nobody replies to me because they can't think of anywhere either. We are trapped in a city so big and there's no way out.

Silence echoes all-around of us as none us know what to say. It's not like we can check ourselves into a hotel and stay there for the night. To start off with there would be no one working because of the curfew so we actually wouldn't be able to check in. Secondly, I think we would get recognised very quickly. What name would we put down if we did check in anyway?

"It's not entirely impossible?" I hear Jasper say and I look up at him wondering what he is on about. He must have understood just my facial expression that I did not know what he was on about. "You were thinking out loud to yourself princess. I think the hotel thing could work but only for a night. Two at the very most if we had to." He replies. I still don't understand where he is going with this.

"That won't work. You said I was mumbling out loud so you must have heard the part about curfew and our names? Also, it is probably best that you do not call me princess at the moment given our current situation." I tell him.