Inked

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

I had not even realized how much time had passed as I blindly followed my father back to the palace. My mind was a disaster as I tried to figure out why in the world I would have even thought about the-

I shuddered, unable to even complete the thought. I tried to think about Zane and how I could even think I would love him. I had only known him for maybe a day. But, knowing he was the one who I had saved when I was sixteen shook my heart. A storm was raging and I had no idea how to calm it.

When I was sixteen and I met Zane in his other form, had he known who I was? Had he found me because of my father? Wait...my father said something about how he had sent someone out to find me and that they had told him I was doing well but that my powers were fluctuating between stable and unstable. This must have been Zane. He had been the one to find me. Did this mean that they really had known where I was this entire time? I didn't know how I felt about that.

For the last four years, I had imagined the man from the cherry tree. I had thought that he would eventually come back to help me to save me from my mother and my powers. However, I had waited four long years for him to appear. But he never had.

Within those four years, somehow he had become my ideal. Someone I wanted to be able to see in the future. Someone I longed to see once again and ask a myriad of questions to. To find out that this person was Zane, almost destroyed my dreams. I was happy that I finally knew who he was and what his name was. However, I felt cheated that Zane had never seeked me out again.

My dream still lingered. It crept in the corner of my mind and that was when I had realized that for the last four years, I had more than idealized Zane, I had unconsciously fallen in love with who I thought he was. Then, finding out who he was, I had fallen in love with more than just that. I had fallen in love with his take-no-shit personality. This, was what really made me tremble. I had fallen in love with a man.

I wasn't against the idea of a man loving another man, but I had never thought that I would be the one that it would happen to. Trying not to think on it any longer, I snapped myself out of my thoughts. We were inside the Palace now, we had made it into a room I had not been in before. It was large enough to fit approximately thirty people, and along the walls there was nothing but bookshelves filled with books. One entire wall was a large window with french doors. Even though the sun was just beginning to rise, orange rays of light began to light up the room. My father was sitting in a chair, his hands folded beneath his chin, he looked extremely tired all of a sudden.

The other guys under Zane's command were not even in the room, the only other person was Zane. It was just the three of us in the room, I sat in one of the vacant chairs and curled my feet beneath me, glancing every once in awhile at Zane. He was leaning against one of the couches, his arms crossed over his chest and a brooding expression on his face.

There was a long moment of silence before my father looked over at Zane and they shared a look. This look held more words than I could imagine. Eventually my father sighed and then leaned back in his chair, his hands dropping to his lap and his face tilted toward the ceiling. Zane also dropped his arms to his side before he walked over to me and sat across from me. The look in his eyes was fierce and I could see nothing in those voids except my reflection.

I looked tired, as if I had no energy left. As if my entire world had just fallen around me and was laying at my feet. Running a hand through my hair, I turned away from those eyes and looked at one of the bookshelves beside me. In the pit of my stomach, I had felt a sensation that made me uncomfortable. I knew that in books they called this sensation 'butterflies', but it was nothing like that. It was like a hurricane, a storm nothing could control. It was so fierce, in fact, that I felt my pulse speed up and my body heat. There was nothing I could do but keep my gaze away from his.