Bride Behind the Mask

Chapter 17: Home Sweet Home

Once again, dedicated to a random commenter @JYmLoveBF - Thank you for reading and commenting!

Chapter 17: Home Sweet Home

She was trapped in an endlessly repeating nightmare of blood and suffocation. Her waking moments were few and far between, and offered no respite as the thick blindfold sealed her path to the light.

Drifting in and out of drug-induced unconsciousness, Amelia was kept alive by the gruel they shoved down her throat, only for her bodily reflexes to throw them back up again.

The gods are known for their fondness for playing pranks with the fates of lesser beings. This time was no exception. For an entire year, she'd hoped to return home. At last, they've answered her persistent prayers, at a time when home was no longer home.

Amelia smelt Lyons before the rocking of the cart came to a stop. The narrow streets of Lyons were always plagued with the stench of urine and faeces. At times, they flooded with murky water up to the ankles. The reek that now filled her nostrils was unmistakable.

Darkness and drugs had muddled her sense of time. What felt like a few days had in fact been six sennights on the road. As she'd feared, Drake did not come for her. He'd abandoned her in her time of need.

The deep well of sorrow that threatened to drown her turned into a sudden wave of panic as a rough hand wrapped itself around her hair and yanked her out of the cart.

Her body, weak and almost weightless after the brutal conditions of her travel, was incapable of fight. With her legs numb and still bound by the ankles, she could find no footing for leverage as the man dragged her effortlessly by the hair, up stone steps, through winding corridors, past the sea of murmurs and whispers of those who'd come to witness the sight.

All the while, she screamed her pain into the cloth around her mouth.

Then it all came to an abrupt stop, and the blindfold was tugged off her head. After a full turn of the moon and more in darkness, she could not see a thing as blinding white light assaulted her vision.

"Amelia?"

She almost collapsed to her knees from the bruising pains covering her body, and let out another muffled cry as she was yanked ramrod straight.

"Amelia! What did you do to her!"

Papa? The voice was so raspy and frail she'd thought it a figment of her imagination the first time. Almost unrecognisable. She blinked furiously through her blurred vision, only able to make out a figure lying in bed.

Amelia struggled weakly against the ropes that bound her wrists behind her back. The fist tugged again and gripped tighter around her hair in warning. Pain burst and burned from her scalp to her toes. Every muffled cry set her parched throat aflame.

"Duke Weston, if you had simply cooperated, we would not have needed to do anything."

Her movements limited, she could do no more than to tilt her head slightly towards the owner of that grating, sneering voice beside her. In her peripheral, the blurred outline of a man solidified by the second.

"Let her go, Warren. My daughter has no role in this."

Fresh tears streamed down her sallow cheeks as Amelia began to make out the features of her father, his every move slow and wearied as he came towards her. She wanted to rush to him, hug him, speak with him. How could things have changed so much since their last meeting?

"Manners, duke. It's 'Your Highness', soon to be 'Your Majesty'," the prince drawled, his lips pulling into an arrogant smirk.

A sudden coolness of metal pressed into the side of Amelia's cheek, halting both her feeble struggles and the duke's approach.