Love comes in many forms.
Speaking about it, imagining it, and melting at the mere prospect of it can leave you giddy with its richness.
But defining it, expressing or experiencing it - that's a different game.
Elijah - the heir to the throne of...
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"What are you doing here?"
Zyanna looked up at me, her eyelashes languidly fluttering upwards as she smiled at me, a smile that almost relaxed me and made me believe everything was as it's supposed to be.
"I wanted to see you."
"At this hour of the night? Did you not return to your chamber with Vladimir?" I looked around me, my bed-chamber still shrouded in the natural darkness of the night.
"Are you afraid, Elijah?"
"What? Of course not. Why are you here? What is the matter?" I reached out to her, but for some reason, I couldn't move.
Roped.
I was roped to the ends of the metal cart holding my bed, and though I should have easily been able to break out of it, I simply couldn't move.
"You should be afraid. You promised me, Elijah. You promised me and you failed."
"Zyanna," I breathlessly whispered. "What happened? Tell me...just tell me, and it will all be fine."
Her face was empty of emotion, her flickering eyes and her declining breaths being the only thing letting me know she was still here with me in a conscious form.
She cautiously tried to bring her hands up, still sat on my bed, but hopelessly failed, as her hands were tied to the same metal ends too, only being opposite the ones I was bound to.
Blood started to cascade from her stomach, flooding the sheets between us, and it wouldn't stop. Neither of us could do anything to shield it.
Zyanna choked out a sound that was strangled between a laugh and a cry, tears beginning to forcibly stain her face. "I believed in you, Prince Elijah. You gave me your word. I thought you could keep me safe-"
A devastatingly familiar voice cut off her remaining words. "Keep you safe? How could he keep you safe? He could hardly fend for himself; I might as well pluck his heart out and place it on my lap, just look at his pitiful state."
It was her.
I clenched my teeth together, immediately looking for ways to escape as I painfully tugged and tugged on my hands.
I could not move at all.
"Makarti! Show yourself, you disgusting, inhuman creature! Untie Zyanna, and face me if you truly value your life!"
A silhouette shook near me, sounds of cruel laughter rippling from it. "You truly thought I would fall for petty insults and threats? You don't realise what's at stake, do you? Or rather, who?"
Though her form was shockingly still secured in the dark, not a speck of her true skin revealing itself, a shining sword still reached out from it.
