Chapter Twenty-Seven
Serafina
I had thought he would be a light sleeper, having expressed his extensive training over the years. Yet Elek didn’t move a muscle as I slid out from under him and silently exited my room, slipping on a light blue dress.
It wasn’t unusual to sneak out when Anton came to visit, although I had been preoccupied since Elek’s arrival. However, when he had asked me to meet him as I used to, I felt nearly obligated to do it.
Moonlight streamed in from the glass ceiling, illuminating all of the flora my garden had to offer. Another thing I was going to miss, despite some negative associations I had with it.
When Leena would fall asleep, there were many times when Laney, Anton, Zander, and I would meet in the garden in the dead of night to have a sense of juvenile delinquency. Thinking back on it, I became more certain that Leena had suspected as much when she would give us stern glares the following day.
“Forever breaking the rules.” Anton’s voice floated from behind the fountain.
“Is it really rule breaking if we were technically always caught?” I laughed, sitting beside him and staring up at the glass covered sky.
“I suppose not. Although this time you’re sneaking out on someone else.”
It’s not as though I won’t tell Elek. It was my plan to tell him in the morning. But if I had told him before bed that I wanted to experience one last tradition, he would have wanted to remain close by and it would have taken away from the experience.
“It’s a shame that the others didn’t venture out as well. Then it would have been a true final goodbye.” I said, fighting back the burning sensation rising up in my eyes.
A long pause lay between us. When I turned to view him, his eyes were glassed over as he stared intently back at me. Tension rose up into my skull as his hands reached out for mine and held them firmly.
“It doesn’t have to be, Sera. We can still make it right.”
My stomach fell at his words. Over the past week we had been able to mend our friendship, or so I thought. I made to pull my hands away but he tugged me closer to his frame.
“Sera, please.” He begged.
“No.”
He gripped my fingers tighter, to the point of pain.
“I would be good to you. He’ll treat you as nothing more than a breeding mare. Kellen can fix this.”
It was as though an icy bucket of water had been poured onto my head.
“Kellen? Why have you been talking to him?”
I fought harder now to pull myself free to no avail. I attempted to rise to my feet, taking him along if I had to, but in a swift move I was laying on my back with Anton hovering over me. His usually bright and clear cerulean eyes remained glassed over as he pinned me to the ground.
“He can erase the bond as if it never happened, and then he’ll return you to me.”
It may have been Anton’s voice, but the words didn’t feel like his own. I started to thrash from under him, trying to jerk my legs into his lower half. His body pressed further onto mine, his legs laying across my own to pin them down. His mouth lowered towards mine.
“This is for your own good, Sera.” Anton whispered before crashing his lips onto mine and prying my lips apart with his tongue.
I thrashed and attempted to scream out when I felt a capsule of some sort being forced into my mouth. His tongue pushed it to the back of my throat, forcing me to swallow it. He didn’t let up once it was down, remaining pressed against me.
It wasn’t until I began to feel my body go limp that the realization came of how dire the situation had become. From the corner of my eye came the movement of a blurry broad figure in the shadows. Anton pushed off me, yet I couldn’t move.
“Please help her.” He begged towards the figure, who then rested a hand on Anton’s shoulder to then swiftly jab him in the abdomen with his fist.
Anton fell to the ground unconscious as the figure lowered himself to meet my gaze, his face blurred from the drug raging through my system.
“The trip home will be much lovelier with you coming along.”
Whether it had been hours or days, I awoke in a familiar cobblestone dungeon with the dripping of water rolling off the ceiling. Beyond my cell were the eyes that I now knew belonged to Kellen. He watched me with interest as I pulled at the leather tether binding my hands and feet together.
“I know what you must be thinking but I can assure you that you are not a prisoner.” Sympathy poured out of his mouth. Feigned, I was certain.
“Not a prisoner yet shackled like one. Tell me why I’m here.” I demanded.
“For now it’s time to join us for breakfast.”
Lifting his palm up to the barred door a soft yellow glow rolled off from his fingertips. The lock clicked and the door was opened wide.
“Hard to be a willing participant when I can’t even move about on my own.”
I nodded towards my restraints.
The fairy prince slid a knife under the straps to slice me free, offering up a hand to assist in my rise. I batted it away.
“I want to go home.”
“You are home, Serafina.”
