CHAPTER 70: THE STRANGEST FEELING

• ELOISE •

I feel...good. I’ve always felt worse, even when sleeping and waking up. There was always this unrest in my body I couldn’t shake off.

I was always heavy. It was impossible to feel light when my entire body was set in causing me misery. It was the greatest enemy of my life.

This particular feeling was unexplainable, and just as smoothly, I opened my eyes. I heard a heartbeat, not mine, loud enough to have it echoing in my ear.

I instinctively clung to the linen shirt and found that I was resting on a chest.

I pushed up to see a sleeping Drevon.

Drevon? When did he get back?

I blinked, suddenly confused. My eyes swept the room briefly.

I should be in the throne room. How did I get here?

I scratched the back of my head. Wait...The Dowager was about to kill me, wasn’t she? I could still feel the tightening sensation in my chest when she released her Alpha command.

I also remembered everything fading away, my five senses shutting down, I knew that moment I might die, but then everything went blank.

I looked back at Drevon, if he was here, in bed, sleeping so peacefully, then I guess I’m very much alive.

My breath shuddered when I took in this handsome man. Why did he have to look so when he slept? Shouldn’t that be a crime? Looking so perfect. I was envious.

With his eyes shut, his lashes were longer, his inky dark hair resting lightly on his forehead, blending with them. His sculptured face was a reminder of how unreal this man was.

I moved closer, my hair shrouding like a blanket. The strangest feeling swamped me, the urge to feel his lips on mine, it tempted me like a sin.

Suddenly, I felt his hand on my back pulling me down to the bed.

"You’re not sleeping?" I asked.

He opened his eyes and turned to his side, and I was blessed with those lovely molten crimson eyes. He watched me silently as if he were trying to figure something out.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You don’t remember?"

"Remember what?"

He rose, but not completely, his elbow dipping into the sheets. The intensity with which he observed me made me grow more tense.

"My liege?" I muttered.

It took minutes before he leaned down to me, our faces inches apart. "I’ll always choose you."

I fixed him with a pointed stare.

"Always. No matter what." It sounded as if he was making a promise to me and himself. "You’re my everything, Eloise, and nothing will ever change."

I-Is he making some sort of confession?

"I—"

"You’re being shameless!"

He blinked. "Pardon?"

I sat up, grabbed the pillow, and slammed it into him with enough force. "How dare you leave me behind in this castle! And have the nerve to show up in bed!"

"Eloise, calm down!"

"Don’t tell me to calm down, you beast! Damn your shift, damn your everything!"

"Stop it, you’ll hurt yourself," he said, holding my wrist as the pillow fell out of my grip.

"Get out! I said, get out!"

He smiled, wickedly handsome with that perfect smile. "I won’t."

I growled and climbed on him, slamming the pillow into his face over and over again, but then in a flash, he wrapped his arms around me.

"I’m sorry I left you," he said softly.

I struggled, but he held me in place. I was trapped now, on top of him, in his arms, and it was the safest place I have ever been.

I didn’t want to cry. I promise myself that no one will ever see me that way, but there was only so much I could do to stay strong.

What happened to me was one of the scariest moments of my life.

"I thought I was going to die." I pushed up so I could see his face. "And you were gone!"

I hated myself for bleeding my heart to him, I really shouldn’t, but this was one of the moments when I was tired of being strong and screamed at the world for being unfair to me.

His gaze softened as he caressed my cheek. "I’ll never leave you again, never."

I didn’t reply, crawling off him and out of the bed.

My feet tapped against the cold floor as I walked to the table, where the meal was waiting for me to devour.

I grabbed anything I found appealing and shoved it into my mouth to stifle any sound of cries.

But I couldn’t stop myself from breaking, the cold water streaming down my cheeks. I shakily wiped them off.

I felt warm hands take mine. Drevon was crouching in front of me.

"I don’t want to see you cry, Eloise."

"I’m not crying," I turned away, something got in my eye."

"Eloise."

But I couldn’t look at him, except stare at my hands swallowed by his.

"It was deja vu," I said in a whisper. "Living my life consumed by the whispers of others. It lasted just two days, but it felt like the years of my past had caught up to me. I’d rather die than face that again, so I asked the Dowager to end it. It was better than living the nightmare of my life over again, knowing it would be far worse."

"Those were baseless accusations."

I dragged my gaze back to him. "You don’t believe them?"

"Why should I?" he questioned, as if it were the most stupid thing to do.

"Everyone believed. You have every right to—"

"Stop," he cut me off. "Don’t do that..."

"In Beloria, I was known as the whore’s daughter. Here I’m the whore—"

"Eloise."

I felt his hand beneath my chin as he brought my gaze back to his. He leaned up and pressed his lips softly against mine.

"No one will ever be alive to carry out those deceitful rumors. I’ll torch the empire if anyone dares murmur a whisper about you. You’re my wife, my princess, and my everything."

"P-Princess?"

He smiled. "You have Diana to thank for that. Her intervention not only made the trial an act of crime but cleared any deceit made against you."

Princess Diana did that for me? Why?

"All you need to do now is rest, that’s all you should think of, alright?"

I could only offer a nod.

"Good girl."