by Zara Zenia
I was spinning out of control with exasperation. “I hardly think that’s necessary,” I said, becoming more perturbed by the second.
“Are you going to apologize for your remarks?” Tia demanded. “This is hardly the way I want to start a marriage.”
“First of all,” I declared, taking a step in her direction as I pointed an accusatory finger at her. “This is not a marriage.” I gestured back and forth between us. “Second of all, I have nothing to apologize for. You are the one who started the argument by saying you would turn my pet into luggage.”
“Calm down.” My brother Lortnam cupped a hand on my shoulder. “You are sinking.”
I didn’t care anymore. It baffled me how anyone other than myself could see this woman as anything other than completely vile. I didn’t want her as my bride. I didn’t even want to know her at all. I wished I could just close my eyes and erase the entire night from my memory. To say I was dubious about the scanner results was completely accurate.
By now, a substantially larger crowd had gathered around us, wanting to witness firsthand the bitter feud that was unwrapping before their very eyes between the foreign prince and the sexy blonde from a modest upbringing who had made her way up the popularity rungs by some crazy twist of fate.
I pushed her to the back of my mind as I noticed that Slith was continuing to bare his sharp white teeth in a mouth that was as wide as an alligator’s. His animosity directed at Tia was no mistake. He had a keen sense of reading the bad seeds, and he was hitting the mark off the charts on this blonde bimbo standing in front of us.
She had resorted to huffing and whining in front of the cameras that were clicking and flashing in a public scandal frenzy around us. I couldn’t even think. My head was swimming with scenarios of what Rose might be doing, where she might have escaped to in her humiliation.
I yearned to cuddle her, to whisper in her ear and promise her that everything would be okay in the end, that I could somehow fix this. I longed to be her knight in shining armor. I didn’t want to live a life that didn’t center around Rose. I vowed to prove that to her, if I could ever find her.
“Get out of my way,” I grumbled as I aggressively pushed a pixie, elvish-looking girl out of the way. She had her camera aimed at me as if it was a gun that she had become trigger happy with.
“Where are you going?” Tia wailed behind me, waving her arms around in the air frantically.
She was playing her victim card. I had to hand it to her. The woman could act and kick up quite a monstrous scene that painted her as innocent while pushing me into the guilty limelight. I would just have to deal with her nasty behavior later. For now, I had a job to do. My ultimate goal was to find Rose and set things right with her.
Tia could kick up an elaborate scene for all I cared. I wouldn’t be there to witness it anymore. I’m sure my brothers wouldn’t be able to wait to throw it in my face and give me all the gory details.
Tia was the type of woman who would milk the attention for all it was worth so that people would empathize with her and take her side.
I didn’t answer her as she continued to scream behind me, demanding answers for where I was going. It was none of her damn business. I trudged out of the room. As soon as I ventured outside, I gasped for air. I had survived the ordeal, but only barely. Now it was time to continue my mission to find Rose.
I ran as fast and hard as I could, away from the people who were fixated on destroying me and obliterating my happiness. I would get to the bottom of this puzzle. Some key factor was missing here, and I was going to unearth the mystery. I would use Davon as my eyes and ears to infiltrate the system and those who’d dared to wrong me.
As I ran through the chilly night, my thoughts wandered back to Rose, the sweet and endearing Rose who stole my heart and deserved my love more than anyone else on this spinning planet.
I hoped the cries of my heart would reach her and that somehow, she would hear my desperation. I hoped even more that she would be willing to listen.
Chapter 12
Rose
By the time I pushed the front door open upon returning to my home, my lungs were burning. My throat was sore, and I was choking back sobs until I could finally reach the privacy and seclusion of being in my own house. I didn’t want to expel the violent tears that threatened to ravage through me until I knew I was behind closed doors and no one could witness my breakdown. I had run the entire way, never slowing my stride even for a second.
My dogs, Amber and Jasmine ,welcomed me home with enthusiastic wags of their tails and joyous smiles. Their tongues stuck out as they panted with excitement. I patted their heads and allowed a few tears to escape and spill over my cheeks.
“Hi, girls,” I squeaked, crouching down on bended knee to be on their visual and physical level. I gave them both maternal and loving squeezes, pressing my cheeks to the soft tufts of fur on their bodies. “I love you both so much,” I sobbed, finally caving in to my sorrow and grief from the events that had unfolded back at the party.
I collapsed on the couch, too mentally and physically exhausted to move another muscle, at least for a few minutes. My dogs sagged their heads on my lap, resting beside me while they stared up at me with curious, droopy eyes and somber expressions.
“It’s okay, really.” I sniffed, unable to muster a smile for them.
I tucked my legs under myself and grabbed a throw blanket from edge of the couch, draping it over myself and my dogs. I was fully prepared to stuff myself silly with ice cream, binge-eating my feelings until I felt oddly gross and comforted at the same time.
I would just sit here and cuddle my dogs until I had no choice but to move, either to the bathroom or to work. Perhaps I’d even do something wild and crazy like call in sick. I wanted to stay in my sweat pants and try to forget the nightmare of the scanner registering another woman as Darbnix’s match.
It wasn’t going to be an effortless or painless task. The challenge would undoubtedly take its toll on me, but I was normally resilient and floated through life with a tenacious attitude.
I would have no choice but to pick myself back up, dust the dirt off my knees, and press forward. Life would eventually go on. Would I find true love elsewhere? Maybe. It was possible, but I didn’t have a crystal ball to view my future.
My eyes wilted, and my shoulders shook with silent, heavy sobs. My eyes were swollen and raw. I brushed the tears off my cheeks and inhaled a deep breath. I was better than caving to this debilitating sadness.
The biggest setback? Every time I squeezed my eyes shut, I saw the intensely erotic and handsome stare of Darbnix blazing through me. His hands were grazing across my skin. I sighed into his chest, drawing in a deep breath of his masculinity and safety.
It was as if I had been able to absorb and experience a sliver of my most pleasurable fantasies, but then they were ripped right from my grasp before I could chase them into reality. The rug had been pulled out from under me and my dreams. I began tailspinning right from the clouds I’d been dancing through, plummeting back down to the ground with an unceremonious thud.
Back in the earth-shattering present, and after I’d cried all the tears in my body, I leaned back against the soft, plush couch cushions. My head was throbbing, and I felt like a wilting flower that hadn’t received any sunlight or water in days.
“I need a distraction,” I croaked to Amber and Jasmine, who responded by hesitantly flicking their tails and glancing at me with guarded expressions. “I’m okay, really.” I let out a pitiful laugh. “I promise.”
I rubbed the tops of their heads and plucked the television remote from the coffee table in front of me. Groaning with pain from the run home, I flicked on the TV and casually turned on the local news. I wasn’t even thinking. I was just flipping channels and landed there. I stared at the screen with a blank, vacant expression and a mind void of anything left to offer, at least for tonight.
The news anchors sat in stiff, pleated suits behind their desks. They we
re droning on about the events of the day, merely reading the words from a teleprompter camera in front of their eyes. I yawned and stretched, debating whether to stand up and wander to the kitchen to shuffle through the freezer for that sappy, self-inflicted pity ice cream I was still pining after. The mood and setting were perfect.
That’s when something caught my attention on the screen, a story that I recognized. With shaking hands, I reached for the remote again and hastily pushed the volume button to be able to hear the story better.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There was Darbnix, looking as handsome as ever, but clearly irate as he was captured on camera, pointing an accusatory finger at Tia. His cheeks were flushed with hostility.
A spectacle of an event had risen around them as onlookers took out their phones and begun to candidly film the fiasco in real-time as it unfolded. Tia looked as beautiful as ever, pouting out her bottom lip and strutting around with a hand on her hip.
She was undoubtedly trying to portray herself as the victim in this case. Naturally, Darbnix seemed like the disapproving ass who was turning the match from the genetic scanner into a public scandal.
The last segment of the news clip showed Darbnix shoving his way through the cameras, shielding his face from the spotlight as he raced from the ballroom event. My breath was suspended in my lungs. I was frozen, unsure of how to react or what to do next.
I stood up and began to fretfully pace the room. It was one of those nervous habits I did whenever I was anxious about something. I unwound the braid from my hair and began running my hands through my red locks.
I glanced at the clock. It was a little after eleven thirty now. My dogs began whining and their ears were perched on top of their heads. They gave me curiously ominous stares as if they didn’t know what to expect but knew that something was rattling their mama.
“It’s okay,” I hushed them with a soothing voice. “Everything is going to be all right.”
Darbnix had fled from his newly-discovered bride. He had fled the scene, barreling his way past the horde of people who had circled around him like iron filings to a magnet. If he was so daring to run away from his responsibilities to his native continent of Noor, then that could only mean one thing.
My heart pounded, and I experienced an erotically charged heat that swelled and surged through my entire body.
He must be on his way to find me. Where else would he be scurrying to?
Would he come to my home? Or my office? I didn’t have the answers, but my mind was racing with the scenarios of him rushing through the door and wrapping his arms around me, professing his undying love for me.
I scowled and walked to my fridge, retrieving a bottle of water from the door. That kind of mindset was unhealthy. Fairy tales weren’t real, and even if they were, they didn’t happen to me. I didn’t have the luxury of luck on my side, and after tonight, that concept was clearly founded.
I took a deep breath and walked back to my front windows. I didn’t know why I was subjecting myself to this kind of torture.
Did I really expect Darbnix to run up to my front porch? That kind of setting was only for the movies, not real life. He could be anywhere by now. Perhaps he even hopped on his floating palace ship and was already on his journey back home.
I walked to the bathroom. I twisted the sink nozzle on full blast, cold water. I leaned over the counter and splashed the cold water all over my face. I needed a freezing dose of reality.
I didn’t even go as far as to pat my face dry. I just stared at my reflection in the mirror, ghostly white, with nervous and excited energy swirling around me. I was enchanted by the drips of water that dribbled down my temples and chin.
My body was as still as a statue as my dogs continued to nervously pace in a circle and whine in the hallway outside the bathroom. I knew they were probably hungry. I flicked the light off and trudged my way back to the kitchen to prepare their food.
“Come on,” I said in a robotic voice as I patted my leg, coaxing them to follow me. “Are you hungry?”
Maybe if I mechanically and numbly went through the motions of my daily routine, sooner or later, the pain in my heart would stop piercing me like a knife. No matter how you laid the cards on the table, Tia Teller was the winner. By law, she would get to keep Darbnix all to herself. They would end up making beautiful babies together and living happily ever after.
End of story.
Except my heart and my mind refused to give up. That’s why when I first heard the pounding of fists on my front door, I didn’t believe that it was real. I was hearing things. I had to be. Who would be fervently knocking on my door at this hour?
My heart wanted to believe that it was Darbnix, but my mind was playing tricks on me, leading me to assume that I was just hearing things. Curiosity pursued me and won. I reluctantly walked to the front door where the knocking became more demanding, louder.
I peered out the window again because I didn’t want to swing open the door and fall into some kind of trap or anything even more threatening. My heart exploded when I realized it was Darbnix standing there.
He was real. I pinched my arm to make certain of it. He was standing there, glancing over his shoulder through the darkness as if he were paranoid of being caught or chased.
My body moved in slow motion, but I was probably in reality moving like a flash to the front door. I swung it open and panted, staring at Darbnix. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t utter a single word. I just gawked at him as if he were an oasis and I was parched and dying of thirst in the desert.
“Rose . . .” He trailed off, his voice apologetic and frenzied. “If you will just allow me inside to explain.” He stumbled, apparently at a loss of ability for formulating a well-structured sentence.
I nodded abstractly, moving my body to the side to allow him into my living room.
He breezed past me and began pacing around, rubbing his temples.
“All a mistake . . .” he mumbled. “Not right . . .”
Was he talking directly to me or just processing thoughts out loud?
“She isn’t . . . monster . . . Slith hated her.”
“Darbnix,” I interjected.
He stopped cold in his tracks and gave me a guilt-stricken glance through eyes revealing enormous sadness.
“Rose?” He stared at me dumbfounded, as if he hadn’t been consciously aware of his actions. It was like driving on a road trip, where you faze out for a while until you suddenly realize how many miles you’d traveled, forgetting everything along the way.
“I’m here.” I cautiously wandered over to him.
His eyes pooled with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I managed to give him a dismal grin.
He drifted over to me, taking my hands. “I never expected her to be the match,” he lamented.
“Me either,” I squeaked, taking a hard swallow.
He shook his head in denial. “I will not do it.”
I paused, trying to assess exactly what he was professing not to do. I raised an eyebrow and kept my gaze locked on his. “I’m sorry? You won’t do what?”
“I won’t marry her.” He squared his jaw and pursed his lips as if he were tasting something disgusting and vile. “I won’t do it.”
“You won’t?” I let out a sigh of relief mixed with a baffled laugh. My emotions were scrambled.
“No.” His gaze was steely and somber.
I shook my head in confusion, trying to make heads or tails of the situation and exactly what Darbnix was trying to elaborate.
“You won’t marry her? But she is your genetic match . . .” I trailed off, suddenly not understanding why I was coming to Tia Teller’s defense, of all things.
A shadow cast over Darbnix’s noble and stoic features. “I will not marry her,” he continued to declare, each time in a firmer tone than the last.
“Okay.” I gulped and waited for him to elaborate. “If you think that is best.” What did I know? Ultimately, it w
as out of my realm to persuade him in either direction.
He scowled, although it wasn’t aimed directly at me but just at how unfair life was proving to be at the time.
“I would rather give up my throne than be married to some gold-digging bitch who doesn’t care about me, who only wants me for my power, status, and money.” He plopped down on the couch and placed his head in his hands, defeat sagging his shoulders.
“It’s going to be okay.” I approached him, respecting his noble declaration to be willing to give up everything just so he didn’t have to marry someone he didn’t love.
He glanced up at me with a pitiful gaze. “I will not stand idly by and allow that machine, that hunk of plastic, to dictate the rest of my future. If I have to give up my throne and everything I have ever known, then so be it.”
His eyes were like unturned stones. He didn’t flinch or move a single muscle in his entire body. There was nothing to lead me to believe he was being one hundred percent candid with me.
I began to stroke and rub his back, grazing my fingertips over his skin in an effort to console and distract him.
“It will be all right,” I whispered in a soothing tone. “We will figure it out.”
When Darbnix glanced up at me, his expression was pained. “Being here with you is the light that shines through the darkness.”
I blushed at the earnestness of his compliment. “Thank you,” I whispered, humbled.
He leaned in to kiss me. I held my breath and waited for his lips to press into mine. Then, just like all the other times before, lightning bolts of pleasure were triggered in my soul and started catapulting to the surface of my mind.
“You are everything I ever wanted,” he confessed, groaning into my ear while he planted a soft showering of kisses upon my neck.
I giggled under the tickling touch of his stubble, hugging him tightly to my body. I wanted him to stay pressed against me forever. “I wish we could be together,” I admitted in a grave tone, but I didn’t deny him his current passion, allowing him to run his hands all over me. I loved it when we explored each other’s body. It made me feel so sensual.