He stepped forward, reaching for me, but I recoiled and he stopped himself. I could not let him touch me now, because if he did, I wouldn’t be able to let go.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Letting Go
I STARED AT him, wary. He hadn’t lowered his arms, hadn’t retreated. I saw his determination just before he moved toward me again, and in one swift movement he had his arms around my waist and his mouth pressed to mine. He enveloped me with his entire being. He kissed me. Oh, how he kissed me. I was stunned, shocked by the feelings coursing through me. My body reacted before my mind even knew what was happening. I dropped my satchel and wrapped my arms around his neck, just wanting to be close to him again. This was nothing like the way we had kissed before. Then we had both been tentative, our feelings more child-like, sweet and delicate. But this? This was entirely different. Suddenly his assertion that he wanted me was more than just words. And so I responded with all the desperation, all of the missing him and wanting him and hurting for him that I had been doing for the past year and a half. I poured all of the angst and anger and love I had for him into his lips as I kissed him back.
I felt myself spinning, spiraling down into something blissful. I wanted so desperately to sink into it and just be…happy.
But he wasn’t mine, and so I sought for the strength of will to stop myself when I only wanted to hold on to him, to feel his arms surrounding me. I wanted to keep him for myself. But I knew he would not let me keep him, and in that I found my resolve.
I made myself unwind my arms from around him, and managed to cram them into the nonexistent space between us. I shoved him away. It took all of my physical strength to release myself from his hold, pushing away his face and his chest and his arms and his hands as they reached for me when I stepped back. But I did it, letting out a cry as I turned my back on him. If I looked at him, I would be undone, and it had taken every rational particle of my being to make myself let go of him. I could feel myself being almost physically dragged back in his direction as my breathing filled my ears just above the sound of my pulse. I focused on the feel of the breeze on my wet cheeks and the rhythm of my breathing.
“Ella?” he asked breathlessly from behind me.
“You are engaged.” It was all I could say—the only thing that could make me stay away from him. You are not mine. You are not mine. You are not mine. But, oh, how I wanted him. It hurt to be away from him.
There was a moment of silence before he asked quietly, “And what if I weren’t?”
The question caught me so off guard that I turned to him. “What if you weren’t what? Engaged?”
“Yes. If I weren’t engaged—what then? What would we do?”
It was the question I had avoided asking myself for the past year. What then? Could we even consider the possibility of marriage? And though I had never let myself consciously think about it, I knew there was only one way I could answer.
“I don’t know.” I pulled in a stuttering breath, feeling as though I were falling apart at the seams.
Never had I felt more alone than I did at that moment—standing in front of Gavin, trying desperately not to cry. He stood only feet from me, and yet the loneliness in that moment surpassed anything before or after. I wanted to reach out to him; I needed to be able to reach out to him. But reaching out to him was wrong. So I stood there, suffocating in loneliness.
But even worse—he did reach out to me. He approached slowly and wrapped me in his arms. I suppose he was waiting for me to cry or pull away, waiting for me to react in some way. And if I had been smart, if I had been thinking clearly, I would have pulled away the moment he approached me. I would have fled his presence as quickly as possible.
Instead I let him hold me, let myself breathe in his presence. But I had to let him go and so I started to pull away. It was the moment of impending separation that nearly did me in: to go away from him, knowing I could never go back, knowing that there would never be anyone else who would give me this feeling. If I was going away, I wanted to be selfish—just once. I wanted to make him feel what I felt. My head was tucked against his shoulder, so if I lifted my face toward him, I could kiss him one last time.
But I didn’t do it. I lifted my head, I met his eyes, I moved toward him. Then he moved toward me and I came to my senses. He would have kissed me back—he would not save me from myself. So I dragged my face away from his, my eyes closed, reprimanding myself. I had more strength than this. I had more discipline. For a moment I listened to the sound of Gavin’s breathing, still so close to me before I took one step back, and then another. He stood there, defeated and sad, but he said nothing. I bent to pick up my bag but as I walked past him—ready to leave him behind—he caught my wrist. “Ella—”
“Gavin,” I whispered, cutting him off before he could ask anything of me. He turned to study my stoic face as I held his gaze.
“Yes?” he asked, his voice husky.
“Let me go,” I pleaded in a whisper. And I saw in his eyes that he understood.
His face crumpled slightly as he groaned, “I can’t.”
My teeth clenched and my eyes narrowed. “You cannot hold us both.”
He abruptly released me as if my words had physically struck him. I walked away, refusing to let myself cry.
The pain continued, but my anger had taken over. He wanted me. He had come out and said it. And by the anguish I saw in his face, which so closely mirrored mine, I could guess that it wasn’t just want; it was need, and love.
Why was he marrying her? Why would he do that to me? To himself? To her? He must have had his reasons, though I couldn’t fathom what they might be. Then his question came back to me. “If I weren’t engaged, what then? What would we do?” I had always thought that if he ever came within my reach again, that if we were ever given a second chance, that we would know what to do—that somehow we would figure it out. But life didn’t work that way. I knew that; I had known it for a long time. Perhaps we always think we are the exception, that somehow matters of the heart will magically resolve themselves and come forth triumphant of their own accord.
Amazing how, at the age of seventeen, there were still childish dreams and ideas to give up. Love did not always conquer all.
And so I was left to find a way to conquer love. Heaven help me.
***
I didn’t see Gavin during the next week, for which I was grateful. And yet I had the inexcusable desire to see him, though I couldn’t stand the thought of another encounter, knowing it would all come to nothing—nothing but a quickening of my pulse and a dead weight in my stomach when it was all over.
It had been ten days since our heart-wrenching encounter, and each day I awoke with the memory of his kiss so fresh in my mind that it nearly suffocated me. I awoke to the knowledge that even though it was Gavin, I had still kissed a man bound to another. And so each day I went into the village and did all I could to not think about him.
I stood in the courtyard, waiting for my guards to join me, when next I saw him. A movement at the corner of my eye caught my attention and I turned to see Gavin. He had just rounded the corner of the castle when he stopped, having seen me. He stood there, seeming to debate whether to go forward or back, before resolutely turning and walking away. I kept my lips tight and my eyes wide as I tried not to let my emotions overtake me.
“Your Highness?” I turned to see Wyatt looking at me with concern and realized I had pushed a hand into my chest, trying to dull the ache piercing through my heart.
“I just need a moment,” I said, trying to shake away my tears.
“You are not well, Princess.” There was obvious stress in his voice.
“I am well enough.”
“Princess?”
I tried holding my breath, to keep the pain inside, to control it somehow. But it would not be controlled. It flowed freely throughout my being, tearing me to shreds.
“I’m sorry, Wyatt, but I need to postpone my visit. Will you go ahead and tell Taya th
at I will come this afternoon instead?”
“Of course, Highness.” I turned to go inside and saw Rowan coming toward us. Before he could ask anything, I waved him off and Wyatt stepped in to explain. I felt their eyes on me as I walked through the towering front doors, back into the castle.
An idea struck me and I turned toward the library, determined to focus my emotion on a task. I locked the door behind me and made my way past my usual chair, past all my beloved books of fiction and adventure. I went to the back wall lined with volumes of legal books. Laws, both past and present. Books filled with royal decrees.
I wanted to know for myself what was wrong with my having a relationship with Gavin, what boundary I had crossed that gave my father the right to keep him from me. Gavin seemed sure that the wall between us was impenetrable, but I wanted to know.
My morning slipped by and I returned the books to their shelves without having found an answer. I ate my mid-day meal quickly and met Wyatt and Rowan in the entry hall for my postponed visit to the village.
As we walked once more through the gate and down the path to Taya’s house, I contemplated what I had learned that morning.
The answer to my original question had eluded me, but it hadn’t been a waste of time either. I had learned a lot about the laws governing our land and the reasons for them. But it wasn’t enough. And so I returned to the library as soon as the evening meal finished. I shut myself in and continued to pour over any book or document I thought might hold the answers I sought.
And then I found it. Late into the night, after my eyes had started to water from exhaustion, I found it.
And the answer was this: nothing. There was nothing wrong with my having a relationship with any citizen in the land. I could marry him. If he wanted me, I could marry him. I would not be able to take my mother’s title. When Mia and Jensa had decided to marry, there had been serious discussion about whether they would be the one to take the throne. Mia and her husband did not feel that the role of king and queen was right for them. Jensa would marry Prince Goran, who was already slated to take his father’s throne. My parents did not want to force any of us onto the throne, so it had become the unspoken expectation that each of us would consider it when our marriage became imminent. If I wanted to be queen, I would have to marry nobility. But being queen had never been my aspiration. I only wanted to live a life of my choosing.
Knowing this gave me a great sense of relief. It left me feeling empowered.
But it didn’t change anything. It didn’t matter that the law of the land allowed me to choose Gavin. He had chosen someone else. Not only that, but even if he broke his engagement, what of my father? I couldn’t imagine that the king would ever be inclined to allow his daughter to marry the gardener whom he had already banned from his presence once.
That was my reality. The law was not an obstacle. Our situation was not utterly impossible, just mostly impossible. I was free to do what I would; society’s opinion hadn’t meant much to me in a long time, anyway. However, my father was still king and could stand in my way. And Gavin had already made his choice. He would marry his bride; he would live his life and leave me in his past.
I would go on. I would live my life and do my best to leave him in my past. It was time—time to stop crying, time to stop allowing my heart to break repeatedly. It was time to find a way to be happy without him. And I would find a way to be happy; I would find a way to make myself better because of him. Because despite the way it had turned out, he was still the one who had led me to myself and given me the courage to take my own path–the path no one else had seen or even bothered to look for.
I took in a long breath, closed my eyes, and tried to release Gavin along with the air leaving my lungs. It was time.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Captive
SIX WEEKS LATER, I walked up the deserted, rain sodden path that led to the palace gate. The path was quickly turning to mud, and my guards fought to guide me over the slippery ground while sheltering me from the rain. We should have come back earlier, but I had been determined to make sure each of my small friends returned to their homes before I returned to mine. Plus, I was trying to stay away from the castle as much as possible because Jeshua has shown up last night—unannounced.
At the edge of the village, I noticed a cloaked figure huddled against a wall. I was about to look away when he lifted his face. Gavin. My foot slipped, forcing Rowan to keep me from falling. I thanked him and regained my footing before peering back to see Gavin still looking at me. He gave me a nod of acknowledgement and I wondered at his determined stance. I would have thought that he would be less inclined to look out for me after our argument, yet there he stood.
My thoughts distracted me and we had only walked about halfway from the edge of the village to the gate when three men, dressed in the cloaks of commoners, made their way toward us, carrying bundles of wood on their backs. Their faces were down, their hoods drawn up to protect them from the rain. As we approached, two went to walk around us to my left and the third went around to my right. When the man to my right slipped in the mud, dropping his bundle, Wyatt bent to assist him as Rowan and I paused to make sure all was well.
It happened then. I saw the fallen man rise up and simultaneously felt Rowan’s hand ripped from my arm. In that moment I realized we were under attack, and in the next moment I saw that our assailants had won. It was quick and entirely silent. The three men had rendered both my guards unconscious. At least I hoped they were only unconscious. The horrifying thought crossed my mind that they could be dead. I turned away, hoping to flee, but felt arms wrap around me from behind. My assailant hauled me off my feet, dragging me away just as Gavin came into my line of vision.
“No!” I cried out, but a hand quickly silenced me and I watched in mute horror as Gavin grappled with one brute for only a moment before crumpling to the ground. Gavin was left lying in the mud as the two men turned toward me where I struggled in the third man’s arms. Despite my thrashing, one of them forced a length of cloth between my teeth as the other caught my hands and bound them tightly with another length of cloth. The one who held me ignored my flailing and flung me over his shoulder, carrying me away. I raised my head and had a shaky view of Wyatt straining to gain his feet and falling back to the ground. My captors slipped swiftly into the trees and I was left to wonder what the fate of my guards and Gavin would be.
I felt my heart in my throat, where my voice should have been. I needed to scream. I should have screamed when my guards first fell, but everything had happened before I realized it was happening. And even though I knew any sound I made now would be muffled not only by the gag but by the rain as well, I pulled in a deep lung full of air and let it out in the longest, loudest, most piercing scream I could muster. A hand immediately covered my mouth, so I started flailing instead. Even if they didn’t lose their grip, I would at least slow them down. The struggle ended abruptly as he flung me to the ground. I landed on my back, the air knocked out of me, as one man pinned my bound arms above my head and pushed one knee into my ribs, stopping any further struggle. He held a knife up in the space between us to discourage any more screams.
Not a word was spoken. I knew there were three, but I could only see the man kneeling on top of me. He held the knife against his lips in a silencing gesture. Staring at his face, he looked… stern. Not hateful or malicious or even threatening; just stern. His features in any other situation would have been disarming. He was clean with a neatly trimmed beard—the exact opposite of what I would have expected. Even his handling of me had not been violent, only powerful and controlling. He was not trying to hurt me.
And yet this was so much worse than my encounter with the drunk on the road. These men had planned; their actions were calculated. They were efficient and worked well together. They had an agenda, which meant that however this ended, it would not end soon and it would not end well.
My panic took over as I tried to look anywhere but at his calm, controlling
face. My harried breathing finally reached my ears. I was wheezing, almost squealing as my lungs worked to pull in enough air against the restraint of a gag, my fear, and the large man pushing his knee into my ribs. When I planted my feet into the ground to try to push myself out from underneath him, he simply applied more steady pressure with his knee and shook his head, admonishing me.
I had to calm down. I could barely breathe through my panic, and now the cloth gag wedged between my teeth was becoming soaked along with the rest of me as the rain continued to fall. I tried to blink the rain out of my eyes and slow my breathing. It seemed clear that I would not be let up until I had no air to breathe, if necessary. I despised the idea that I might have to stop fighting, but I felt myself slipping toward a faint, and that would be even worse.
When I stilled, the man shifted positions and I tensed, wondering if he was finally going to hurt me. But he just leaned over me so the rain stopped pounding my face. Confusion almost overrode my terror. It made no sense—no sense for him to shelter me from the rain, no sense for him to stay perched on top of me, so close to where my guards had fallen. We hadn’t made it far into the trees before I had screamed. Why was he content to keep me here?
In a flurry of motion, the man sheathed the knife and stood up, pulling me with him. I twisted away furiously, but he kept a steady iron grip on my arm. I lashed out with my feet, and his grip tightened so much that my eyes watered and a cry escaped my throat. I stopped my struggle and heard horse hooves. I turned, hoping to see castle guards. Instead, three horses emerged from the forest. Two carried the dark cloaked figures who had helped bind me, and the third held no rider. They stopped the riderless horse in front of us and hoisted me unceremoniously into the saddle, where I immediately sought to throw myself off again. Horses meant distance. But my captor quickly mounted behind me and used a rope to tie my bound hands to the saddle horn as I thrashed and pushed back against him. I started screaming again, but I was so out of breath I could barely make any noise. Then the galloping started beneath me, and my screams were choked off by the ragged sobs forcing their way out of my gagged mouth.
Just Ella Page 19