Page 24 of Not Another Happily Ever After

I don’t know what I’m hoping to find out here, but when you’re a girl forced to give all that you have left, there isn’t much left to lose.Apart from my unkempt hair and makeup, that is.

I cast my gaze upon the cloud-littered sky, welcoming the trickle of rain. I can still feel Thoren’s touch on my skin, as cold as his eyes.I can hardly believe the boy that blamed me for all of his hardships has grown into the man that believes I wasmadefor him. Yet, somehow, it makes perfect sense. What better way to punish me than to make sure I can’t get away.Again.

I follow the little gravel path that winds through the thick blue bushes of the thorny garden, thinking back on the first and only time I managed to escape the prince’s grasp. It was the very same day I met my best friend.

The haunting thought alone is enough to stave off the chill racing over my arms. If I wasn’t so bone tired, I’d laugh at theabsurdity of it all. Dead people aren’t known for being warm, but that’s exactly what Riven was. An embrace with a scarred smile that brought every part of me to life. Even the parts I thought to be just as dead as he was.

I lean into his memory, running my fingers over the twisted branches he told me were once green. If it weren’t for him, I would have never known about all the different shades of summer, or that the sun was yellow, with rays that shone a honeyed hue. Nor would I have believed that the blue bark of the barren trees scattered throughout the garden was once brown.

Several lifetimes have passed since then. It feels like another since I’ve seen him.

I stop before a rare rose bud, brushing my thumb over its velvety petals. I used to wonder if his hand in mine would feel the same. Soft and warm, yet oh-so-forbidden. Like his voice, ringing in the back of my mind.

“He’ll call you a beast. I’ll only call you mine.”

“Ouch!” Blood blooms from a thorn prick just between my fingers. It’s not enough to require a pontiff’s attention, though whether or notI’llneed it is yet to be determined.

After all,I am out in the wee hours of the night, searching for the answer to a mad man’s riddle whilst daydreaming of a boy who’s long been?—

Oof!

Air whooshes from my lungs into the frigid night, swirling like smoke between me and the wall I’ve managed to stumble my way into. Which is odd, considering I don’t remember there being a wall in the middle of the garden. Nor do I remember any of our walls toting what feels like a well-muscled torso, or having a heady scent of cinnamon and…

Wild orange?

I peer up through my fallen curls, heart racing in my chest as I find what is most certainlynota wall.

It’s a masked man with the most devastatingly beautiful eyes I have ever seen.

In the shade of autumn green, they stare down at me, wide with surprise.

Chapter

8

The question sits on the edge of my tongue.

I swallow it before it becomes another

burden for her to carry.

“Miss Sunday?”

He breathes my name as if it’s the very thing filling his lungs, and my knees nearly buckle.

Even though his voice is muffled voice through the mask, it’s deep. Resonant.Familiar. Like that of a voice I knew some time ago. The voice of a friend.

Except the person before me isn’t a ghost. He’s a knight. And not just any knight. He’s the masked murderer of Castle Ruin, the one father refers to asDeath.

I freeze beneath the weight of his gaze, though it is little more than a fleeting thing. Like a falling star through the night sky or a moment of shared laughter, his eyes don’t linger for long, darting away each time they meet mine.

With any other person, I’d assume it was disgust that made it hard for him to look at me. But the flush creeping into what little of his cheeks I can see suggests something else entirely. Something I don’t quite understand.

Nerves grip the base of my throat, forcing me to whisper around them.

“Yes?” I manage.

“I—you…”