Page 41 of Stolen Princess

My tongue sticks out, and I lick at some of the whiteness that’s coating them. It doesn’t taste bad, and I slide my fingers into my mouth, sucking the rest off them.

“Fuck,” he hisses under his breath, and without waiting for my reply, he spins around, marches into the bathroom, and slams the door. A moment later, I hear the shower start again, only there’s no drowning out the sound of his grunting and groaning. He’s making himself come to me. Holy wow! So that’s what it sounds like.

I can’t believe I just did that. I can’t believe he just did that.

I giggle lightly.

That is, until the shower shuts off and I remember I have to sleep next to him.

13

GENEVIEVE

Idon’t know how long he stays in the bathroom, and I don’t care. Once he’s done coming, I flop down onto the bed and position my back so it’s facing the other side of the bed. I switch off the lamp, bathing myself in welcome darkness. My heart is still slamming against my ribs, but I will myself to calm.

A few minutes later, the door opens, and he comes out, quiet and determined as he climbs into bed without a word. He rolls onto his side away from me, and I release a silent breath. It won’t be so bad. It’ll all be fine. Tomorrow we’ll get a car and go to the beach, and in a few days’ time, well, I don’t know what will be for my life, but I already know it won’t include him.

He’ll get his necklace and be gone the next moment. And that’s fine. It truly is.

I’m using him, he’s using me, and it’s as it should be.

Except when I wake up, I’m no longer facing the window. I’m facing him. More than that, his arm is over my hip, and his hand is… on my ass. Not to mention our faces are inches apart. My breath catches, and I don’t move. I hardly breathe. He’s sleeping so peacefully, his eyelashes fluttering as if he’s dreaming, his full lips parted.

Another first. I’m being held by a criminal.

I nearly laugh. As it is, I don’t want him to wake up and find us like this. Last night was last night, and that’s where it’ll stay.

Ever so slowly, I slink out of his grasp, doing everything I can not to wake him. I tiptoe into the bathroom, pee, brush my teeth, and get dressed. It’s still raining, the sky gloomy and gray, but somehow Rhys is sleeping through it.

I decide to let him do that. I’ll get us breakfast or something. Coffee. I know he likes coffee. It might be the one thing we have in common. Ruefully, I shake my head. I’m jumpy. Walking into town was a big deal, but getting in a car and driving somewhere feels like I’m taking this to the next level. The farther I get from home, the more this grows.

I go to leave when I snag on his phone plugged in and sitting on the nightstand beside him. Instantly, I think about the curse. About the princess and what the clerk in the store said to me about her. About me.

I gnaw on my lip, debating this. Fuck it. He’s a thief, I can be too.

I unplug his phone, use his face to unlock it, and sneak out. I tap the screen, not wanting it to go dark as I wind my way down the stairs and onto the street. It’s raining at a good clip, and I tuck myself into an alcove a few buildings down. Then I continue my search for the curse of Messalina.

Instantly the page fills with numerous… whatever you call these things. There’s one after the other. I click on something that mentions curse lore, and immediately, King Sebastian’s altercation with Samil Batorini, the former prime minister, comes up. I scroll down, past Queen Nora’s death, briskly reading as I go, onto the illness of Princess Brea, who has disappeared from public life, and finally to the death of the former king and the abduction of Princess Desta.

This isn’t giving me much, just facts about that night and what they know. There was a male suspect who was never found, nor was the princess, which I already knew from last night. I do a new search on Princess Desta and click on the first one that populates. The page comes up, and I read about her. The night of her kidnapping, she was two months shy of turning two, a small little girl with blonde hair and gray eyes.

Blonde hair and gray eyes.

There’s a picture of her with her family. A tiny thing standing beside her older brothers, father, and mother. Something claws at my skin. Something ugly that hits like a heat wave. I’m being ridiculous. Many people have blonde hair and gray eyes. That doesn’t mean anything. Yet a war is brewing within me.

“This festival is for you. Your birthday. A day of celebration for both of us.”

The woman held tightly onto my hand until I had to go to the bathroom. I asked her if I could go in alone, and with reluctance, she said yes. She was waiting for someone. A man who had another little girl who was going to be with us, and she was distracted.

It was a large bathroom with a lot of people, and she told me she’d wait for me at the entrance. I remember I was washing my hands when my mother came rushing over to me. She said, “Thank god I found you. I’ve been searching for years for you. That woman you’re with took you from me when you were a baby. I’m your real mother. She’s dangerous.”

I was little and scared and didn’t know what was going on. My mother took me by the hand and led me out through a different exit than the one I came in through. That was it. I never saw the other woman again and have been locked away since.

I turn off his phone and shove it into the back pocket of my shorts.

I don’t know what any of this means or even if it means anything at all.

I take a deep inhale as I step onto the sidewalk, my lungs filling with air. It’s early still, not even seven, and the streets are empty. I tilt my face toward the sky, the rain cold and wonderful.