Page 2 of A Princess, Stolen (A Kiss of Revenge, Blood, and Love #1)

I took a small step toward him, excited, and he grabbed my plaited braids, pulled me close to the bars, and kissed me on the mouth. Quickly, but also boldly, as if he knew that it was not okay. Then he let go of me and put his finger to his delicately curved lips. “I’m Nathan. Remember my name.”

I could only nod because my cheeks were hot like stove burners and my heart was pounding in my chest like when Dad turned the bass up too loud.

I was afraid he would see what he had done to me.

I was confused, happy in a tingly way, and yet also outraged because he had simply grabbed me by my pigtails. He was definitely badly behaved.

But, before I could say a word, he turned and disappeared behind the mighty oaks that surrounded Rosewood Manor.

Naturally, I searched for him the next day, and when I spotted him at the gate, my heart was pounding in my throat. I walked toward him in my frilly white dress with colorful ribbons.

“Can you actually get out of your cage?” he asked as if nothing noteworthy had happened yesterday, as if we hadn’t spoken to each other for the first time, as if he hadn’t kissed me.

I shook my head sadly. “No. Dad doesn’t allow it.”

The boy smiled again, that subtle, barely perceptible smile that completely confused me. “And if he doesn’t notice?”

“I’m not allowed.”

Nathan took a step forward. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before, something that would never be an option for me. And he was still barefoot. “There's a spot in your hedge over there that looks like you could slip through. Come on!”

I didn’t know why I followed him along the wrought iron fence to the man-high hedge, maybe because I had never noticed the spot before but he had. And he didn’t even live here. When I came to the neatly trimmed bushes, he whispered from behind the greenery, “Here.”

I spotted a few bare branches near the ground. Something in my stomach fluttered like a little bird learning to fly. In fact, if I made myself small, I could get to the other side.

However, I couldn’t possibly crawl through!

“Dad will freak out if he finds out!” I whispered to myself.

Besides, how did Nathan know about this gap?

I discreetly looked around for my bodyguards, but both seemed to be in the house.

They probably thought I was with my nanny, Delilah, but I had told Delilah that I wanted to go into the garden with my bodyguards. I hadn’t wanted them to see Nathan.

“Come on!” I heard Nathan say on the other side. “There are no cameras here either!”

I glanced over my shoulder again. “We’re not going to be gone long, are we?” My voice sounded a little too shrill.

“No. I just want to show you something.”

I thought about the kiss that I was certain he would have given me even if I hadn’t agreed to it. “Which is?”

“Something beautiful. Something that reminds me of the dead.”

Goose bumps scurried down my spine. How could something be beautiful if it reminded you of the dead? Then, I thought about Mom.

“Are you chicken?”

“Of course, I’m not chicken!” I hesitated anyway. “But this time you won’t grab me when you kiss me.”

“No! I won’t.” He sounded honest. I looked back one last time only to see Mr. O’Brien mowing the lawn, so I bent down and made my way through the branches.

They scratched my face, arms, and legs. It hurt.

I wasn’t used to this kind of thing, but I didn’t want to look like a squeamish rich girl, so I gritted my teeth.

Nathan silently offered me his hand and helped me the last bit through the undergrowth.

“Where are we going?” I suddenly felt like a runaway and that was strangely wonderful, like Nathan’s eyes, which both intimidated and encouraged me.

“To a ballroom where ghosts dance.”

“Ghosts do not exist,” I stated, automatically repeating what Dad and Dr. Moore had repeatedly told me. Anyone who believed they saw ghosts had not come to terms with the past, were their words.

Nathan didn’t seem to care what I said. He led me by the hand through a bamboo forest until, after a few minutes, ancient walls towered before us.

“The remains of a country estate that was destroyed in the war,” he explained to me.

“Like Rosewood Manor only in ruins.” My heart was pounding as we walked along the property.

Fascinated, I looked at the ivy and ancient oak trees that seemed to have grown together with the former palace walls.

Moss-covered trunks protruded through open ceilings.

Vines crawled up the walls, encircling the shattered windows like frames, and Spanish moss hung from the trees everywhere.

Like the silver tinsel on our Christmas tree!

After we rounded a corner, Nathan and I climbed a rickety staircase. “This was the former slave entrance,” he whispered as if someone might hear us.

I merely nodded. I had never been in such a spooky place before, and without Dad. I followed Nathan through several corridors where moss and weeds formed a green carpet.

“Here it is,” Nathan said abruptly. He had let go of my hand and stopped. I glanced over his shoulder into a circular hall. Light flickered in it like a thousand candles in the wind.

“Incredible,” I whispered. I entered the banquet hall behind Nathan and stopped after a few steps.

I looked around in amazement. I felt like I was in the middle of a broken kaleidoscope.

The tall windows all around shimmered in numerous colors, but some were partially cracked.

Strands of ivy hung from the broken glass dome ceiling, looking like intricate columns, and where there was no ivy, the roof was covered in vines so that the sunlight painted a magical pattern of light on the floor.

I ran from one spot of light to the next, watching them change, darting back and forth and trembling in the wind. I was electrified.

“Hey, Willa, look!” Nathan’s words made me glance over at him. He pointed into the air and that was when I saw it too.

Green-, blue-, red-, and yellow-colored lights sparkled everywhere, tiny dots like fireflies: on the old walls, the remaining marble floor, and on Nathan’s face.

A strange magic brushed my skin and left a smile on my face.

“Beautiful,” I said softly and playfully caught a blood-red dot in my hand.

It glowed on my fingers. Mom would have loved this!

“The colored light comes from the glass that’s everywhere,” Nathan explained, nodding toward the shattered windows and shards of glass scattered around the outer edge of the hall. I walked around, lost in thought.

“A magical place,” I heard Nathan say. “But also a bit spooky.”

“Yes.” I pulled the bracelet he’d given me out from under the wide bangle where I was hiding it from Dad. For a moment, I imagined Mom twirling around in her rustling organza dress, translucent as if she were one of the trembling lights. “It’s really like ghosts are dancing here,” I said.

“Oh…I thought they didn’t exist?”

I turned to where he was standing in the middle of the hall, his arms folded and a steel-blue dot on his forehead. “They don’t,” I replied. “But if there were…” He didn’t need to know everything about me right away. “Can you dance?”

“Dance?” He stared at me as if he thought I was nice but somewhat crazy.

“Yes, like they do at balls,” I said quickly.

“No.” He shook his head. “And balls are for rich idiots!”

Now I crossed my arms. “My dad is not an idiot at all!”

“But he is rich. Your house is a castle.”

“Yeah, and?” We stared at each other and I considered running back, but that faint smile flashed across his face again.

“Do you want to dance?” He came toward me, his gray eyes sparkling like a winter sea catching the rays of sunlight.

I felt strangely warm. “It’s easy,” I said quietly when he was in front of me. “You have to put your arms around my waist and I’ll put mine on your shoulders. Then we’ll move slowly, but you have to guide me.” I knew all this from Dad.

“Okay.” Nathan put his arms around my middle and I wrapped mine around his neck. It felt odd because we were so close, and it made us giggle. “Like this?” he asked.

“In a way, yes.”

He took a few clumsy steps and I was terribly afraid of stepping on his bare feet.

“You smell good. Like vanilla and chocolate,” he said at some point, and because he was so close to me, I could feel his breath on my face. Strangely, I got goose bumps as if I was freezing.

“And you smell of salt and sea,” I said, probably because his eyes reminded me of it. In truth, I couldn’t say what he smelled like exactly, a bit of forest and swamp, perhaps.

“I come here to talk to my sister. With Lea.” He looked at me from above. “Just like you go to your memorial.”

We were still moving: step right, step left. “And—do you sometimes see her here?”

“No. But, sometimes, when I’m here, a really bright ray of sunlight suddenly falls into the Palace of Shards, brighter than all the others. I think…well, I think this is her way of telling me that she’s here listening to me.”

I had to swallow. It must have been hard for him to tell me that.

Maybe brought on by this place. He had called it the Palace of Shards.

It was fitting. So splintered and yet so solemn, so mysterious.

It seemed as if you could say anything here, as if this palace could absorb everything with its magic and turn what was said into light.

“I don’t remember Mom’s death,” I whispered at some point. “I forgot three whole days of my life…and since then, I’ve had nightmares…almost every night.”

Nathan said nothing, but I felt his arms tighten slightly around me.

“I stole some eggs from a farmer in Baton Rouge yesterday…I…I was hungry.”

It would be a waste of time to explain to him that it isn’t right to steal, and judging by his hesitation, he was sorry. “Did they taste good?” I asked.

He beamed for a few seconds. “Great.” Suddenly, he stopped. “Look,” he said quietly, letting go of me and pointing to a spot behind me.