Page 9 of Kingdom of Betrayal and Unknown (Kingdom of Bellhollow #1)
I need to stop thinking like that, or else I’m going to do something I’m going to regret. I should be angry toward him and treat him like he’s beneath me.
“Adeline.” He tests out my name.
A shiver makes its way through my body, and I clench my jaw. Wrapping my arms around my stomach, I stop myself from taking a step closer to him as I feel the pull to be closer to him. I feel like my body is on fire when his voice dips with my name on his tongue.
Like it’s meant to be.
“Like that?” He smirks.
I scoff and turn around, heading back to the town. I did like it, though, and he knows it from the smirk across his face.
“You should stay,” he says before I make it five steps.
“No thanks, you’re here,” I call over my shoulder. But everything in me wants to stay and be around him. He has this air around him that makes me comfortable, pulls me toward him. What is it?
“Do you hate my kind?”
My whole body stills as I look over my shoulder at him. He is staring at me, like he is trying to find the answer.
How am I supposed to answer that? Do I lie so he will spare my life, or tell him the truth and potentially get killed? Though, Kieran said he wasn’t going to kill me.
“I don’t have to answer your question. You don’t deserve the answer.” I flinch as I say those words, immediately feeling guilty.
“I may not deserve the answer, but I think you want to tell me,” he gently says. “Maybe you need to say the words you so desperately have been trying to keep a secret.”
“You wish.” I scoff. “I don’t have to answer to you. I won’t answer you.”
I clench my jaw and force myself to breathe. Every word is like a punch to the gut. So much so, I wrap my arms around my waist once again, trying to ease the pain I’m feeling. He has done nothing to deserve my rudeness. Well, he did threaten me earlier, but then promised he wouldn’t hurt me.
He hasn’t hurt me… yet. I believe him when he said he wouldn’t.
I believed when he said I was his world, but it doesn’t make sense.
I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me.
How can I already be his world? We can never be together, not when he’s a slave and I’m a commoner.
We’re two different things and two very different species.
I shouldn’t even be considering being with him. It would never work out with him. Our relationship would have to be a secret.
Stop.
I need to stop thinking about that.
“Do you hate my kind?” he asks again.
My mouth goes dry as he stares into my eyes. He smiles like he knows the answer I can’t say. I shouldn’t feel anything but hatred toward them. They are beneath us humans, as they should be. They are slaves and nothing else.
But he’s different.
I feel a pull toward him.
Sparks dance across my skin as he looks at me. As he touches me.
I feel like I’ve known him for my whole life, but we’ve just met.
I’ve felt pleasure as he spoke to me, touched me. I’ve never felt that before.
That’s not hate.
No, it’s far from hate.
It’s something I shouldn’t be feeling toward him.
I shake my head. “I need to go,” I whisper.
Turning around, I slowly start to walk away from him, but everything in me is screaming to go back to him. To ask him questions and demand answers. To beg him to touch me again, whisper in my ear. But I force myself to walk, knowing I can’t do it, shouldn’t do it.
My mother needs me back to finish the rest of the chores for the day, to prepare for the baby and winter.
“I’m proud of you,” he gently praises.
My steps falter as he speaks. Tears prick my eyes at the words I’ve desperately been wanting to hear for years. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything to be proud of me.”
Though I can’t help but let his words affect me. My heart flutters as his words sink in. When was the last time someone said they were proud of me?
Never.
I don’t know if anyone has ever told me they were proud of me. His words pierce my heart, like a dagger sliding in and slowly twisting… but in a good way.He actually meant those words.
“I’ve watched you. Ever since we made eye contact that day, I’ve watched you whenever I could.
I know how hard you’re working to help your parents.
I know you have a sibling on the way. I know you are stepping up when you don’t have to, when you haven’t been asked to.
You are doing so much to help out, and no one has ever appreciated it, or told you how proud they were of you. But I have. I’ve seen everything .”
It’s like his voice is right behind me, but as I turn around to see, he’s not. He’s taken several steps toward me, but we’re so far apart.
“I’m proud of you,” he repeats, his voice sincere. I blink away the tears, letting his words affect me more than I should allow them to. But it seems like he really means those words and has seen everything I’ve done. “You’ll make an excellent queen one day.”
My heart sinks as he says those words. He knows. He knows about the prince pursuing me.
I glare at him, hating those last words. “You don’t know anything.”
“So tell me,” he offers.
“I don’t have time for this,” I mumble, giving him my back once again and walking away.
Who does he think he is, talking to me like that? But I can’t help but cherish those words in my heart.
He’s proud of me.
I don’t know why that hits me so hard or why I even care, but I do.
He’s proud of me.
He’s proud of me.
He’s proud of me .
“I’m here for you. Whenever you need me, you can find me.”