Page 31 of The Time Of Kings (An Afterlife Story #1)

DRAVEN 1799

I had searched and searched, but to no avail.

I was torn between a fury so profound and a pain I had never felt cut so deeply.

She had run.

She had left me, and the bitterness was almost as deep as that I now felt for my traitorous sister. I could barely believe it, for there was no other explanation for how she had escaped. Sophia must have been involved.

After Lucius and I had dealt with the villagers, a knowing dread had filled both our Supernatural veins. Each of us knowing we had been tricked. So many were responsible for this traitorous act against their King, as clearly Sophia wasn’t the only one to blame. Lucius’s own Chosen One, Lia… if that was even her real name … had also aided in the plot, one successful enough for me to lose my long awaited Electus. Which meant that she too would be punished, along with that of my own blood.

But there was also another, as the fool, Marcus, had also disappeared. And seeing as it was soon discovered that he was the one who caused the disturbance between the villagers, well it only meant one thing. That he had been the one to create a diversion.

Oh yes, fucking heads would roll! For none would escape my wrath. Of course, I still lived in hope to get her back, although I had to confess that as time went on, it seemed as though she had simply vanished. I couldn’t understand it. Days and days I had searched, my men spread out throughout the countryside, my reach stretching far further than she would have been capable of travelling.

Yet there had been nothing.

So, with nothing more to do, I had finally returned back to the one place I knew I would find bitter solace. For it was the last place that held the barest hints of her. Almost as if she had become a ghost beyond these walls, and I hated the scent of her on my bed as much as I craved to keep it.

However, what I hadn’t expected to find was something that had been tucked under the pillow.

A letter.

One that had once been addressed to this Amelia she knew. But her name had been crossed out, a harsh line through it as if done in haste. A name that had been replaced by another.

My own.

I swear my hands started shaking at the sight, unsure of opening it for fear of what I may find. My dread was something I was forced to push down into the pit of my stomach as I unfolded the paper. For what I discovered were her last ever words to me.

Dear Dominic,

I know you will not understand this, but this is not the first letter I have written to you. Although admittedly, it is one of the hardest.

Another goodbye that I loathe to write, for the words cannot express the pain in my heart at being forced to do so. Because no matter in which time we meet, I simply cannot help falling in love with you.

I am sorry for so many things, but never that. I could never be sorry for loving you.

I am, however, sorry I lied when I told you that I didn’t know who I was to you. When in truth, nothing would ever have the power to make me forget. Despite those who have tried in the past, the strength of my soul will always be rooted to your own.

As for now and the heartbreak I feel in leaving, please know that I have no choice. For this is not our time. Fate saw to that, as it brought me to you but three hundred years from now.

I know it sounds crazy and I am sorry that I don’t have time to fully explain the reason why, but you have to know that I am not of this time. I used the Janus Gate and this was where Fate led me.

But I want you to know, that in my own time, I found you, my love. We are man and wife and have lived happily together for many decades.

You are my life, my love, my only.

You always will be.

So, I hope that this letter brings you some peace. Peace in knowing that there is a time for us. That Fate did not forsake you like you once believed.

Which is why I ask of you to please know, that my love for you is also the reason I leave. For I have my own Dominic Draven to get back to. One who had also waited an eternity to find me. Which is why as painful as this is, this is my bittersweet goodbye.

My goodbye and my thank you.

Thank you for making me fall in love with you all over again.

My eternal love,

Your forever Catherine.

The moment the ink started to seep into the paper I found myself raising a hand to my cheek, astonished to find it wet.

Tears.

Tears flowing freely and merging with her words of love. It was the bittersweet ending she spoke of. For in my heart it had only ever been my beginning. The overwhelming feeling of loss hit me all at once as I crushed the letter to my chest. The closure she brought me barely touched the edges of my grief, yet I appreciated it all the same. For she wanted me to know the reasons why. She wanted me to know that it was her love for me that was the unrelenting force behind her actions.

I loved her for it as much as I loathed to accept it. The bitterness I felt was too strong an emotion to be soothed by the loving regard for me found in her words. I didn’t even know if it would ease with time, for that word was nothing more than a weapon against me and had been from the start!

For time was something I wanted to claim back, take control of, and declare on a roar of anger, fuck the fates! But even I knew with her words that she would have never accepted that. I could have locked her away for the rest of her life and she would have never stopped trying to get back to the part of me that had claimed her first.

The me from the future.

The one she had given her heart to first.

The one and only being in the whole world that I couldn’t ever compete with…

That of Myself.

To be continued in…

The Time of Queens