Chapter 3 Chapter 3: The ruthless Prince

Verbena

"Don't touch her!" the prince yelled. He had dismounted to join me inside the carriage and try to calm me down. "You are safe now, Verbena," he said. His touch was cold and gentle.

"Sire..." I finally said. Hearing my voice seemed to steady him. "Let me go..."

His expression shifted from apparent concern to irritation.

"You belong to me. You’re not leaving my side.” He stared at me furiously and tightened his grip until pain shot through my wrists. I cried out and he looked down at my hands, horrified.

"You're injured," he gasped, tracing the countless abrasions with the tips of his fingers, trembling.

"You don't care about my pain,"

He stared at me in disbelief, then reached into his coat and pulled out a substance. He pressed it into my hands. The pain was unbearable.

"Verbena!" My vision blurred as the pain tore through me like lightning. "Briar!" he yelled.

A gentle hand covered my eyes, and I slipped into a deep sleep.

When I wake up, I lie on a soft stretcher. The ceiling above me was gray stone.

I was back in the castle.

Now, I was prey. I had always been prey to my family, to the forest and its cruelties, to survival itself. And now, to him. The benefactor of my miseries.

"She is injured, and where there aren't wounds, there are scars. Broken bones that have healed poorly. She is malnourished and dehydrated. And that potion is not meant for humans. Frankly, it is a miracle that a cripple survived all of this," said a male voice in another room.

"Watch your words, healer," the prince growled.

"I'm sorry, My Lord, but she weakened beyond any case I've seen. I don’t know what happened, but she wasn’t cared for."

"What can you do to get her on her feet soon? I need her," the prince snapped, as if nothing mattered beyond his own needs.

Of course. The prophecy...

"My lord, she..."

"Did you not hear the prince?" another male voice snarled.

"There's nothing more that can be done...”

"Moss, calm yourself," a female voice interjected. "The healer is right. She’s shattered. If she survived alone in the forest for so long, then she must be stronger than she appears. Nature shows no mercy to the weak."

“Stop calling her human or weak,” the prince barked. "She is my wife." Silence fell.

His wife. His property.

When I stood up, I leaned against the wall and took a step forward. I would go unnoticed. That had always been my life. But not this time... not here.

"Going somewhere?" the prince growled.

He had moved impossibly fast. His hand hovered in the air as if he meant to touch me, but stopped midway as if deciding it wasn't worth the effort.

"Let me go..."

"Never. Don't. Say. It. Again."

"Or what...Sire?" I dared to ask. I wasn’t strong or defiant. I was exhausted and still grieving for everything I had lost and everything I had never had. I heard gasps behind him.

“What did you say?” His blue eyes were glacial now.

"What will you do to me? Send me away? Leave me alone? Hurt me...?" He looked stunned.

"I'll never hurt you. You will not leave this castle. Make that very clear to yourself."

He was enormous and dragged me along. I thought he meant to torture me, but he shoved me into a vast, luxurious bathing chamber where several maids waited. They removed my clothes and tried to take the woven band from my wrist. I screamed like a maniac.

"Leave it!" the prince ordered. "Disturb her as little as possible. Clean her and make her presentable." He demanded and lingered while they undressed me. Once I was standing in my soiled undergarments, he finally turned away after casting me a long glance. He seemed distressed.

The women looked at me with disgust, yet lowered me into the warm, flower-scented water. They scrubbed my limbs and tugged at my hair.

I sat in silence. I had no more tears to cry.

"What a disaster."

"How filthy humans are!"

They dressed and groomed me like a doll. Locks of hair fell to the floor. I refused to look in the mirror. Barefoot, they led me into an office where the prince waited.

He stood beside a beautiful woman with short, blonde hair, dressed like a warrior. On his other side stood a man with golden skin and trimmed hair. The three of them looked like statues. Tall, flawless, cold, and immovable.

"What happened to her hair?" the prince growled at the maid.

"We saved what we could, Sire. It was badly matted."

He looked displeased as he studied me, examining my face and feet as if I were a cracked vase. His knuckles were bone-white as he gripped the chair.

"Verbena, we want to know what happened."

I said nothing.

"How did you end up in the forest?" The house burned down and is clearly abandoned. What happened to the people with you? Were you attacked?"

“Can you tell us, Miss? Help us understand," the woman asked gently. "We need to know if this was an enemy plot against the prince or an accident."

"You looked like a savage, wounded, as if you'd been living on scraps for five years," he said.

Five years.

Five years during which no one cared where I was or what had become of me.

Five years erased from the world. That hurt more than any blow.

"I think she’s not quite right in the head," the other man muttered. The prince shot him a sharp look.

"The prince has many enemies. Did they leave a message? We want to catch those responsible,” the woman insisted.

Did they really think I was stupid? Just because I was human, broken, unwanted, and forgotten, did they think they could treat me like a fool?

My family handed me over to a ruthless prince. Abandoned me, they left me alone. The house burned, and I had no food, no shelter. I suffered endless winters and suffocating summers. I fought wolves, hunger, and misery.

Tori died saving me. He was the only one who ever cared.

I wanted to stay silent. I should have.

Instead, I said clearly, "The one responsible is here. He's standing right in front of me."

I regretted it instantly. The prince looked ready to erupt when a feminine voice appeared behind him.

"My prince, you found the human..."

The woman who entered looked like a fairy from a tale: She had straight auburn hair and wore exquisite silver garments. She stepped beside the prince, slipped her arm through his, and calmed him with an intimacy that left no doubt about their relationship.

No wonder he never came looking for me.

"Gabriella..." the prince murmured.

"Lady Bloom," the elf with short hair corrected smoothly. “The prince dislikes the term ‘human.’ She is His Grace’s wife.”

The woman smiled as though it were a joke and looked at me with disdain.

Bloom... the last name resonates in my head.

The Bloom family.

The family that was supposed to protect me.

Instead... they tried to kill me.