Page 14 of Heart of the Fae King

Miserably, I nodded, staring down at my belly as Nyx’s eyes did the same.

“I will,” I promised. He was king for a reason. He understood the dangers better than someone like me ever could.

For our baby’s sake. If Nyx can keep me safe, I can keep you safe, little one.

Chapter 5

Maren

Over the next couple of weeks, I tried to adjust. I really did. I understood the threat that loomed over me and my baby. Nyx’s fears were mine, too. But after a lifetime of living on my own and fending for myself, this adjustment was more than I could bear.

The first week was incredibly daunting, the guards almost constantly underfoot, watching my every move as if they expected me to shift and fly away under their noses. There was this pressing feeling around me, like I had done something wrong, even though the circumstances had been completely out of my control that day.

I had free rein of the castle and grounds, an entire workshop on the third floor for me to work on my handmade jewelry while Nyx was off at the Council of Ministers meetings during the day. Anyone else in my position would have been over the moon with such a life, but the restlessness inside me grew.

Walking around the endless gardens outside only made it worse as the weather grew colder, welcoming the beginning of the frigid winter months.

Every time I walked out of the castle’s walls, I saw the skyline of South Havenmire and longed to return to my oldneighborhoods, if only for a stroll. I wanted to visit my old coffee house and see my mail carrier. I wondered what my crotchety neighbor from the dingy apartment building where I’d once lived was up to. Was anyone feeding his cat when she strayed out at night?

I wasn’t a prisoner, but I truly felt like one. All I wanted to do was dance and laugh, but I started to feel like I might never do either one again.

I was an owl with clipped wings.

Tristiana was welcome to visit, along with anyone else I wanted to invite, but my best friend kept her distance from the castle now that we weren’t putting on the weekly shows for the ministers at the castle. She hadn’t been well-received when she had come, and even though I tried to reassure her that things were different now, that the staff was better around me, she kept her distance.

We spoke on the phone a lot, and she didn’t fail to remind me that this was bound to happen.

“I told you the king wouldn’t let you get back to work,” she scolded me.

I gritted my teeth, wanting to explain why Nyx had kept me from returning to Maximo’s. It wasn’t about keeping power over me, but for my own security. Somehow, with all his power and influence, he had managed to eliminate any recordings of my tumble from the balcony and silence the witnesses who had observed me that day. No one seemed to know anything about my near-fatal experience that I still couldn’t remember.

“I’m going stir crazy here,” I complained, stalking down the halls with my earbuds pressed inside my eardrums. “I want to come back to work. I need to do something.”

Tristiana made a commiserating sound on the other end of the phone. “Have you talked to the king about this?”

I grunted again. “I’ve tried, but he just keeps telling me to be patient.”

“So, are you just supposed to live like this forever now?” she asked. “Without any privacy, locked away in a castle? Are you willing to live like that?”

It was the same question I’d asked myself a bunch of times since I’d moved back.

The trouble was, when I was with Nyx, all of my anxiety just melted away, his calming reassurances making me forget what the insurmountable days were like when he wasn’t there. When he was by my side, it was easy to forget that I crawled the walls like a caged animal, biding my time until he got home.

“I don’t know if that’s what he has in mind for me,” I admitted, the stark reality of the upcoming years suddenly assaulting me. What about when the baby came? Would I be able to leave then, or would we both be trapped there?

I shivered at the thought.

“And what about when the baby comes?” Tristiana pressed, as if she could read my thoughts. “Is your child going to be held prisoner, too?”

“Woah!” I countered sharply, disliking her wording. “No one is a prisoner here.”

“Really?” Tristiana replied. “Because it’s starting to sound like you are one, unable to leave, not working, waiting for your baby to be born.”

Humiliation rushed my face, and I bit on my lower lip so hard, I tasted blood. “It’s not like that…”

“You don’t even sound a little convinced,” she laughed. “But it’s not my life. It’s yours. If you’re happy living like that, who am I to judge? Oh! Look at the time. I have to get going. I’ll text you later.”

“Okay,” I sighed unhappily, knowing she was on her way to rehearsal at Maximo’s. I wished I were joining her, if only to watch from the theater seats.

---