Page 75 of A Simple Truth

Lulu shook her head, finishing up her food. I let myself glance over to his tent once more, the anger now turning my blood into nothing but ice.

The muscle in my jaw tensed.

Laundry.

I needed to do laundry.

44

FINNLEAH

My fingers were bright red from the icy spring runoff, but I didn’t bother warming them as I furiously washed my clothes again and again, until they were perfectly clean. Until not a speck of red sand remained. My poisoned thoughts rapidly spiraled down, no matter how thoroughly I rinsed.

They were there back at camp. Smiling, laughing, having a good time together, enjoying each other's company. He dated her. He touched her, he cared for her, he loved her.

I embraced the fury within me because truly, I should be angry. I should be enraged. Not at the General. He had been nothing but consistent in showing his true colors since the very first moment I met him.

I should be furious with myself.

Did I forget what I was here for?

Did I fall into comfort so damn quickly so as to neglect my purpose here?

Was I truly so fucking ignorant to forget the smell of rotten human flesh against the dusty wet stone of the Rock Quarries? To forget that while I spent each day free, countless other slaves endured yet another day enslaved?

Was my life so useless and wasteful that I had the time to pout and be jealous over a Destroyer?

No, the only man I should be thinking of was far away, in the peaks of the rocky mountains of Esnox. The scars on my back itched, my wet hand scratching them, irritated, though pointlessly.

I was a raw fire wielding Destroyer. I was a trained assassin.

And I was a runaway slave.

Perhaps it was time I started remembering that.

Yet, I was nowhere nearly as strong as the Destroyer General. I couldn’t hold off battalions, couldn’t shield hundreds of slaves.

That was what I had to work on; not waste my time daydreaming of his lips on mine.

I had a promise to uphold.

And I would not sit and wait around for a man to help me.

45

GIDEON

Focus. Focus. Focus.

I chanted to myself, attempting to listen to the report from Lord De Villiar, from Petunia, Orest, and Zora. I heard the words; I heard their voices, yet none of the information was of any value to me. Not that what they were saying wasn’t important, it was, but...I had much more important and valuable things to do than be here and listen to them talk. Like finally getting out of here to be with the freckled woman that now held my heart.

So instead of preparing for a war, I kept finding myself thinking of meticulously planned scenarios where I couldaccidentlyhold her hand in mine again.

Never in my entire life had I thought I’d yearn to hold a hand…Gods, I was a grown man; a General, an Emperor-to-be for fuck’s sake. In fact, in all of my few previous relationships, I had preferred using my hands to do much more exciting activities thanhand holding. But ever since Finnleah grabbed my hand so possessively and dragged me out of that elven camp without a single word or question, I fucking craved it.

I was obsessed.

“Are we boring you, General?” Petunia asked, her voice filled with annoyance, but I ignored her.

---