Page 69 of The White King's Favorite

She was beautiful. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and it wasn’t just about her physical appearance. It was in the way she appeared both strong and fragile, fearless but shy. The way the rain slowly ran down her curls he was dying to brush with his hands. Her pale lips, her slender cheeks, her green gaze, cold like an emerald. Something in him was screaming to hold her, right now, but he was holding on to his last strings of willpower not to cross that dangerous line. He sighed and brushed his white hair back, glancing at the window behind her, showing the room inside still in the dark.

“Cessilia, I... I know I’ve treated you too harshly. I was so confused after I had thought I’d never see you again. I directed my anger at you, and I shouldn’t have. I’ve thought about this often. I knew it would have been reckless to bring you to war with me. Those two years were the best of my life, and brutally, your father rejected me and chased me away, back into my own Kingdom still torn apart by civil war. I was barely seventeen, and I had just gotten back on my feet! ...Can you even understand how painful that was for me? I was scared, confused, and angry. I felt like I was given hope, only to have it all crushed again. I considered your family my own, and you all welcomed me so warmly too! I never wanted to leave, Cessilia. I would have never wanted to leave, but your father didn’t even give me that choice.”

Anger appeared in his expression again, and he glared at the wall behind her, clenching his fists at the memory. He was shaking, not because of the cold but because of how painful that memory was. The feelings of that time were all coming back, too hard to endure. Ashen made sure not to direct his ice-cold gaze at Cessilia, but even so, the Princess wasn’t looking at him. She seemed to be hearing him while trying not to listen and refused to move or look his way. They were standing less than two steps away from one another; they were too close for her not to hear him. His large body was partially shielding her from the rain that had intensified, and the wind that was whipping his skin. Ashen’s white hair was floating around his face, while Cessilia’s curls were still down, barely moving as no breeze reached her. She was both shielded and cornered.

Ashen scoffed bitterly.

“...You probably don’t even know what happened that night. I knew your mother had noticed my feelings toward you, but as always, she trusted me. I was always aware I shouldn’t have loved you, but... I couldn’t help it. Our age difference was driving me insane, so I pretended not to see you were feeling the same, for as long as I could. Somehow, I had this hope that as you grew older, we would finally be free to love each other. It became real torture over time. The older you got, the more beautiful you became... I knew my own feelings for you had grown from innocent fondness to love, and as you started to look more and more like a woman, it just became too hard to pretend not to see it. When you began to show you were loving me back, I felt like the gods were trying to tear me apart.”

As if to emphasize his words, the storm thundered loudly above their heads. The rain was starting to pour now, and Ashen moved closer to Cessilia, trapping her between him and the castle’s wall. He meant to shield her from the downpour, but she was pinned under him, and it was harder to avoid his burning gaze on her. She was regretting that low cut in her back, and trying to stay away from the cold stone behind her.

Just then, Ashen sighed, and in a swift movement, undid his fur cape to place it on her shoulders. Cessilia tried to take it off, but as soon as her hand grabbed it over her shoulder, Ashen’s fingers caught it. This time, she glared back at him, not avoiding his dark eyes anymore. The King didn’t seem to mind at all. His eyes were on her, and he resumed talking, strangely calm for once.

“I would have never, ever touched you when you were that young, Cessilia. When... when we kissed for the first time, I understood that. Rather than unleashing my desire, it gave me the power to restrain it. For you. I knew I could wait for as long as it took, but... I never thought your father wouldn’t trust me.”

By now, the rain was running down his drenched hair and face and had begun to drip down Cessilia’s too. Still, his hand was hot over hers, and grabbing it tightly despite the sharp scales. He didn’t want to let go, and wouldn’t. She had stopped fighting him, but her eyes went away from his again, her lips pinched together in a bitter expression. That memory wasn’t just painful for him.

“That night, when Krai found us outside of the Onyx Castle, and Kassian took you home, I thought they’d just be mad at me for taking you out late. But your father and Darsan dragged me to the border. They told me to leave the Empire, and to never approach you again!”

He released her hand, clenching his fists by his side, overtaken by anger again. He shook his head, visibly furious.

“I begged them, Cessilia. I begged your father and brother a thousand times to let me back in, to forgive me. I swore I had never touched you, and I would never touch you until you were an adult. I had even thought I’d wait till your seventeenth birthday, just like the age your parents got together!”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Several, even, trying to calm himself down.

“I... I swear I’m not mad at you. I knew there was no way you’d come, but I still waited. I waited for days, hoping to see you, and at the same time, a part of me didn’t want you to meet me there. I knew you’d be too young to follow me to my Kingdom when you had only known the peace of your family’s Empire. So I left. I left, with my anger and my rancor, and I used it to fuel my desire to reconquer this place. It’s still... a work in progress, but I got rid of so many people who were aligned with my father, and those who opposed me. I’ll soon be the King of a peaceful Kingdom, and then, I’ll truly be able to show your father he was wrong about me!”

He had almost shouted that last sentence, and when he realized that, his eyes went to the side, where the nearest window was. No one seemed to have heard, though. Luckily, the walls and tinted windows were thick, and with the raging storm above them, most of his words were blown away by the wind.

Cessilia was the only one there to hear him, but the Princess’ expression remained as cold and still as a statue. It wasn’t as if she didn’t listen; she simply didn’t care what he had to say. She kept ignoring him, putting that invisible but thick wall between them. This vision broke Ashen.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” he muttered.

She turned her eyes back to him, and for a second, his heart was filled with hope that she’d talk, finally, but his hope was cut short. Cessilia stared blankly, and suddenly, the vision of her expression when he had told her to shut up hit him like a slap. He had done this. She had tried to talk, and he had dismissed her, twice. Now, he was willing to talk, but she didn’t want to anymore. He was reaping what he sowed, and it was those cold, green eyes on him.

It wouldn’t have been so hard to endure if she hadn’t looked so beautiful in that instant. She was like a goddess under the rain and storm, not fearing him, not allowing him anything. She seemed so fragile and so small in front of him, yet he knew he had already lost to her. He couldn’t win, not when he loved her so much, so painfully. Not when she had that cold mix of anger and resentment in her eyes. Not when he was the one who had broken that bridge she had desperately tried to build between them, after all this time. It was his fault.

“Cessilia, I’m sorry,” he muttered, stepping closer.

She backed against the wall, and a faint dash of pink appeared on her cheeks. She was suddenly desperate to avoid his gaze, but she couldn’t hide her reactions well. There was still something between them, something that made them warm despite the cold and driving rain.

“Cessi, I’m really sorry.”

Her lower lip twitched, and for a second, with all those drops running down her face, it looked as if she was crying. Perhaps she really was, but it was hard to tell. Ashen took a deep breath and leaned down to kiss her.

It was a passionate, almost forceful kiss. However, for the first two or three seconds, Cessilia didn’t resist it. She responded to it, even. In that very brief moment, the passion between them ignited like a burning fire. Their lips acted on their own, left to their own desires. It wasn’t like the innocent kiss of their younger years. This one was full of passion, thirst, and even some rage. They didn’t breathe, just kissing wildly for the handful of seconds it lasted.

Cessilia brutally snapped out of it. So brutally, she slapped him with the back of her hand, furious and glaring at him for kissing her like that. She was angry he had dared to take her by surprise, and angrier she hadn’t resisted it earlier.

Shaken up, Ashen was brutally slapped back to reality. He took a step back, and his fingers touched his cheek, feeling the two small cuts. Cessilia’s scales had scratched him. It was involuntary, and in fact, he didn’t care at all for that injury. He was much more hurt by how violently she was rejecting him, and glaring at him. This made him angry too.

“You just felt that too! You don’t hate me, Cessilia, you still love me, so why do you do this to me?! What do I have to do for you to speak, and be honest!”

He was running out of patience, but so was the Princess. Using her two hands, she pushed him off of her, finally putting some distance between their bodies. She looked really upset this time, and kept her hands up between them, as if to prevent him from coming near again.

“Cessilia!”

“D-don’t ever d-do th-that again,” she painfully muttered with a hoarse voice.

---