Page 10 of Princess Takes Academy
His words repeated inside my head, pounding like a battering ram.When would I ever think of someone other than myself?
So he thought I was selfish. Spoiled.
He hated me. Maybe hate was too strong a word, but he obviously didn’t evenlikeme at all.
Maybe he was right. Maybe I was wrong about him. Maybe I was too focused on whatIwanted, and not what he wanted.
Because he certainly didn’t act like he wanted to be my Blood.
I’d saved him when he’d needed help, but he didn’t need saving now. He didn’t need help now.
He didn’t want me. He didn’t want me to be his queen.
A hot flood of tears dripped down my face. My throat ached. A tight ball of all the words I wanted to scream at him strangled me.
Whirling around, I raced out of the tree. I would at least see where he’d been born. I would breathe in the air that he’d once breathed and walk on the ground that he’d once roamed. It would have to be enough, because I would never have more of his heart. He made that brutally clear by leaving me.
A red dirt path led from the tree down the gently sloped hillside. I followed it without thinking or asking myself why. I just had to get away. Breathe. Think. Maybe then my heart would stop hurting every time I looked at him. If I could get some of these silly tears out here, where no one could see me, then maybe I could sit across from him at dinner tonight and not burst into tears.
Or stab him in the eye with my fork.
* * *
KERAS
Panting, I stumbled to a halt. I hadn’t gone far—just a few steps. But endless dark stretched before me. Usually, when Xochitl took me through the tree, I had a feeling of our destination. I could feel it like a dot on the map.
Without her, it was nothing but emptiness.
Or maybe that was my heart, empty without her.
My thighs ached as if I’d been running up a mountainside at full speed. My lungs burned and couldn’t draw enough air. It’d only been seconds since I’d turned and left her—unless I’d lost my mind here in the darkness—but every single moment without her at my side felt like torture.
Yet so did every agonizing second that I spent beside her.
She was so young. So innocent. Yet so powerful and stubborn and determined to make me hers. She had no idea what the sight of her did to me. The simplest touch of her hand or the scent of her hair turned me into a wild beast. I tried to control it. I tried to disguise the need rising inside me, but it was taking all my concentration to keep that tsunami contained.
Honestly, if I didn’t carry the ponderous weight of a rhinoceros inside me, I probably would have given up long ago and smashed my mouth to hers. Regardless of what her powerful parents would do to me.
She wanted a kiss. Fine. Great. That wasn’t a problem.
Stopping at a kiss when every drop of my blood boiled for her was the problem.
Here in the heart tree’s secret pathways, alone as I could never be alone in the real world, I could admit the truth, to myself at least.
I wanted my Soshee. I wanted to drag her into my arms and never let her go. I wanted to bellow at her that she couldn’t risk her life in some futile attempt to get my attention—because every cell in my body was obsessed with her. I’d deliberately resorted to hurting her feelings at her attempt of a gift—just to keep myself from crossing the line that could never be undone.
Because once I had a taste of butterflies and unicorns, I would never be satisfied with returning to childhood best friends ever again.
Even here, she beckoned. I didn’t need to know where her nest was. I didn’t need another heart tree to exit this in-between world. All I needed was her. My unicorn princess. She always pulled me closer, reeling me in, dragging me step by step back to her side.
I wanted to be at her side. More than ever.
But being at her side meant so much more now. I didn’t know how much longer I could resist my feelings for her. Even though she was barely fourteen.
Stupid. Incredibly stupid. Her father would blast me into nothing. Her mother would expel me from the nest. I would lose everything if I lost her. Nothing else mattered, even if every moment was misery.
I turned back to my princess and allowed her bond to guide me to her. I would never leave her. Not really. I just needed some space before I completely lost my head. Her heart tore at mine, her tears scalding my soul like acid. I hated hurting her. I hated denying her. Even though it was for the best. My head knew we were too young, even if our bodies insisted we should be together for all time.
