Page 71 of Maid for the Alien Prince

I leapt to my feet and ran forward—at least, I would have if my hip didn’t bark so hard. Instead, it twisted, and I lost control, flopping back on the floor like a fish out of water.

Ges picked me up like a kid who had collapsed and held me tightly in his arms. “I see I needn’t have worried,” he said, chuckling in the back of his throat.

I glared at him, sucked in a mouthful of oxygen, and screamed. I didn’t know what to shout. I wasn’t thinking. I was terrified and knew that any noise I made would be better than nothing.

It came out as a raspy whining pierce that held as little meaning to me as it did for anyone who might have heard it.

But it clearly didn’t come from the throat of someone in the throes of happiness and joy. It was the cry of someone needing help.

With the guards surrounding the palace and those located down the hallway in their security rooms, I felt certain someone would hear it.

Ges slipped his hand back over my mouth, pressing so hard it made my teeth hurt, and growled in my ear, “You never make things easy, do you, bitch?”

Something slapped me hard against the back of my head and I fell to the floor once more.

I was not yet unconscious and managed to crawl away from him a few feet before I felt another meaty thud against the back of my head, and I fell into darkness once more.

* * *

My vision was blurry around the edges, but with how dark and dingy my surroundings were, it didn’t make much difference in figuring out my location.

It was dark and damp, and the flagstones beneath me were smothered with some kind of slime. Not exactly a five-star retreat…

I grunted as I shoved myself up onto my knees… and immediately regretted it.

The room spun, and I lowered myself back to the floor and laid prostrate. The movement only made my head swim even worse. I grunted under my breath and realized the precarious situation I now found myself in.

Ges had kidnapped me, somehow removed me from the palace. How he had managed to do that, I had no idea. I had definitely made enough noise to alert the guards to my location and for them to come storming down on our heads.

Unless the guards somehow didn’t hear me?

In which case, Ges would have had plenty of time to carry me and my unconscious body out of the palace and hide me somewhere on the estate grounds—or anywhere else for that matter.

In fact, it was impossible to really know how much time had really passed since he’d dealt me that vicious second blow.

A few minutes? A few hours? Days?

I doubted the latter, as I didn’t feel hungry at all. But then again, my stomach was still churning from all the unconscious movement I’d made earlier, my head still continuing to swim.

How could this have happened?

It’d gone from the happiest moment of my life to now being captured and taken hostage… and who knew what would happen next.

My mind swam—unrelated to my internal giddiness—at all the things that could happen next.

I pushed them from my mind. The last thing I needed right now was to lose focus.

Still, my ability to concentrate kept slipping through my fingers as my mind swam through treacle. I needed to figure a way out of there.

It was no good being cooped up here, feeling sorry for myself. Or even expecting Rayaw to come rescue me—although that was the ideal outcome. I needed to figure out where I was and how I might be able to get out of there.

Were there any signs of where I might be? I thought I recognized the brickwork beneath my hands… but in my current state, I couldn’t place it at all.

From somewhere deep in my childhood, I thought. But that hardly helped. I’d seen many places during my upbringing, and it could be just about anywhere.

It would come to me; I was confident of that. But first, I needed to figure out a way out of there.

I rolled onto my side and then my back. My head swam a little less this time. I lay there, peering up at the ceiling, dark, and yet, the fact that I could see anything at all meant that there had to be a light source somewhere.

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