Page 6 of His Accidental Princess

I wished him and Vinnie all the happiness they could find. They deserved each other. She would make him the perfect wife. She’d never do anything stupid or reckless. She wouldn’t argue with him incessantly. She’d just sayyes, babyorno, baby,and bore him to death. And he would deserve every miserable minute of such a miserably perfect life!

I slammed my front door open and stomped inside.

“Through here,” I said icily, gesturing to the door that led to my bedroom.

Vinnie skipped her way to the bathroom and I restrained the urge to choke the cheeriness out of her.

Sona was looking around with a troubled expression.

“Tasha, this place is sweet and everything, but it’s so… small. It would fit into your bedroom at Nagaur House, and you’d have space to spare,” she cried.

“Well, I’m a lot safer here than I ever was in my old bedroom,” I replied drily, and I ignored DV’s curious glance at me. Sona knew what I meant, even if he didn’t. She had seen the cigarette burns on my back.

“Yes, but I feel so guilty! If it weren’t for me barging into your life…”

“If it weren’t for you, I’d still be stuck in that nightmare, Sona. The only reason I could leave was because I knew you would take care of Nani Ma,” I said harshly. “Stop beating yourself up over something that has nothing to do with you. I left the house because I wanted a different life. A happier life.”

Her gaze softened and she smiled tearily.

“I hope it worked.”

I shrugged because what was there to say? I might not have found joy, but I had found peace, and I wouldn’t let anyone convince me otherwise.

Just then, a shriek rent the air, and as one, we turned towards my bedroom. Vinnie came running out of the room and ran straight to DV. His arms closed around her and I had to look away because it was one thing to know that he was seeing someone else, and quite another to experience the reality of what it meant.

Vinnie was babbling something wildly, as she stabbed a finger towards my bedroom. It sounded suspiciously like chicken. I wondered if the hens on the commune had wandered into my room somehow and attacked her. They were quite savage if you got too close to them, and Vinnie looked dumb enough to try and pet them.

She turned a white face towards me and babbled again.

“Chicken…” she wheezed, pointing to my room again.

Samar strode towards my room to investigate, and DV set Vinnie down in a chair before he followed.

“Shit,” said Samar loudly.

I elbowed past Sona in my hurry to discover what could possibly make Major Rambo lose his legendary composure. When I entered my bedroom, Samar and DV were staring in the direction of my bed.

I tried to get past them, but DV blocked my way.

“You don’t need to see this,” he said grimly. “Sam, get a team here ASAP to dust for prints. I want to find the sick bastard who did this.”

“Prints? As in fingerprints?” I asked almost inaudibly.

I dug my heels into the ground and poked my head around DV even as he tried to push me out of my own bedroom. And then I wished I hadn’t.

Laid out on my bed in its full bloodied glory was the carcass of one of the fattest hens I’d ever seen. Like a present.

***

I wanted to throw up, but when I remembered that the only bathroom in my cottage was inside my bedroom and that I’d have to walk past the poor dead bird on my bed to get there, I took a few deep breaths in an attempt to quell my nausea.

I couldn’t wrap my head around what had happened. Samar and DV were talking about fingerprints and security footage, but it was just a dead bird.

“Umm, how did that bird get into my room? Do you think it flew in and got caught in the blades of the fan?”

Even as I asked the stupid question, I knew I was trying to avoid the truth. It was a hen, not a pigeon that would fly in through someone’s window. Besides, my fan was switched off. Even if the hen had somehow miraculously managed to get up there, it would have found a comfortable place to roost, that’s all. It wouldn’t have been torn up like this.

DV walked up to me and took my hands in his. His eyes were gentle as they stared into mine. There was no denying their message, and I could avoid the truth no longer.

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