The Princess and the Guard (Book 1)

Thirty-Four

Juliette was awake early, after tossing and turning for what felt like hours. Nightmares plagued her dreams, and she didn't feel much more rested than she did last night. Glancing at her wristlet, seeing it was only seven, she turned back onto her pillow to wait for the eight o'clock trumpets. She stared up at the ceiling, trying to call up what happened yesterday. Her mind drew a blank, and she couldn't for the life of her wrap her thoughts around anything that had occurred.

With a sigh, Juliette pressed a hand to her eyes, trying to remember the latest thing that happened. Odette's birthday party was recent. A week ago? Two weeks?

Noah was home, that she remembered.

How long had it been since she'd seen Dr. Violet? A few days?

Taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly, Juliette slid out from beneath her blankets and grabbed her hoodie from the back of her desk chair. She yanked it over her head and flung her door open, slipping out into the corridor.

"I'm just going to pace up and down the hallway," she told the guard outside her room. It was Luis today. She hadn't seen Mason in a while, she realized. She thought for a second to tell Noah she was awake early in case he wanted to come up now, but changed her mind. He'd been so busy lately, working extra night shifts and spending so much time in the gym, she didn't want to disturb him any more than she already had.

Odette's favorite seamstress was coming today for the first fitting of a new dress, and she would be taking Juliette's measurements as well.

Juliette almost smiled, taking another deep breath and letting it out. A brand new, custom-made dress. It was so unlike Odette, to do something nice for Juliette. Going out of her way to have a dress specially made was odd, for more than one reason.

Juliette paused at the end of the corridor, turning so she could jog back. The guard outside her room had turned so he could watch her. There were supposed to be four guards stationed in her hallway at night, but it had been a while since she had more than one since Odette had dwindled Juliette's personal guard to fill in her own gaps.

On her second jog down, Juliette slowed, continuing past her room to the massive bay window at the other end of the hallway. The drapes were drawn so she moved one aside and peered through.

Sighing, she pressed her back against the window frame and then took off running as fast as she could to the other end. It felt good to run; she hadn't done it in forever, and she didn't realize how much energy she had pent up.

Slamming into the opposite wall, she turned and ran right back. She continued with her workout for another minute before slowing down. Her heart was pumping madly in her chest, and it was getting hard to breathe.

She pressed a hand to her chest, her heart squeezing with every inhale. She sagged against the wall, trying to catch her breath.

"Juliette—what's wrong? Are you okay?"

Juliette looked up, relaxing into a smile at seeing Noah coming toward her. She nodded. "Yeah. I'm just more out of shape than I realized."

He slowed, his eyebrows twitching in a frown. He straightened, clasping his hands behind his back and standing straighter. As soon as Luis disappeared, having been relieved, Noah took a step closer.

"How'd you sleep?"

"Not great. I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep, so I thought I'd burn off some energy," she replied. "Sorry, did I push the button again?" She glanced down at the watch around her wrist. She programmed the watch a while ago to send her location just to Noah, thinking if Odette ever locked her away somewhere she would have a way of letting him know where she was.