2024 Story Collection

The Soulmates of Ruth WinterGreen II

"I am relinquishing the crown to my brother." She turns to them. "I don't want to be Queen. I never have."

"So, what?" Leo asks with a sudden sharp anger. "Your just giving up?"

Ruth glares at him with such intensity that it makes Leo flinch. "My people hate me. My brother wants me dead and my father wishes I had never been born. Trust me when I say everyone will be happier with me gone."

"We won't-" Emery tries to say with a desperation in his voice.

"Yes, you will." She snaps. "You are young and handsome. You can have any woman you want. You will move on."

"What if you're the woman I want?" Leo snaps back.

She looks at him in disbelief, as if he would be crazy to mean such a thing.

Sullivan tries to change the subject, the air feeling far too thick. "Your people don't hate you-"

"Like you haven't heard the rumors," she snaps again. A chill runs up Sullivan's spine. "That I'm a monster. That I eat only raw meat from animals, I kill myself. That I hide my skin because of horrible deformations or rotting flesh that proves that I am not worthy of the crown."

"Us being here proves that you are worthy. That you are to be the Queen. Multiple soulmates are only given to the next ruler." Leo speaks, kinder now.

"These flowers are proof," Emery speaks, showing his wrist.

Sullivan adds. "You can't give up just because others-"

"I'm so tired." She interrupts them, the harshness of her voice gone. What's left is nothing but exhaustion and sadness. It's palpable.

She slouches then, and they all seem to notice it. The strong, warrior like facade she'd been keeping up suddenly fell. Now they saw her shaky hands, the deep circles under her eyes, the slight wobble in her step.

"I haven't slept in, I don't know how long." Her voice was weak and shaky. All Sullivan wanted to do in that moment was lift her into his arms and hold her. Tell her it would all be okay. That whatever problems she had, he would find a way to solve it.

All three of them step closer as if the connection to her was calling out to them. She raises her shaky, scared hand to stop them. "Don't. I do not need your pity."

The taller man finally seems to lose his patience. "You think we haven't dealt with things? What could be so bad that you are like this? You live in a castle with people to wait on your every need."

She laughs before looking up to meet his eyes. He visibly shrinks back. "My brother has been sending people to kill me since I was 11 years old. A month ago I awoke to his hands around my throat begging me to die already."

"The guards would never let that happen-" She cuts Leo off.

"I have no one I can trust. The guards let him through and kept anyone else from coming in to help me. The maids laugh at my suffering." They look at her in shock, but she ignores it and continues.

"When I was 7, my maids chopped my hair in patches. They even cut my head in the process because of how close they cut it in places. All because of their hate and disgust of me."

She slips off the thin material that was covering her arms and back and turns for us to see. They look in horror at her beautiful tanned skin covered in deep, twisting scars. It makes Sullivan sick.

"This scar is from the torture I endured under my father's hand after the maids cut my hair." She points to a deep scar on her shoulder.

She moves her hand to a long, jagged scar along her spine. "My knights held me down while my brother took a burning hot knife and ran it down my spine." She turns back around to face them, her eyes empty of life, of hope.

A sadness falls over the men. The pain, the loss, the deep agony that exists within her, they feel it. It's an ache so deep and raw, they suddenly struggle to breathe.

"You have no idea what I've been through." She says finally, looking them deep in the eyes.

"But if you reject us, you'll die." Emery speaks, tears running down his cheeks.

If a soulmate rejects their mate, they slowly die from a disease the natives call Hanahaki. The flower mark on your skin begins to grow in the lungs and eventually will kill the person. It is a slow, painful, lonely death. It doesn't happen often. Soulmates themselves are rare; rejecting one is rarer even, but people have their reasons.

Sullivan and the other two didn't like her reasons.

"At least I'll live for a short time in peace." She walks back to the sofa and leans on the back. "It'll be better for everyone if I die, anyway." A tear runs down her face and all three of them flinch.

"Stop saying that," Emery begs.

"You are dismissed." She chokes out, looking away from them.

"You can't honestly expect us to abandon you?" Leo asks, his tone sharp but not unkind.

"I won't leave you here in a place where everyone around you is a threat." Sullivan agrees.

"I can't leave you crying like this." Emery runs over and embraces her. "I can't leave you at all."

A jolt of jealousy shoots through the other two men at the younger's arms around her, but they hold themselves back.

"Why?" she asks between sobs.

The other two men walk closer to her, "because we are your soulmates."

"No," she says. "That's not good enough. I don't want you to stay because you feel forced to."

"It's because I want to protect you." Sullivan says, taking her hand in his and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"It's because I want to stand by your side and support you." Leo says ignoring her hand in Sullivan's.

"It's because I want to love you." Emery says.

None of them wanted to share her, but all of them wanted her to be happy. To never live in fear again. That was something they could all agree on.

"I still don't want to be queen." She speaks, her voice more even than before. Leo reaches down to wipe her tears.

"Then don't be," Sullivan tells her. "But don't reject us."

"Where ever you go, I will follow." Leo says.

Emery nods.

The End.

January 3, 2024