They Call Me Princess

Chapter Fourteen: Surprise Visit

It had been three weeks.

Three weeks without word from Alexei.

I paced the floor of my room thinking over all of the possibilities. He was fine. He promised me he would be fine, thus he would be fine. I mean, as if they would let their crown prince get hurt in the middle of a war, right?

Of course not! That would be pointless!

Right as I was about to walk out of the room I stopped myself. Why did I care so much? If he died then I could return to my normal life. If he was fatally injured then he might forget about me and I could, yet again, return to my old life.

But what if he needed me?

I slid against my door and pulled my knees up to my chest. Why was I having so many conflicted thoughts?

Maybe I cared more than I intended to?

A knock sounded from my door, so with a great effort I stood up and opened it. Vlad stood there with a letter in hand.

"I have a letter, but I believe that it was sent to the wrong place, unless you know a man named Charles-"

"Yes, he's Alexei's friend if I remember correctly." Vlad shrugged and handed me the envelope before slowly walking away.

I closed my door behind him and settled on a chair by my desk. Alexei did say that this guy was amused by me, but amused enough to write to me?

Dear Cinderella,

Hi, I don't really remember your name but that's not very important right now. We just returned from battle and Alexei got hurt. It's not too bad according to him, but a bullet in the shoulder sounds painful to me.

I just wanted to inform you of this since Princey-poo decided not to tell you.

~ His Friend Charles

"Vlad!" I shouted his name as I rushed around the room in a mad woman's pace.

"What is it?! What's wrong?!" He quickly looked around searching for any dangers that he didn't notice before.

I pointed to the letter that was sitting on my bed, still neatly folded except for the crumpled corners from my grip on it. He immediately grabbed it and began to read, his eyes scanning the lines over and over. When he finally finished, he looked up at me with small smile.

"Do you know, that royalty love good publicity?" I nodded my head as I continued pacing, endless worry etched across my features.

"And that visiting injured soldiers, including loved ones, is under the category of good publicity?" I stopped my endless pacing and looked at him.

"Vlad, have I ever told you that I love you sometimes? You know, like you can be one of my greatest friends ever if you keep moments like this going?" He smiled before grabbing a small piece of luggage from my closet and placing it on my bed.

"You can tell me all about it after you finish packing and on the car ride there."

~~3 Hours Later~~

I stood inside the fort while men rushed around doing chores and training. I had contacted Charles and told him to meet me at the entrance but, I honestly had no idea what he looked like.

"Cinderella?" I turned and looked at a man with golden hair and brown eyes, he gave me a smile and held out his hand. "My name is Charles, I'm bunk mates with Alexei. Here, I'll take you to him."

And so I followed Charles as he walked deeper into the fort. "I sent that letter about 3 days ago, so he's been up and walking around, but boy will he be glad to see you!"

I smiled as I listened to him talk on and on about what had been going on the past couple days. However, he stopped outside of a door and looked at me.

"This is our stop. Oh! I forgot to thank you, I don't know what you did, but you changed him. And between you and me," The man leaned in a little closer and whispered, "He says that the reason he changed was because he cares about you."

Charles stood back up straight and winked before walking off whistling an unfamiliar tune. I couldn't help but chuckle as he walked away, but as soon as he was out of sight I was faced with a different problem.

Alexei has no clue that I'm standing here outside of his door right now. He'll more than likely be mad that I dared to show up here only to embarrass him.

So with a deep breath and slightly heavy heart I knocked on the door.

"Enter." His familiar voice that came through the door made me smile, boy was he in for a shocker.

I opened the door and stepped in the room before closing the door behind me. In front of me stood Alexei, with his back to me, shirtless with bandages wrapped around his right shoulder.

That idiot.

"What about coming back in one piece did you not understand?" He turned to my surprised by my voice. "Isabelle?" I slowly nodded my head as I dropped my coat off on a chair next to me.

"Charles wrote to me and told me that you were injured, and I got worried so I-"

Before I could finish he had me wrapped in his arms as he swung me around in a hug. "Alexei, your arm!"

I shouted as soon as he set me on my feet again. "What if you reopened the wound, huh?" He shook his head with a smile before resting his chin on the top of my head.

"Shut up would ya? I'm just happy to see you, here, after 5 weeks is that so bad? It's been over a month, I just wanted you to relax. Besides, it's not that bad." I shook my head at him as I reached up and poked it.

"If it isn't that bad then why did you wince at the slightest touch?" He looked away and sighed, his face still holding the cringe from pain.

"Sit down." I ordered as I pulled out of his arms. He looked back at me ready to argue, but the look in my eyes told him otherwise.

"Fine." He sighed in annoyance as he walked over and sat in a chair that was stationed next to a desk. I nodded before walking over and unwrapping the bandages.

"What are you doing?" He watched my every move but didn't dare stop me from working. "I'm making sure you didn't make it any worse. After all, you got shot." I responded as a pool of dirty bandages formed by my feet.

When I finally finished taking all of the gauze off I wasn't surprised o see that the skin around the wound was red and aggravated. "Have you been wearing a sling?"

He looked away and shook his head instead of answering like a grown-up.

"Well that explains why it's so red and irritated. You need to wear the sling from now on, understand?" He nodded still not looking at me.

I grabbed some clean bandages from a nearby table, but I couldn't help but let my fingers prod around the stitches to see how tender the skin had become. His dark blue orbs finally looked at me with a calculating look, his eyes never leaving mine even when he began to cringe a bit. He grimaced when I poked a particularly tender spot, and finally lost his patience with me. "Make it quick."

I stared at him in shock. My hand froze above his wound as memories flooded my vision.

How did I not notice? How did I not see the resemblance between the boy I saved and the man before me? What have I done?

"As great as that sounds I came here to help." I muttered to myself, but the proximity between us was small -  he heard.

Grabbing my hand, Alexei forced me to stop. His sapphire orbs were wide and confused, probably reflecitng my own emerald orbs.

"You're the girl that saved my life that day in the woods." He spoke through clenched teeth, as if the memory brought him more pain than anything else.

"You're the boy that saved me from facing certain death." I opened my mouth to say something else when a blast went off and we flew across the room and onto the floor.

"Shit." Charles ran in while coughing, a deep cut running down the side of his face. "Alexei, Cinderella, we have some company."