The Royal Betrayal

Chapter 26

"Where is she?" Kaleb's father Robert whispered to him. The two stood at the end of the alter awaiting Tanya's descend down the aisle.

The ballroom of the Palace had been set up so beautiful and elegantly. Every seat in the large space was filled with guests known to Kaleb mostly and very few to Tanya. But speaking of the blushing bride, she had to yet make her presence known making it over half an hour that the ceremony had begun, and the guests were all shifting in their seats in anticipation some constantly glancing back and forth between the closed glass doors covered in cream colored silk drapes, and the groom who was growing anxious and worried.

Kaleb shifted uncomfortably and irritated, he glanced to his cousin who stood next to him looking towards the opposite end of the aisle nonchalantly. Kaleb narrowed his eyes towards Oliver then looked around the crowd. Natalia sat looking ahead with a bored expression, Tanya's aunts and uncles sat with the two cooing children with worry etched along their faces, while the king looked aggravated while the queen looked to be worried and fearful as she in the front row alongside her husband, which to Kaleb wasn't a surprise.

"I'm going to go and see what's taking her so long." Tanya's aunt Dana said to Kaleb who nodded as she handed her husband Chloe. Dana sped walked down the aisle, and Kaleb was beginning to believe Tanya had gotten nervous and just needed a minute. Well that was until Dana came back and beckoned Kaleb and his father to come to the end of the alter hurriedly.

Kaleb looked to her and ran down the aisle worried about his bride to be. Dana was panting and looking so worried she could've fainted at any given moment.

"She's gone." Dana said through pants. "She left this note."  She handed Kaleb the folded piece of paper addressed to him and he looked at it confusedly.

"'Dear Kaleb, I'm sorry. Love Tanya." He read aloud. This didn't sound right, he looked to his father and to his cousin Oliver who he didn't know had followed behind.

"She's left you?" Robert questioned in disbelief.

Kaleb rushed as fast as he could to the room Tanya had dressed in, there had to be some type of explanation to this, she wouldn't just up and leave him and her two children, she wasn't that type of person...right?

~*~

Tanya grunted as she slowly lifted her body off the cold hard concrete floor of the dark room she'd been thrown in, she couldn't see anything but the dark, and she tried to put her arms out to find an exit or even a light to the room. When she felt along the walls and failed to find a light switch she resorted to feeling towards the ceiling and thankfully she'd found a light chain that she pulled causing the room to be filled with brightness. Tanya shut her eyes to the new light, and she looked around to come faced with an empty room; the only thing around to be a door on the opposite side of the room. The walls were even concrete, she looked up to where she'd been tossed and seen the double wooden doors shut. Tanya tried to push the doors up but she had no avail something seemed to be sitting atop of her only chance of the exit.

She looked to the door and made her way in her large overbearing wedding dress, she tripped over her flats, so she tossed them to the side continuing to the door in determination. She jiggled the doorknob and when it wouldn't open she tried to ram it down with her body. After many failed attempts she gave it one more thrust and the door slammed open causing some of the wood to break off where the lock and the door frame connected.

She panted tiresomely and walked through the dimly lit long hallway. She limped holding herself up along the walls making her way through. Just how long had she'd been out?

When she'd made it to a crossroads she'd heard voices, she was beyond filled with relief when she'd recognized one of them. She made her way to the sound of the voices, and a brighter light came shining through the hallway. She'd come face to face with a small metal ventilation hole looking into one of the rooms in the palace. She tried to move the metal vent screen around but there was no use. She looked through the designed metal seeing it to be Oliver's office, the same office she'd been in when she had brought him the papers signing over his parental rights to Chloe.