The Knight's Rose

Chapter Thirty-One ~ The Scent of His Rose ~ Part Two

Chapter Thirty-One ~ The Scent of His Rose ~ Part Two

All Rights Reserved.

⤝O⤞

Nikolai's POV

"My father borrowed money from Mr.Gales to pay for Rose's mother's medicine. It was expensive but it worked for a little while and gave us a sense of security that she would be okay. That everything would go back to normal. But then, one day we just wake up and she's... dead. Rose was the one who found her. I don't know for how long she stood in that room, knowing that her mother wasn't alive anymore, but it was enough for me to go check on her.

"We took care of the funeral proceedings, father buried our mother here in Chovatia and then our lives settled into a melancholy period where the house was just silent and cold. Then Mr. Gales was knocking at our door, demanding to be paid back. My father tried to reason with him, but Mr. Gales didn't have an inch of mercy stitched in his blood. He forced our father to sell our home and move to the farmlands next to his home."

Lily's face switched to a downtrodden one, her lips trembling.

"It was hard at first. We missed mother terribly and I really believed that our life wouldn't be able to go on without her. But it did," Lily added. She curled up her legs, holding them to her chest. "It did, didn't it? We lived every day as if we were just passing through it. Same morning routines, same worries, same horrid reminders of what we had lost. After some time, you just grow not to be as hungry as you were before. Then going to sleep hungry wasn't one of the biggest problems we had."

Prim held Lily tighter, soothing the young girl.

My heart broke at the thought of them going to sleep hungry. Memories of whenever I held Rose, her thinning waist, her tiny arms, flooded my mind and I wished that I knew then. If I had known, things would have been so different.

So so different.

"My father came back home one day and he had an excited look on his face that gave us hope. He told us that Mr. Gale was planning for a faster way that would allow him to pay the debt back. The next day he came with an even more tired face and I cornered him at the stables when my sisters were inside the house. Rose didn't know this but Mr. Gales's 'faster way' of allowing my father to be free was that he gave him Rose."

Prim shivered in disgust at her words.

"It wasn't enough that we had lost our mother, but that monster of a man wanted Rose as his mistress. Despicable."

My body froze at her words before my mind was overcome with furious anger that made me want to destroy something. That disgusting bastard wanted Rose as payment? Immediately, my mind turned to the dark world Rose would have been forced into if her father had agreed. When would I have found her? After he completely ruined and destroyed her beyond sanity? After he took what purity she had left? After the light in her eyes diminished and sentenced to an eternity of painful dullness?

How I wish I could revive him from whatever hell he was in just to kill him again.

And again.

And again.

My fists clenched on their own, trembling against the anger. Burning hot rage laced every cell in my body, a tightening grip on my heart made it almost impossible to breathe. My eyes slightly burned just from the idea of what Rose could have gone through. Philip placed a hand on my shoulder, before leaning over to whisper the words I needed to hear.