Chapter Song: Dreams by The Cranberries
-Her-
He was pulling her toward him, asking her to stay with him. In his room, on his bed .
Alarm bells were sounding so loudly in her head it made it hard to hear anything else. She knew she shouldn't have come, knew that he wasn't fully awake when she started speaking to him, and yet... She was just so drawn to him. Something in her gut, down past the initial feeling of danger, said that he was her future.
The clash of head and heart was warring within her as he sat up and snatched his hand away quickly.
"I'm sorry, I-" his breath came fast and shallow.
Suddenly she was hit with a wave of clarity.
"Did you mean it?"
He was so silent and still she could swear she heard his heart thumping in his chest. Something came over him for a moment. It was fleeting, but it made his eyes change from honey brown to a green, his pupils dilated and dark making the irises appear to be deep forest green.
The warning in her head was calling out to her heart again but then-
"Yes. I meant every word."
A breath wooshed from her without permission. It gave her away.
She wanted him, more than she wanted her freedom or anonymity. Her heart was singing. And yet there was a pain in her chest.
"How?" she forced the small word out from between collapsing ribs.
"Just like I said. We'll run away together."
And with a few words he healed her.
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It was so difficult for her to stay quiet and keep up appearances. She had to pack a small bag and hide it somewhere Melike and the cleaning staff couldn't find it. She also had to adamantly reassure the doctor and her father that she was fully healed and didn't have any negative effects from her little fall. She needed everyone off her back, but for them to not suspect that she was distancing herself.
Instructions came to her at night in the form of a note slipped under her door. She snatched it up right away to read and then burn it, restraining herself from pushing the door open to find him and pull him in the room with her.
Did you pack a bathing suit? You'll need it to swim in the sea.
She sucked in a breath and clutched the paper to her breast. Tears welled in her eyes.
"The sea." she whispered reverently.
He was making her dreams come true one by one. And in a few hours when the rest of the palace was asleep, he would whisk her away to have the adventure she'd always dreamed of.
She burned the letter in the lamp that rested above her desk then carefully took her bag out of it's hiding place and packed her most flattering swimming suit. She dressed in a pair of long cotton pants and a simple shirt, something that would look like pajamas to any palace staff that might be awake but doubled as an airport outfit.
She lay in her bed, tucked in and appearing to be asleep, with her bag and shoes slipped under the bed skirt. Her phone was charging, the alarm set. She'd have to leave it there when she left for the same reason they had communicated through paper notes, everything was linked to her father's account and anything could be traced. She lay still, her eyes closed, but inside her mind was racing.
