I'm No Cinderella

Chapter 37

**This is the last full chapter! If you enjoy please leave me a comment or vote!**

Forever

My eyes fluttered open, and I found myself tangled in the dark sheets of Luca's bed. He was slumped over in a chair beside it, asleep where he had been sitting the night before, keeping watch over me as if I might disappear again.

I stretched out my arms, wincing at the strain on my bandaged arm, and he jolted awake at the small noise. His eyes scanned the room for threats, before falling on me. The tension went out of his shoulders. "Good morning," he murmured, voice husky from sleep, "how are you feeling today?"

I shrugged, giving him a reassuring smile, "Better than yesterday." The cut on my arm certainly hurt, but it was my energy that was taking the longest to return after the way the vampires had drained it. My mate had healed almost immediately, but while the gift had allowed the blood to clot in the cut along my arm, buying Matteo the time to get me to safety while Luca defended our retreat from both princes, that was the extent of my luck. Three days had passed, and still I could feel the fog in my brain, the fatigue in my muscles. But, I was alive, and I was with Luca.

The man that I loved.

Forever.

That sweet fact alone was enough to give me the drive to push through the discomfort. He had come for me, he had nearly died trying to rescue me from the hands of the vampire princes. They had done well to distract Luca the night of my abduction, and might have made it away with enough of a head start to accomplish their goal if not for one small oversight. They hadn't accounted for one activity in my routine that only one other person had known of. 

Now there were two who knew of it, because when Eden had found my room empty, with a cooling cup of unfamiliar tea lying on the little table, she had immediately suspected the worst. 

On nights that Luca and Matteo were held up on business, she and I would always play cards together. Our little secret. One that she had risked her job in revealing to her alpha when she informed him of my disappearance. It was because of her that the Geistreich princes plan to be hours away before Gianluca discovered me missing was foiled. It was because of her that the alpha and beta were able to get to me before I bled out chained to that cold, hard seat. It was because of her that the princes had died in that underground room along the border of our kingdoms, and not myself.

The treaty may have very well been forfeit, but I owed my life to Eden.

And to Matteo.

And to my mate, for so many more reasons than just saving me from Eric and Frey.

It didn't matter who his father had been, because I knew without a doubt that Gianluca was going to be a great king. And I wanted to be by his side to watch it all unfold. To watch him grow and to grow with him.

Because I hoped that one day I could be a queen worthy to be by his side.

"Do you feel well enough to go downstairs this afternoon?" He asked, scooping the hand of my uninjured arm into his grasp and pressing a soft kiss to my knuckles. "There have been quite a few people awaiting your recovery who would love to see you."

I pushed myself up straighter, wincing again as the motion pulled at my stitches. He rushed to my side, attempting to assist me, but the damage had already been done. "Who's here?" I asked in an attempt to distract him and wipe the worried frown from his brow.

"Well, both of our families for starters," he said, "but the cooks have been asking after you also, from what I hear." I nodded, lips pulling up in a slight smile at the thought that the cooks had come to care about me enough to check in on my recovery. Perhaps I had gained more of their trust in all of my afternoons in the kitchen than I had thought "And you seem to have made quite the impression on Prince Kristof as well."