The King's Prey

Chapter 22 | Cruel Beauty

Alexithymia • [uh-lek-suh-thai-me-uh]
The inability to express your feelings.

꧁ ꧂

~ Anastasia ~

Somehow, the remainder of the evening is quiet and normal. It provides the atmosphere in Samuel's house with a sense of tranquility—something I didn't think I needed until the aftermath of this night truly began to sink in. But the peace is helping me think with a clearer mind. More importantly, it's helping me process these newfound emotions I'm experiencing.

After drying myself off from the much-needed bath, Samuel carries me to my bedroom and retrieves some fresh clothes from the dresser. His presence is refreshing compared to Liam's. But neither of us chooses to speak for a long while as if tugging on the already taut wire tied between us will pull us back down into that dark abyss of raw emotion and truth.

A part of me genuinely enjoyed it, though—the honesty and realness of him. Not being hidden from that. But I know there is only so much he'll allow me to see.

I dress while Samuel excuses himself to take another phone call—something I can only assume has to do with the captured rogues. The faint murmurs of his voice echoing from beyond the closed door of this bedroom is as much as my ears will allow me to hear. I remind myself of what he said earlier, though. How he's not intentionally keeping information from me. That it's just a matter of circumstance.

I circulate a breath through my lungs.

Patience, I tell myself. Have some patience.

With this reminder, I manage to not overthink any of it.

Once I'm clothed—except for the sock on my left foot, which I'm still struggling to put on with my injury—my eyes wander the space of my bedroom and find an unrecognizable pile of novels sitting on the nightstand closest to the door. The lamp beside them illuminates their covers with warmth. When I inspect them more closely, though, I quickly realize that it's the same stack I've been working on getting through these last several days. But I can't recall ever bringing them up here.

Without warning, a small smile begins to spread over my lips as the realization hits me. This must've been Samuel's doing. And I'm guessing these were brought up after I was done with my bath.

I scoot over and search through the titles, finding the bookmarked one that I was last indulging in—a story filled with mystery and thrill. Most of the plot is partly childish and predictable, but it was the only decent entertainment I had these last several days. It was the escapism I craved when my nights were filled with fever dreams and restlessness.

I adjust the large pillows against the headboard of the bed and settle myself into their plushness. Flipping open the page I last left on, it takes only a few minutes of reading until the world around me falls away and I'm pulled into the plot. Even the distant muffled words of Samuel's phone call aren't enough to interrupt this distraction. Time passes on its own, all in a manner that makes it distorted and blurred. I feel myself drift off at one point from exhaustion while enduring a droning, endless part of the storyline.

With hooded eyes, it's not until the faint recognition of a shadow casting over my body lures me out of my near-sleep trance. The book folded over my lap is pulled from my grasp, causing my eyes to blink several times before I realize who's responsible for the action.