Starkissed

Chapter Thirty-Four

As I began to regain consciousness, I cringed at the dryness in my mouth. I felt like I had been asleep for days. My tongue felt like sandpaper. I pried my sleepy eyes open, despite their resistance and blinked rapidly as I adjusted to the dimness in the room.

Gee, this sure felt familiar.

Once my vision had adjusted, I was able to make out that I was in some sort of cave room. I could see my breath coming out as puffs of cloud in the frigid air above my head. Although... I didn't feel cold. And with that realization, my stomach dropped, leaving me feeling sick and anxious as my memories flooded back. I sat up quickly, looking around wildly for Prince Rainier. I was tired of being told who I was going to be with and what I was going to do. Tired of being tossed into situations by men who thought they could control a woman. We were more than baby makers.

It's 2021, damn it. I scrunched my nose up in anger as I exhaled a deep breath of air. I needed to think rationally or things were probably going to end badly for me. And for Kade and Darius, and the President... and well, the whole world really. I needed to get my shit together, and fast.

I got up somewhat wearily as I rose from the bed that I had been placed in. I was having definite flashbacks to my time at the Department of Defense's facility and I did not like it one bit. The traumatic memories I struggled to keep suppressed for so long began to rear their ugly head. I bit my tongue, tasting blood and cringed. Yep, I definitely needed to make a call to my therapist when my life began to regain even a sliver of normalcy again.

Get it together, Emily! I chastised myself angrily. This was no time to work myself into a ball of stress and sadness. I had things I needed to do. And fast.

Thankfully, I still had my clothes on from earlier, including, to my surprise, my shoes. I relaxed a little further, not feeling like I had been tampered with in any way. There would be far more than Hell to pay if I had believed even a strand of hair on my head had been misplaced.

I glanced around the small dark room containing only a bed before I moved towards the dark wooden door. I growled out in annoyance, knowing I was probably locked in here like a prisoner. Or, in the miniscule chance that it was unlocked... If Kyle was involved, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fiery moat surrounding me filled with man-eating leeches.

Slowly, I reached up and twisted the knob. It was so cold to the touch I nearly recoiled in shock. I grit my teeth and my eyes widened in disbelief as the door creaked open despite my doubts. I bit my lip nervously, waiting for something to happen. For some alarm to sound.

But there was nothing.

This felt so much creepier than if I had been locked in here. I knew that this meant that they wanted me to leave this room, but it didn't matter. I had to get out of here. I furrowed my brow and peeked out the doorway, looking side to side.

No fiery moat. No man eating leeches. The hallways seemed clear, although the bitterly cold wind that whistled through the stone passageway made me shiver out of habit. By the time I finally gathered the courage to leave the bedroom, my skin hardly noticed the temperature difference. It was much colder out here, and my hand still tingled where where I had touched the doorknob... but my body was adjusting accordingly. I didn't even want to think about why that might be at the moment, since I was pretty sure that Naurians were accustomed to heat. I all but growled at what that meant for me.

The darkness was manageable here at least; the walls here were lit with lanterns every hundred feet, containing the blue flames I had unfortunately become familiar with when I was first coming in to my powers.