Chapter 58

The next few days were horrid. I refused to give Vale more than three words, two of which included ‘my king’ at the end of everything. More than once had he yelled at me but I took it with a blank, bored expression. This pups anger couldn’t scare me. Goddess, no. I wondered sometimes if he had ever seen Auri truly angry before. She was a force that would leave me breathless with fear.

If he required a deeper conversation, I was short, straight to the point and sometimes sarcastic. The change seemed to shift the whole castle in the awkwardness between us.

I didn’t give a single shit though. Neither did Rydere. We both sometimes needed time and he would take over, letting me retreat. He treated Vale even more sarcastically that I did. Which, of course, ticked Vale off even more. But I was angry and I felt like I had to bottle all my pain. Bottle everything and even when I tried to reach out to Bryan or Simon, there was nothing. Morgan had called me, giving me a status update on Ezekiel.