What if I say we're getting closer to the end of the story? ;)
BRAN It was like people had somehow heard Bran's thoughts, that he planned to work on a future with Maria, and they—his enemies—had all set out to give him reasons why he couldn't have it. This was what Bran was thinking as he partially listened to what the man who had just entered his throne room, was saying."Can you just give me a summary of what you've been saying?" Bran cut him off, suddenly so exhausted. What he'd woken up to as a bright, beautiful, day—a day he'd felt the happiest he had in a very long time—had turned into one of the most disappointing.And it was still morning.The man's irritation was clear in his expression but Bran didn't give two fucks. He was the one that was being disturbed. Bran was the one that was being asked to give away his fucking mate, not this messenger—who was obviously a sorcerer.Speaking of, "Who let him into the castle?" Bran asked the two guards standing by the wall, just now remembering that he'd placed a ban on the Sorceri entering hi
MARIA "I'd like to go for a walk—""Call for your maid. I'll have the guards—""—with you."A pause. "I don't go for walks.""I gathered as much, which is why I'm asking you to give it a try. With me.""No."Maria sighed and fell forward, leaning against the chair in front of her and bracing her hands on it as she watched Bran write. The past few days had been joyful for her. She'd never have thought that it was possible for Bran to be caring, but apparently, he was. It was new and strange, but it was joyful and it filled Maria's days with light. And they'd been sleeping together ever since. That morning—after he'd buried his face between her legs, just like he'd said—when she'd started to search for her discarded gown from the previous night on shaky legs, he'd asked her what she was doing and when she'd told him that she was looking for her gown so that she could leave, he traced to her, lifted her off the ground and carried her back to the bed, telling her that she would sleep in
MARIA "Maria!" Bran called and she heard the light sounds of his steps as he came towards her. She didn't turn to look at him. She didn't want to take her eyes off the cat, not even for one second, for fear that it would run away. It was a small scruffy thing with its hair going every-which-way. It had to have had an owner before because it didn't run away as she approached, even though it looked quite catious, and it had obviously been out here for a while now—from how dirty it's once probably rich white fur looked—but it was letting her get close which meant it wouldn't try to harm her, right? Kneeling on the bare sand, Maria extended her hand to it hesitantly, expecting it to cower and run away even though she didn't want it to. She exhaled in relief when it didn't, in fact, run away. It's slanted eyes dropped to her outstretched hand—her open palm to be exact—and it blinked. It's eyes lifted to hers, then it let out a little 'meow' before taking a small step towards her. Trus
BRANHe moved on auto-pilot, tracing Maria to his room, then tracing to meet Edgar outside. When he'd seen Edgar's text, he'd only been able to think about two things; getting Maria to safety—as far away from whatever was happening as possible—and hurrying to meet Edgar. From the tone of his message, this was urgent and therefore should be treated as such. This was the message he'd sent:Edgar: Something is happening downtown and it demands your attention. We're outside the castle.The reason why Bran kept his phone on him always, was because of times like this. When he was far away from the easy reach of messengers and it could take them a while to get to him. He didn't have much use for the phone—apart from when he wanted to send texts or make important calls—but having it on him always, had proved helpful more times than he could count. Like now. Chaos.Utter chaos. That was what Bran met in the yard of his castle and he had never been more thankful that his room didn't have a
BRAN"Strap her to the chairs! Hold her hands down!"A man held Maria's hand down on the wooden table and another forced her on the chair in front of it, bending to strap her legs to it while the other forced her hands to the table top. Cold fear gripped her unlike anything she had ever felt before and it paralyzed her, making her limbs weak and useless and unable to fight off the men. They were no doubt wondering why she was not fighting back, but in all honesty, she didn't care about that. She was asking herself two questions right now and why she wasn't fighting back wasn't one of them. Why were they strapping her to the table? What did they plan on doing to her? There should have probably been a third—why was her own father asking his men to handle her like that?But she knew the answer and that was precisely why she wasn't bothering to ask herself that question. Her father was cruel, hands down the cruelest man she had ever met, and he did not care whether she was his blood o
MARIA She'd barely seen him yesterday. After he'd woken up from a dream of her memories and after she'd coaxed him back to sleep, she had woken up to an empty bed. She had not even been surprised because it wasn't the first time she was waking up to find him gone already, but it stung nonetheless. Why was he so hellbent on not spending time with her? It had been over a week already and she knew that he was trying to adjust, to fit into the man he now was when he was with her. She, too, was adjusting because, hell, this man had once been her captor. He'd locked her up in a cell for ages, restricted her from having baths—which should be considered an evil on its own—attempted to cut off her hand—she still bore the mark—spoke to her in a degrading manner and to top it all off, he'd taken her from her home. Sure, here was a million times better than her home and she'd rather be here than be with Ariti, but she was only making that decision now. He'd taken her from her home without h
MARIA "Stop staring at me like that."A perfectly curved brow lifted. "Like what?"After they had finally managed to drag themselves out of the shower—turned out Maria had not needed to seduce him much after all—he'd dried her up before drying himself. She'd wanted to do it herself but apparently, Bran was in a peculiar mood and he'd insisted on doing it. He had wanted to dress her too, but Maria had smacked his hand away, telling him that she wasn't disabled. She had no idea why he would want to willingly dress her when he would not be getting anything out of it, so she tried to imagine herself clothing him. Picking out his outfit and helping him wear them one by one. The amount of pleasure she got just from imagining it alone, had her wondering how much more she would get from the actual act.She'd settled for him picking her outfit instead and Bran had walked into their shared closet—yes, they now shared a closet—with an excited glint in his eyes. She'd laughed when he'd come out
BRAN The silence in the room was deafening. Bran sat with his men in his courtroom and for all the five minutes they had been in here, no man had opened his mouth to speak. Of course no one had said anything. They were waiting for him to address them. To kick off the meeting before they would each pipe in with their various suggestions because, even though the activities of the past week threatened to contradict it, he was still their king and they would always wait for his orders before putting anything into motion.But honestly, he didn't know how he was going to kick this meeting off. He didn't know what he was going to tell them.Sure, he knew what the aim of this meeting was. The people weren't happy with the attacks and they were starting to become increasingly agressive, banging on the castle's gates and demanding that he did something about the lives that had been lost and the injured people that were still healing. He felt guilty as all fucks because everything that was ha