Chapter 0137
He laughs, a boisterous sound that even makes Nellie smile. “You are so smart. Maybe you should be ruling a kingdom.”
I frown. “Not if I have to live in a castle. They’re too big. There’s too many stairs. Not enough elevators.”
“Those are all good points,” he concedes. “But I do have to tell you that I enjoy my job even if it keeps me from dating. I like to be of service to my kingdom.”
“You can be of service and find love. It can’t be that hard.”
I don’t understand why adults have to make everything so complicated for themselves. They tell themselves they can’t do something when they obviously can. They won’t do something which is completely different. I think they should be honest with themselves more.
“I could try. Or maybe I just need to be more like Kane and fall in love with my own feeder-”
Willow gets up abruptly, nearly knocking over the pitcher of juice. “I have to go. Sorry, Lola. I’ll see your later at the library.”
She walks away quickly and is out of the rose garden before any of us can react. Rainer gets up and follows her.
Rainer
Willow moves faster than I expect. I have to run to catch up to her. She doesn’t acknowledge me, and is dead set on getting back in the castle before I reach her. She speeds up once I’m walking beside her, trying to lose me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Did I do something to upset you?”
“No,” she answers, briskly.
“Are you sure? Cause it feels like you’re trying to run away from me.”
“I am not.”
“Slow down then.”
She doesn’t. “I have to get back to work. Not all of us are close friends with the king and can do whatever
we want.”
Annoyance makes me speed up, and I block her path, preventing her from moving forward. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” she replies, agitated, “Just let me get back to the library.”
“If it’s nothing, you wouldn’t be acting this way, so it’s clearly something.”
She tries to duck past me, but I continue to block her way. I’m bigger than her in every way. She can’t move around me that easily. “Willow, just tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.”
“There’s no fixing anything.”
+25 BONU
Chapter 0137
“Is the flirting too much? I can tone it down. Do you prefer courting? I can do that. Just tell me what
want.”
you
I grab her waist to keep her still. She viscerally reacts and starts pushing me way, dropping her book in the struggle. “I want you to leave me alone!” she exclaims,
Her eyes are wide and terrified. Something about her expression feels familiar. I can’t remember why. When have we done this before?
She takes advantage of my stunned silence and rushes around me. Her skirt billows around her as she makes her way to the castle and back to her safe haven. I pick up the book she dropped from the ground. Absent–mindedly, I wipe dirt off the leather cover.
I’m trying to catalogue all my past interactions with this woman, and I can’t remember anything significant. I avoided the library until recently, so it’s not like we interacted much before her promotion. When she had been a maid or a cook
she had mostly stayed out of my way and quietly did her work. She never drew any attention to herself.
She’s a pretty face amongst a sea of pretty faces. With her brown hair, blue eyes, and red lips, she is undeniably attractive, but so are many of the female vampires in the castle. She had just been another face in the crowd until recently when I got to know her a little more. I only noticed her when Lola started frequently hanging out at the library. She’s smart, helpful, and very good with Lola. All of those things make her attractive to me.
The question I can’t find the answer to is what did I do to make her hate me? And why is she scared shitless of me?
