The same sorrow-filled expression.
The same floppy black hair.
The same intense blue eyes.
“My name is Rionan. I am Xanthian. I am Lord of the West of Xanthia,” he began. Alianna felt like she was going to be sick. “I come from a Realm separated from your own. Whenyou found me on the beach that day, I had travelled here. I have come for a way to try to save my people from a terror that seeks to conquer our land.”
Alianna felt her legs give way beneath her as she slumped to the ground. He rushed forward to scoop her up.
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, pushing herself back along the ground.
Rionan stepped away again, putting his hands up.
“Please be careful of the glass,” he pleaded. Alianna continued to stare at him, stomach churning.
Rionan went on. “My homelands – the lands that I am responsible for – were under attack from an opposing Xanthian Lord. He only needs to seize control of one more territory, and he will be unstoppable. He has done such horrible things. I came here to find a way to stop him. I was…brought here. But, I found you.”
Alianna felt last night’s pizza rising in her stomach, and she scanned the room, not quite sure what she was searching for. Her eyes snagged on a lamp, a dressing gown, and her mobile phone.
Slowly rising to her feet, she didn’t take her eyes off of Rionan as she stepped across the room to where the dressing gown lay. Picking it up, she wrapped it around herself, tying it at the waist. She pocketed her mobile phone and grabbed her bag from the sofa.
Alianna fled from the room, leaving Rionan standing with a shocked expression on his face and an aching feeling in his heart.
20
Two Days
Two days passed.
Two full days of Rionan running through the city at night, on the verge of ripping it apart for answers.
Two days of the most painful feeling in his chest.
Two days of hating himself for everything that had happened. The feelings he had allowed the girl to develop for him when he knew he had beenlyingto her.
Two days of wishing that he could find whatever he was here for, so that he could go home, and she could be rid of him for the rest of her life.
Two nights of the most awful dreams. He woke up each morning drenched in sweat, room ruined, panting and shaking. He had stopped asking housekeeping to fix his room for him, discretion be damned.
And two days of not being able to shake the thought of Alianna from his mind. He felt as though something had been ripped from him when she fled out of the hotel room that night. His chest ached in a way that he had not felt in his lifetime.
Despite his urgency to get back to Xanthia, every part of his body yearned for her. Not just sexually. They were past that. It was like a part of his very being had been given to her that night, and she had disappeared with it, taking his happiness with her.
He knew what was happening between them from the moment she looked at him under that archway in the gardens.
That was exactly where Rionan found himself sitting now, as he pulled out his mobile phone and began to type.
Rionan
18:44:
Ali,
I need you to understand how sorry I am for everything. I never meant to hurt you. Never meant to frighten you. I need you to know that I would never harm you. You are far, far too precious to me now.
I know that you will want nothing to do with me. But I have to say these words to you. I have to say them somehow, even if I cannot be with you to say them. Even if I cannot hold you again, look upon your beautiful face, lose myself in those hazel eyes one last time.
I came here a desperate male. A male who was afraid. Lost. Desperately searching for what I needed.
