Page 19 of Kingdom of Betrayal and Unknown

I shouldn’t even be considering being with him. It would never work out with him. Our relationship would have to be a secret.

Stop.

I need to stop thinking about that.

“Do you hate my kind?” he asks again.

My mouth goes dry as he stares into my eyes. He smiles like he knows the answer I can’t say. I shouldn’t feel anything but hatred toward them. They are beneath us humans, as they should be. They are slaves and nothing else.

But he’s different.

I feel a pull toward him.

Sparks dance across my skin as he looks at me. As he touches me.

I feel like I’ve known him for my whole life, but we’ve just met.

I’ve felt pleasure as he spoke to me, touched me. I’ve never felt that before.

That’s not hate.

No, it’s far from hate.

It’s something I shouldn’t be feeling toward him.

I shake my head. “I need to go,” I whisper.

Turning around, I slowly start to walk away from him, but everything in me is screaming to go back to him. To ask him questions and demand answers. To beg him to touch me again, whisper in my ear. But I force myself to walk, knowing I can’t do it, shouldn’t do it.

My mother needs me back to finish the rest of the chores for the day, to prepare for the baby and winter.

“I’m proud of you,” he gently praises.

My steps falter as he speaks. Tears prick my eyes at the words I’ve desperately been wanting to hear for years. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything to be proud of me.”

Though I can’t help but let his words affect me. My heart flutters as his words sink in. When was the last time someone said they were proud of me?

Never.

I don’t know if anyone has ever told me they were proud of me. His words pierce my heart, like a dagger sliding in and slowly twisting… but in a good way. He actually meant those words.

“I’ve watched you. Ever since we made eye contact that day, I’ve watched you whenever I could. I know how hard you’re working to help your parents. I know you have a sibling on the way. I know you are stepping up when you don’t have to, when you haven’t been asked to. You are doing so much to help out, and no one has ever appreciated it, or told you how proud they were of you. But I have. I’ve seen everything.”

It’s like his voice is right behind me, but as I turn around to see, he’s not. He’s taken several steps toward me, but we’re so far apart.

“I’m proud of you,” he repeats, his voice sincere. I blink away the tears, letting his words affect me more than I should allow them to. But it seems like he really means those words and has seen everything I’ve done. “You’ll make an excellent queen one day.”

My heart sinks as he says those words. He knows. He knows about the prince pursuing me.

I glare at him, hating those last words. “You don’t know anything.”

“So tell me,” he offers.

“I don’t have time for this,” I mumble, giving him my back once again and walking away.

Who does he think he is, talking to me like that? But I can’t help but cherish those words in my heart.

He’s proud of me.