Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 44009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
I reached down and grabbed the note, unfolding it and reading over the single line of text.
Go behind the shop
I shouldn’t trust it. It could be a trap, but something told me to go behind the shop and see who had passed this note. I wouldn’t ever be able to stop thinking about this if I didn’t go investigate. I left the dress in the fitting room and slipped out of the boutique without the store worker seeing, walking around the side of the building until I reached the small lot in the back where the dumpsters were.
At first, I didn’t see anyone, but a figure caught the corner of my eye as they emerged from the shadows cloaking the brick exterior of the back of the building. I whipped around and faced Sol, my breath immediately leaving me.
“Sol? What are you doing here?” I asked him as I glanced around. I hadn’t seen him in a while… besides in my dreams.
“I needed to see you,” Sol replied as he walked toward me.
I took a step back at first, still feeling conflicted about what he told me. He was supposed to kill me. He claimed that he didn’t want to, but what if he’d changed his mind? What if he turned against me?
“Why?” I asked, telling myself to be cautious, even if I wanted to get closer to him. Zephyr wasn’t here to protect me if something went wrong.
Sol swallowed hard, his eyes darting around. He looked tired and tense with dark crescents beneath his eyes. His sleeveless shirt seemed to hang off his body instead of being fitted.
“Arvo is telling Zephyr lies about me. He’s trying to get Zephyr to outcast me, to remove me from the Kings,” Sol told me.
I narrowed my eyes in confusion.
“Why would he do that?” I asked him. I knew that there was tension and a lack of trust between them right now, but I didn’t understand where all of this came from. Sol had always been mysterious and one to do his own thing, but Zephyr and Argo believed that he was up to something. Maybe they were right, but Sol looked genuinely concerned.
“It all comes down to power, right?” Sol replied. “And he doesn’t want to trust me with any. Maybe he’ll try to take it away from Zephyr too.”
“That’s crazy and you know it,” I said. Arvo wouldn’t turn against Zephyr. I didn’t believe it.
Sol shrugged as he shook his head.
“You don’t know them like you think you do,” he said as he stepped closer to me again.
This time, I couldn’t move. My eyes were locked onto his, and they were so easy to slip into. The closer he got, the quicker my heart pounded. Why did my feelings have to be so complicated? Why did I have to get hooked onto these Kings?
“What do you want me to do about that?” I asked him. I hardly had any say. I was just the King’s girl. That meant I could hang on Zephyr’s arm and share his room. That didn’t allow me to sway any decisions that they made.
“I need you to convince them to let me back in, to trust me again. I need this, Biba,” Sol said in a pleading tone. He reached out to take my hand, sending a jolt of adrenaline through me.
“I… I don’t know if I can do that,” I told him, trying not to focus so much on how warm and strong his hand felt around mine. I was being asked to do quite a lot of things for other people lately. I didn’t want to be a pawn in someone’s game, a puppet for their own use.
But this was Sol. He seemed to care for me, to look out for me. He had plenty of chances to kill me, but he hadn’t ever even hurt me. It was hard to imagine him doing that, especially as he gazed at me with soft eyes. Why did he have to ask something so difficult of me?
I was already trying to keep Zephyr from knowing about my blooming feelings for Sol. If I tried to convince Zephyr to trust Sol again, he might figure out that something was up. It was a huge risk for both me and Sol, and I was afraid to take it. I was always walking on glass, waiting to make the wrong step to shatter everything around me.
“Please,” Sol said as he pressed my hand against his chest over his heart. “I wouldn’t ask this of you unless it was very important.”
I believed him. I didn’t think that he would ever purposefully put me in danger unless he absolutely needed to. I was afraid to ask why this was so dire. I had too many secrets in my head from other people and from myself. I wasn’t sure if I could handle it anymore.