Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 116570 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116570 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 583(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
“Your Highness, give her to us!”
I held on.
“Your Highness! She needs to go!” They ripped Odette from my arms and placed her body on a stretcher, immediately putting oxygen to her face, then put her in the back. I tried to get in, but they held back.
“Sir, let the doctor go! She needs the doctor!” Iskandar yelled at me.
“What is her BP?”
“Where is her pulse?”
I watched as the ambulance doors closed and tires screeched over the gravel, rushing out of the palace gates. It was all so fast.
“Thelma, get the car! We will follow from behind. Everyone shut down the palace! No one gets in or out! No one!” Iskandar barked out orders, still holding on to me.
However, I pushed him off.
“Sir?”
Stepping forward, I stared at the crown that was now on the gravel. It had fallen off Odette’s head and to the ground. I had seen her face. I’d seen her collapse, and I’d seen her get into the ambulance on a stretcher. Yet it never occurred to me. It never hit me. Only at seeing her crown on the ground did I realize—
She was dying.
“Ugh.” I gasped out, stumbling back.
“Sir!”
That familiar feeling of dread and pain that came over me at losing Arty returned once more.
“Odette!” I screamed.
“Sir!”
“Do not touch me!” I hollered, shaking him, looking around. “Where is my car? Where is my fucking car?”
“It’s here!” He pointed, and I was running toward it.
“We’re going now, sir. Get in!” Wolfgang already held the door open for me.
Odette. Odette, you better not fucking die. “Please don’t. Please.”
He hadn’t moved in an hour. He stood like he was held to the ground by invisible roots. His head down, his arms wrapped around himself, barely breathing as we waited in the private wing of the ER—just him, Thelma, and me. Iskandar was outside the ER with the other guards, speaking to the palace. It was just like when Prince Arthur had died. No one wanted to believe it had happened. Everyone was kicking themselves as they tried to think about what they could have done better.
The truth was I did not know Prince Arthur. I was sad, but I’d never spoken to him or had any of the deep connections that other people did. Everyone had some story about Prince Arthur, but he was just the Adelaar to me, my future king, whom I respected and wished well. So I was upset he was gone, but it didn’t gut me. Iskandar pretended as if nothing bothered him, but Prince Arthur’s death had hit him hard. He was much stricter with everyone, even himself.
I tried to think of how I would feel if Odette died, but I couldn’t even finish. It hurt too much. They were our rulers. We weren’t supposed to get to close, but we did. She was important to me. She was my friend. And I had stabbed that EpiPen into her as hard as I could. As her assistant, it was my job to know as much about her as I could, so when I had read that she had a severe peanut allergy, I carried two with me at all times. I didn’t think anything of it. I never expected to have to use it because everyone in the palace had been informed peanuts were banned. The kitchen knew. So how in the hell did it end up on her plate?
“Your Highness?”
Alert, I stepped forward as the doctor finally came out of the room. For the first time, Gale looked up. His eyes were red, and tears dropped from them. Quickly, he moved to stand in front of the four doctors in front of him.
“How is she?”
“She went into anaphylaxis shock,” the female doctor said gently.
“That was not my question,” Gale repeated gently. “How is she, Doctor?”
The woman glanced at me and then Thelma. “We should speak in private—”
“We are in private. Please, say it.”
“She will recover.”
Gale exhaled, releasing his arms.
“However...”
“However?” he questioned.
“She lost the child.”
I froze.
So did he for a moment.
“What child?”
The doctor looked back at him, confused. “Did you not know she was pregnant? No more than a few weeks now.”
Gale stared at her, then hung his head again. It took him a moment, but he nodded, swallowing slowly before speaking. “Thank you. I hope we can count on your discretion.”
“Of course, sir,” she replied. “She will need a lot of rest. We sedated her, and she will need intravenous fluids and oxygen for some time. If not for the injections of epinephrine, she would have died, sir. You may go in, but visits should be kept to a minimum.”
Gale cracked his jaw to the side and nodded. “Thank you, Doctor.”
She nodded, and the rest of them stepped aside, allowing him to go inside. I wanted to go as well, but again, I was not family. I was the staff. So, I looked in from the door window to see her lying on a bed, intubated with a ventilator to help her breathe with IVs coming out of her arm. Gale slowly walked up to the bed, and being safely behind the doors with only her in front of him, he fell to his knees, weeping.