The Princess's Guard ✔️

48

Word Count: 2067

~Kiva

I draw in a sharp breath, training my eyes on Caspian.

Is he dead?

Ark stalks behind my husband, who shudders once, then starts to blink his eyes open. If I weren't bound to the chair by coarse rope, I think I would have collapsed onto the floor with relief.

"What's going on?" He groans, focusing first on me as he winces.

My eyes trace a line of blood that travels down from behind Caspian's ear, down his neck to pool at his collarbone. He's been hit.

He takes in the scene around him. His guards lay dead in pools of blood on the floor, which is a fate he may share with them very shortly.

I know my mate. He is going to taunt him first.

"It's Ark. He's here," I hiss, nodding my head at Caspian. He tenses, unable to turn around to face the man who is about to put him through hell.

"I apologise Kiva. I'll release you soon," Ark assures me, coming back around to stand within both Caspian and I's eyeline.

"If you hurt him..." I warn.

Ark holds a single finger up, showing off those cold leather gloves that usually indicate that he is working. "Shh. Why don't we talk before we get to that?"

"Who are you?" Caspian questions, glaring up at Ark with furious ire.

He knows that Ark was my guard, but he's wondering who Ark truly is. That's not something Ark is going to divulge so simply.

Ark doesn't respond. He just stares him down with the slightest curve to his lips.

"He works for the rebels. He commands them," I tell Caspian.

I tried to warn him. I knew this would happen, and Caspian made me feel as though I was going insane, that I was just being paranoid. And now, our lives are on the line as we wait for this dangerous man to decide what he wants to do to us.

"My guards will have you arrested and you will be charged," Caspian says, as if most of them aren't lying dead around us. "Or I'll kill you."

"Are you both forgetting I'm the one with the knife?" Ark pulls back his jacket slightly, drawing out a knife. It's stained with blood, making my stomach turn.

"Let him go, Ark. You've made your point."

He shakes his head, pacing between the two chairs, hands seated in his pockets.

"I don't think I have," he muses. "See, this isn't just about your marriage to Kiva. And you know that, don't you?"

Caspian frowns, tugging at the rope. The whole left side of his neck is covered in blood that seeps from whatever wound Ark has caused to the back of his head.

"Rebels hate royalty," the Prince mumbles.

Ark isn't smiling anymore. "There's more though, isn't there."

I look between the two of them, trying to decipher what Ark is insinuating. Caspian looks petrified, and not just because of the knife Ark has slid back into his jacket.

There is something he is hiding.

"I don't know anything," Caspian insists.

"Liar," Ark growls. "You know about Kiva's father's business, don't you?"

Caspian's eyes widen, matching my startled expression. He swallows thickly, looking at me. He doesn't respond to my questioning look, as my mind reels.

My father doesn't have a business...he's a King.