Storm Reawakened

A Night of Whispers

Dinner is a feast truly fit for royalty. Hawthorne leads me to a massive dining room where a large, lengthy wooden table is spread out with mouth-watering dishes.

I make quick work of it, feeling as if I'm at an all-you-can-eat buffet and happily devour every morsel off my plate in delight.

The Duke remains quiet, barely audible scraping the only indication that he's seated across from me—I must look like a certified glutton as if I haven't eaten in days, but who knows when my last meal will be. If this is the last though, I'll die a happy death.

I do however, have enough sense in me not to rub my belly in satisfaction after dessert and coffee are served—I do the polite, etiquette approved notion of dabbing a napkin delicately to my lips and smile warmly towards the servants and chefs. Who absolutely deserve my compliments.

"Shall we?" Hawthorne asked politely, rising.

Ah. So all pretences and fake relationship begin immediately?

Rather than reply, my lips form a tight smile as my face goes taught from the exertion. "Of course," I answered after a lengthy pause in which he gives me a pointed look.

Sighing half in bliss from the meal and half in dread for a night of questioning, I follow Hawthorne down halls and up several flights of stairs—I'm seriously going to get my cardio in just by hauling myself around this place.

Weaving through a corridor lit by sconces, we arrive at a set of doors bearing the family crest and silently enter the Duke's chambers.

"Is everything dark and depressing like you?" I blubbered out, narrowing my eyes to adjust to the enveloping darkness.

Hawthorne actually chuckles, artfully avoiding resplendent furniture pieces with skill and sets a fireplace embedded into a wall ablaze. I can only sense his movements until the curtains all swing open as he pulls a gold cord with a hand—revealing a room drenched in a flood of moonlight.

Not bothering to comment on how alluring he looks against the firelight like a perfect phantom of the night, I take cautionary steps towards glass doors and gently push them to settle onto a balcony.

"So? Your questions?" he inquired, leaning against the door frame with mild interest.

"Always straight to the point," I murmured and receive a minor twitch of his jaw in reply.

"Did you send my father an explanation?"

"Yes."

"And you think he bought it?"

Hawthorne crosses his arms, his dark brows scrunching in thought. "I don't know. Possibly. And if not, then I'll have to explain matters to Duke Storm. He won't like it, but—"

"No," I cut in fiercely.

"I thought you didn't approve of lying to him?"

"I don't. But I want to spare him the misery of knowing that someone is actually, without question out to kill me. Nor do I wish for him to know that I have more enemies than he knows of—those letters are just iceberg tips. He'll blame himself, probably. For a mess I created."

I can only assume that whoever is after Evara, has a compulsion created by the author who makes her the subject of hate (justified simply by her categorically classified as a villainess) and needs that deeply rooted feeling to be gratified.

Evara's done nothing but drive this person to the edge, putting her life in danger but the problem is that she's managed to live freely for a solid three-hundred pages. Considering Hawthorne's hasty, subpar attempt to lock me in a marriage, Diana has obviously not entered the kingdom yet—meaning, the substantial events that take place where the dark organisation is active, hasn't happened either.

So if not the organisation, then who?

And can a world penned through the mind of a writer be altered like this? That sense of everything bleeding into matter I can't separate comes slithering back into my body—ominous and jarring.

"You really have changed," remarked Hawthorne, his rich voice bringing me back to the present.

"Why did you lie?" I questioned abruptly, still unable to piece together his reasons for this fiasco we're in.

He straightens, disappearing into the shadows of his room and I'm hoisting myself off the bench of the balcony and trailing behind him. "Well?"

"I didn't lie when I said you woke up in my room—"

"Except we didn't do anything."

"Yes, be that as it may, you still came to my room."

"Err, what?" I asked, my eyes widening. Not only from that fact, but because he's undoing the lapels of his sleeves right in front of me.

No, no, no. Don't get distracted by forearms, Blair.

"You were inebriated, Evara. You almost made a scene in front of my guests and began knocking on my bedroom door—insisting that I let you in because you had information for me."

"I did?" I said in shock, posing it as a question because it's a mystery to me—but is this a coincidence? A confluence? Evara and I being drunk and dazed possibly at the same time?

"And I finally let you in to avoid a scandal when you collapsed."

"So then?"

"So then I carried you into bed where you slept, while I arranged for one of your servants to attend to you before taking you home. I thought that settled things...until you were found in the lake."

"So then I never got the chance to tell you anything?" I whispered, my mind racing.

"No?"

"Don't you see? Maybe I knew someone was after my life! Or maybe, whatever I knew, was valuable enough to kill over and this person didn't want me relaying that to a Duke closely tied to the crown."

"So why not finish—forgive the abrasiveness of my words—but why not complete a job undone?"

"Because they know, or have inside information that I've lost my memories. Plus it's too soon. Everyone's guard is up—whether it be me, my father, or you."

I'm embroiled in my own thoughts till I glance at Hawthorne, surprised that I've followed him into an inner bedroom. A massive poster bed that could fit an entire family of five is positioned in the centre, with enough pillows to form a fort.

"I still have more questions," I said, doing my best to avoid Hawthorne who's now unbuttoning his shirt.

"So ask," he returned simply.

Exasperated, I send him a look of annoyance and immediately regret it. The man is now completely shirtless and even if it's not the first time, my face immediately heats.

"You're obviously going to bed."

"And?"

Sighing, I shake my head. "I'll ask you another time then, your grace."

"Ask me now."

"But you're going to bed!" I reiterated, stating the obvious.

"Aren't you, wife?" he asked, taking a step towards me. With a glaring flare of self-awareness, I take a step back and we're oddly locked in this sequence—forwards and backwards.

"Eventually, yes," I mumbled.

"Then ask your husband. In bed."

Shocked, I cease moving and my mouth drops open. "Excuse me?"

"You didn't think you were sleeping in a different room, did you?" he whispered darkly, a ghost of a smile passing through.