FlOWERS WITH THORNS | K.TH

Bane of His Existence

RUMI LIA

I scream, curling my knees to my chest as the wineglass shatters against the wall and breaks into a million fragments. Violet stains the wall a dark, bloody color.

Everything is falling apart.

That fucking silver-eyed man, who had come out of nowhere before I could've gotten my hands on that gorgeous Taraka who kept slipping in and out between my fingers. He had known about Nightshade. That I had been the one to supply it to Han, who had used it to assassinate the King and Queen of Asura.

The same man who had broken five wineglasses in a row, yelling of that bitch and how he was going to rip her apart into shreds. How he was going to put her in her goddamn place and fuck her until she was screaming his name.

When he had been fucking me fine for the last hour. He was slowly becoming psychotic.

Everything was falling apart.

I'd been stupid to trust that he could protect me from the start, when he couldn't even protect his own damn head from going insane. He must've said something while he was fucking drunk one night, which is how that silver-eyed bastard had heard. And now he was holding it over my head.

My entire body trembles.

If he said anything, House Lia would be annihilated off the face of this planet. And I...

I would be executed. Han would be dethroned. The people of Asura would drag him down with their own hands.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I rush out of the room, leaving the man to scream and destroy what is left of the glass. I'm in nothing but my underwear. Humiliation burns my cheeks dark red of what I've become. To what I've fallen to, from the elegant, powerful daughter of House Lia.

Fuck.

It's dark. The clock has struck midnight five minutes ago.

I need some goddamn air.

And I'm about to rush out into the balcony, with no shoes and not even a cardigan, when I see something. My eyes catch a familiar figure, standing below me. He is in a dark cloak, handling the rein of a stallion.

It's that fucking silver-eyed bastard.

I instantly duck down. He's with a woman— a maid that I've seen many times, serving that bitch. I'd even heard her name a couple times.

I try to remember.

Rin.

It had been Rin.

But why was he with her?

He's speaking to her. They exchange short, muffled words, before she gives him a quick embrace. He shakes her off, but he does it affectionately. Then he tightens the collar of her cloak around her.

He mounts his stallion. She waves him goodbye.

Huh.

He rides into the darkness of the night. And I watch curiously, a smile slowly spreading onto my lips.

Lovers. I was sure of it.

Rin. I brand that name into my memory. My lips are bold with a dark smile.

There could still be a way out of this hell after all.

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