“Varan, please take me to my rooms.” Her words were stronger than she thought they’d be. Without a word he followed her command, wrapping one arm around her waist as he directed her.
As though he could feel her internal struggle – as though he could feel how she broke apart inside.
“As you wish,” Varan murmured.
Chapter Fifteen
Adelina
Draga Royal Palace
Planet Draga Terra
They made it all the way to the lift. Adelina held it together until they reached the fifth floor. When she walked out into the hall and the doors closed behind them the anxiety she’d worked so hard to overcome, to learn to master and control, came roaring back with a vengeance. It was so severe her breathing came in gasping pants and her heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s in her chest.
Adelina collapsed, holding her chest, desperately trying to find air to breathe.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” Varan said gently. He picked her up and cradled her to his chest, moving them through the royal wing as quickly as possible before anyone could see her, before the recorders found them. “I’ve got you, it’s over,” he said again. “Place your hand on the door, Lina.”
It was all she could do to remain conscious. Her ears buzzed and the edges of her vision grew black with large white spots that blinded. Adelina didn’t have the strength to lift her hand as her body started to convulse. Shock, she realized. Shock was settling in after witnessing her first execution.
Varan placed her hand on the door and managed to get her in the room, and then lay her down on the couch. He rushed off to find…something.
The familiar place settled her just enough that she jumped to her feet and stumbled into the low table. Her nails, no they were more like claws now, shredded through her gown as she ripped it from her body.
Then suddenly Varan was there. “Hey, hey,” he said in a soothing tone, hands reaching out for her.
“I have to get it off,” she muttered over and over. The smell of blood was thick and cloying and it was all she could taste on her tongue and in her mouth. It filled her nostrils and it smelled almost rotten with the way it cooled and hardened.
The dress fell to the floor in ribbons and she tried to step over it, but there was blood on her knee. It had soaked through the gown and her foot slipped on the slick, wet material. She fell. The marble against her bones made Adelina feel like she was about to shatter.
“Hey.” Varan wrapped his arms around her. “Hey, look at me,” he demanded.
That sharp voice and the scent of his dominance reached her, the cleansing smell of winterflowers overpowering the rotten stench of cold blood. Adelina looked up into his eyes, the emerald green putting so many of the gems to shame. He looked right at her, fingers sharp on her chin as she shook uncontrollably.
“Good, now breathe with me, love,” he said, placing her golden palm on his chest. “One long breath in through your nose.”
Adelina did as he said. There was no room in her mind to argue, to even think of an alternative to the roaring thoughts and panic. She had to get out, out of the palace, out of Draga Terra…
“Focus darling,” Varan said. His voice was softer, gentler than she’d ever heard it before. “Now let that breath out through your mouth, and just breathe with me.”
Each breath was longer than the last, and then slowly, so slowly she felt she might be able to breathe on her own without a reminder as to how. When her anxiety was this bad she couldn’t remember how to function, how to breathe, how to walk…it paralyzed her in ways she hadn’t suffered from in so many cycles.
Her body shuddered with the sobs, and tears fell to the marble floor, mixing with the dark blood as the adrenaline still raged through her. Her sitting room started to come back into focus as a whole, rather than bits and pieces. Varan’s face and not just those depthless emerald eyes formed.
She was naked, blood streaked along her golden skin and Adelina vomited as the image of those heads rolling toward Raena’s throne flashed through her mind.
“All right,” Varan said, lifting her up with his hands under her arms. “Can you walk with me? We’re going to clean you up, remove any trace of the blood. The water will wash it away, Lina. Walk with me.”
It was too difficult to nod, but she moved her feet with his, focusing on the way he stepped until she was sitting in the massive tub with the water running.
Varan took out his cast as he poured her jasmine oil into the water. The smell filled the room with the steam and the blood swirled down the drain until there was no trace of the horror left. Then he stopped up the tub. Varan tapped out a message and then put it away, focusing on her. Those emerald eyes never left her face, they never once looked at her naked body.
On some level she felt embarrassed and stupid. She’d panicked in front of him. Losing control always made her feel ashamed, but at the moment she couldn’t spare a thought for anything that wasn’t keeping her alive.
A few seconds later his simulcast chimed and he responded. The door to her sitting room opened, she could hear someone moving in her rooms and Adelina stiffened in panic. Who was in her rooms? Who would Varan call?
“Tea, Prince Varan,” a female said, handing him a steaming cup.
Varan thanked the servant and then jerked his head in the direction of her sitting room. “Get rid of it, burn it, and sterilize everything.”
The vaguely familiar female servant curtseyed and then disappeared. Varan held the cup to her lips and the smell of her favorite dark tea, strong enough to wake the dead, steamed her face. Water lapped, covering her body to her collarbones as she reached for the cup.
“I can do it,” she murmured, taking a sip. “Thank you.”
Varan said nothing as he watched her. His face was white under his tan and his teeth were clenched. “Have you always had panic attacks?” he asked.
She nodded and downed the tea, wishing for something just a little bit stronger. “There’s alcohol in my cabinet,” she told him.
Varan didn’t move. “After you’re dressed we’ll have a glass.”
Adelina scrubbed her skin with an exfoliator, ignoring the red marks she created. She had to get clean, had to get that rotten blood off…
Varan’s hand stilled hers and gently removed the sponge. “If you keep scrubbing you’ll break the skin.”
Then he stood up from the edge of the bath and grabbed one of her robes hanging on the wall. He draped it across one arm and held out a hand to assist her out of the bath.
Adelina hesitated.
“I won’t look,” he said softly, averting his eyes.
She placed her hand in his and stepped out of the bath. The floor absorbed the water dripping off her body and she slipped her robe on, not quite able to look at Varan’s face once she was fully covered.
Without hesitation he directed her towards her massive closet and indicated she should sit down at the vanity. Varan rifled through her clothes and Adelina watched him. He was too familiar with her rooms, where things were, and there was that servant.