The words streamed out of his hearings, the wall around his world crumbling and his Jaws far apart with so much shock.
"I must have heard wrong." He assured himself that Elizabeth could never do such to him.But the next words that she spoke ripped his heart into numerous pieces. "But it seemed as though we had crossed paths somewhere. But I can't remember." She added once again.Vincent opened his mouth to speak but there was pain in his eyes and his words soon disappeared into wild stutters."You don't know your boyfriend?" A slight chuckle that expressed his inner grief escaped from his mouth.More blood pumped out from his nostrils, chatter going wrong through the crowd who couldn't get enough of the drama that was going on in the place."You fool. Do you wish that you were her boyfriend? Have you become so delusional already?" Richard could not help but stare in amusement.But his words were fixed on Elizabeth, staring at her right into his eyes."I thought that today was going to be the best day for the both of us. I assured myself that I was going to do everything to protect and take care of you.But you don't only cheat on me before the whole world, you also deny knowledge of me?Can you swear that you don't know me, Elizabeth Maxwell? Blood group O, genotype AA? Can you swear that we were never in a relationship?"Everyone was shocked to hear the words, especially Richard who could tell that every single word that just came out from his mouth was true.His heart was racing fast as though it was going to burst through from his chest.Meanwhile, Elizabeth knew that there was no running away anymore. The truth was right before everyone.Her eyes flickered with fear and anxiety but at the thought of what she had to do to come to this position, she knew that she certainly had to keep pushing forward.She pushed forward over to him while the guards still held tightly onto him and stared right into his eyes.Everyone waited with their breath drawn and their expectations lifted."Let's see, where do I know you from?" Her tongue made a tapping sound as she shook, seemingly to be reckoning through the numerous memories in her head."Now I remember." She said turning around towards Richard."He was the guy that was pestering me the other time to be his boyfriend and I told him that we could be friends so that he was going to let me be and nothing other than that.I never knew that he was going to get all that in his head. Just take a good look at yourself, can you even date me?" She said and everyone in the room burst out into laughter.His hands were clenched, his face laced with so much pain as he went ahead to say."I know that he has brainwashed you but you can't listen to a word that he tells you Elizabeth, he is a playboy and nothing other than take."Without spitting out another word from her mouth, she stretched forth her hands to reveal the engagement ring that was already sitting peacefully there."Too bad, it's already too late." She respondedThe words tore him apart into shreds and Vincent turned around towards the guards and finally said to them."For wasting my time and that of everyone else. I am going to make sure that you are severely punished for it." He said."Take him away from the place. Don't kill him. Just cripple him." He finally added.With that, he was dragged away from the place while everyone shot mocking laughter at him.If anyone had told him this was going to happen, he would never have believed it. He heard the tapping sound from behind as he was flung off to the floor."I have done nothing wrong." He vetted out but there was an emotionless expression on the faces of the guards as they shook their heads."Then you should never have interrupted Richard's business." They responded.A slap sped off in the direction that threw him off balance almost immediately, flinging him off to the floor.He could already feel his heart beating hard against his chest as though it was going to burst through.Maybe this was good to be the end for him after all. He thought as they brought weapons of destruction from their belongings.His eyes were shot already as he expected the worst. But as they were about to fling the baton towards his direction, a hand held them off in the air.The eyes of the leader of the gang blazed with so much anger almost immediately as he turned around in the direction only to notice that it was a lady.She had a stale look on her face. But as her eyes sped off towards Vincent, her face twisted into a frown."Guess who we have here." The words of the leader streamed into Vincent's hearings and he opened his eyes slowly to witness the event that unfolded right before him."Let him go?" Was the only word that came out of her mouth.But immediately the words streamed out from her mouth, the men burst into laughter almost immediately."And who are you to say that?" He could not help but inquire, licking his lower lips lustfully at her."Leave him right now or you are not going to like what I will do to you." She glared at him but she only chuckled."And how are you going to do that, lead me to bed?" She laughed heartily.Without spitting out another word from her mouth, she made a really strange signal with her hands and this was preceded by the pattern of feet walking swiftly into the place.The guards looked up, their eyes crossing paths With a large number of men ranging from fifty.A large lump went down the spine of the leader of the gang almost immediately as the others were already peeing on their pants."I guess you would want to rephrase your statement at this point." She said but the men were so shocked that they could hardly spit out another word from their lips."They wanted to break his bones. And think theirs should be broken first so that they are going to realize how it feels." She announced.Their eyes parted with so much shock as they went ahead to plead for their lives, knowing the much trouble they had gotten themselves into.A stream of sweat flowed down from the corner of their faces as they went ahead to plead."Please forgive us. We promise that we are never going to trouble anyone again." They pleaded but she was not going to listen to a single word that they had to say."Yeah, forgiven already." She threw a kick that was directed at his ankle, making him spring to the floor.The other guards shot multiple kicks and slaps at the guards until they all eventually passed out.Vincent watched as the events unfolded with his heart in his palms frightened beyond all doubt.He closed his eyes as he could not bear to watch the unfolding events anymore and finally, the noise died down.He opened his eyes to see the hands of the lady stretched towards him and he shivered almost immediately."Please don't hurt me, I have absolutely nothing to do with them." He went down on his knees immediately.But this act seemed to send shockwaves down the spine of everyone present there as they fell swiftly on their knees and their heads bowed to the floor.Vincent was confused almost immediately not knowing what to do, his heart beating hard against his chest as though it was going to burst through."Young Master, we can never think of hurting you." The lady whose head was still bowed said getting him even more confused than he was already."Young master?" He muttered."Welcome back young master." Their words resounded in the hall almost immediately.He tried to wrap his head around the events that were going on right before him. He wished that it was true, that he was the Young master of some Consortium but he knew that was so not possible."I think you have gotten the wrong person" He replied with a stale look on his face."I am as good as nobody." He finally admitted his mistake once and for all."Young master Vincent. I know that this is so sudden but just come with me and I am going to explain everything to you." She said,As much as he wanted to reach out to her and come with her, he knew that there was certainly no use in doing that since it was going to lead to the same thing.He shook his head instantly with a pause and continued his walk out of the vicinity."There is no use of that. We should not waste each other's time." He finalized and was leaving.But she said a word that made his feet meet with a sudden pause."Don't you want to know what happened to your father?" She said, making him come to an abrupt stop.The wo
There was one question in his head that needed to be answered and that was the question of the net worth of his company.Turning around towards Anna, he could not help but open his mouth to inquire."What's the network of the company?" He finally inquired, curiosity sprinkled all over his voice.There was a sudden pause in the air as he waited patiently for a response from him."I think ten trillion dollars as at the last time I inquired from the general accountant. It might have increased." She explained to him.His eyes bulged out from his eye socket at the sound of the words almost immediately as he could not believe what he just heard.His heart was already beating hard against his chest as though it was going to burst through.Random thoughts ran through his mind as to how powerful he had become so suddenly."I will leave you to rest now, young master, you have a lot tomorrow." She noted with a slight bow, walking away slowly from the place.Getting into the clothes seemed way to
"You will have to leave this place right away." Her words spoke of the hatred that was brewing deep inside her.But if there was anything that was not going to happen, it was leaving that place without getting what he wanted."And what if I decide not to?" He glared back, already getting tired of her ranting."You know what, I should be the one angry at this point. I want to see the manager right away." He said fearlessly but she only chuckled almost immediately..."And what makes you think that I will walk over to his office and be oh sir, a great personality who is enough to buy the mall but cannot feed himself here?" She replied with every hint of mockery in her voice."Leave right away or I am going to have to make you leave me."Vincent stares right into her eyes without a single trace of fear. His stance was his stance and no one was going to change it."Make me leave," Vincent growled back and his words got him even more angry than he was already."Then I will do it with due pl
There was a tense air around as everyone didn't realize what was going on."So thoughtful of you Ms. Anna." She said with a smile on his face.Mr. Max shivered right on the spot where he was standing. He had always anticipated the day that he was going to meet with the heir.And now, it turned out that he was meeting the heir in the worst situation ever.His eyes sped over swiftly to Mirable as he could not contain his anger, swiftly hitting his lower lips and yelling in his head."Just see what you have done, fool. And I was already working my way out to getting a promotion." The thoughts clouded his mind.---"Mr. Max, as I held you were called. Here is the pass. Are you still going to consider getting the police even after seeing this?" He inquired with a nonchalant expression on his face.Ms. Anna's face flooded with so much confusion, trying to get a grasp of what she just heard.But no matter how hard she tried to wrap her head around what exactly was going on.Her heart raced m
"Was it a prank or she might have heard wrong?" Mirable was still finding it difficult as a young master."Please forgive me, young master. Please, I promise that I am going to do anything." She kept on pleading and the act got him even more confused than he was already.His eyes were farrowed and he muttered under his breath."Is there any way to do it apart from what I just did?" He inquired.Ms. Anna turned around towards him and said. "Sir Vincent, are you serious about this?" She inquired equally confused as well.Everyone expected him to change his stance and reveal his true intentions but it didn't seem as though he had any apart from what he just said.He nodded his head and her eyes bulged out from her eye sockets."But why young master? After everything that they had done?" She could not help it but inquired, still baffled at the words."She was only acting ignorant. There is no need to exert so much strength on taking revenge. It's so not Worth.""There are only three peopl
His eyes paired down and he noticed that it was the stunning lady that had been standing right before Vincent, Jane.She brought down his hand and collected the glass of wine from him, putting it back on the table.“How dare you speak to the heir in such a manner? Have you no respect?” “You could’ve been put behind bars if you you had spilled as little as a drop of that drink on his suit” Jane said calmly with a very serious look on her face“By the way that suit you just called fake, is worth all the cars in your Father’s garage combined”“How da…Do not interfere!” Elizabeth was about to speak before she was aburptly interrupted by Jane.Suddenly Richard burst out into an uncontrollably loud laughter as everyone else followed suit.He continued to laugh out loud for a while, holding his belly until the effect of Jane’s words slowly died down.“Being the heir to the janitor's closet is certainly not a position you should be flaunting around in such vicinity” he said sarcastically.“An
He let it ring the first time thinking that the caller might have made a mistake and would not resend the call.After a short while, it rang again and this time he picked it up furiously wondering who it might have been that was bent on disturbing his sleep that very early in the morning.As soon as he got a hold of his phone, he hissed and rolled his eyes upon realising that it was just his alarm.A few days before Anna rescued him from being crippled by Richard’s bodyguards, his routine for the past few years had required him to wake up very early in the mornings for deliveries.He took up the mid-morning shift and the day shift at the delivery services due to the fact that he was desperate to make ends meet.He dismissed the alarm and sat up, realising that he couldn't fall asleep anymore.“Man, this delivery job has really messed up my sleeping routine” He thought to himself as he scratched the back of his head, yawning with his mouth wide open.Now that he was fully awake and he
This brought her back to her senses upon realising that it was her phone’s ringtone.As she picked up her phone while staring at the screen, the look on her face suddenly changed into a serious one.Before picking the call, she composed himself and cleared her throat.“Good morn…. There's absolutely nothing good about the morning, keep that to yourself because you're fired!”Ms. Jefferson froze with her eyes widened in shock as she began to sweat profusely in the air condition filled room.Immediately she realised what she had done to herself, she was so furious that she had stabbed herself with her own knife as all her actions backfired.Without thinking twice, she got down on both knees and began pleading with Vincent, not minding her ego or her reputation if anyone were to mistakenly walk in.After she had genuinely apologised and pleaded for a while, he took pity on her and placed a call across to the boss asking him to give her back her job.She eventually retrieved her job but s
Closing her eyes, Irene unspooled her magic into a gentle, probing thread, and laid a palm on that splattered star atop his spine.The cold slammed into her, spikes of it firing through her blood and bones.Irene reeled back as if she’d been given a physical blow.Cold and dark and anger and agony—She clenched her jaw, fighting past this echo in the bone, sending that thread-thin probe of power a little farther into the dark.The pain would have been unbearable when it hit him.Irene pushed back against the cold—the cold and the lack and the oily, unworldly wrongness of it.No magic of this world, some part of her whispered. Nothing that was natural or good. Nothing she knew, nothing she had ever dealt with.Her magic screamed to draw back that probe, move away—“Irene .” His words were far away while the wind and blackness and emptiness of it roared around her—And then that echo of nothingness … it seemed to awaken.Cold filled her, burned along her limbs, creeping wider, encirc
“Will it be hours every day that you work on him?” Nesryn’s words were steady, almost flat, and yet … The woman was not a creature who took well to a cage. Even a gilded one such as this.“I would recommend,” Irene said to Nesryn over a shoulder, “that if you have other duties or tasks to attend to, Captain, these hours would be a good time for that. I shall send word if you are needed.”“What about moving him around?”The lord’s eyes flashed at that.And though Irene was predisposed to chuck them both to the ruks, she noted the lord’s simmering outrage and self-loathing at the words and found herself saying, “I can handle most of it, but I believe Lord Westfall is more than capable of transporting himself.”Something like wary gratitude shot across his face. But he just said to Nesryn, “And I can ask my own damn questions.”Guilt flashed across Nesryn’s face, even as she stiffened. But she nodded, biting her lip, before she murmured to Vincent , “I had some invitations yesterday.”
Vincent shot Irene back an equally displeased look the moment Kashin paused to sip his wine, and then launched question after question to the prince regarding his life. Helpful information, he realized, about their army.He was not the only one who realized it. Arghun cut in while his brother was midsentence about the forges they had constructed near their northern climes, “Let us not discuss business at dinner, brother.”Kashin shut his mouth, ever the trained soldier.And somehow Vincent knew—that fast—that Kashin was not being considered for the throne. Not when he obeyed his eldest brother like any common warrior. He seemed decent, though. A better alternative than the sneering, aloof Arghun, or the wolflike Hasar.It did not entirely explain Irene ’s utter need to distance herself from Kashin. Not that it was any of his business, or of any interest to him. Certainly not when Irene ’s mouth tightened if she so much as turned her head in Vincent ’s direction.He might have calle
Vincent waited until Nesryn had been gone for a good thirty minutes before he summoned Kadja. She’d been waiting in the exterior hallway and slipped inside his suite mere moments after he’d called her name. Lingering in the foyer, he watched the serving girl approach, her steps light and swift, her eyes downcast as she awaited his order.“I have a favor to ask you,” he said slowly and clearly, cursing himself for not learning Halha during the years Levi had studied it.A dip of the chin was her only answer.“I need you to go down to the docks, to wherever information comes in, to see if there’s any news about the attack on Rifthold.” Kadja had been in the throne room yesterday—she’d undoubtedly heard about it. And he’d debated asking Nesryn to do some searching while she was out, but if the news was grimhe didn’t want her learning it alone. Bearing it alone, all the way back up to the palace. “Do you think you could do that?”Kadja lifted her eyes at last, though she kept her head
She’d known his age, but Irene had still not expected the former captain to look so … young.She hadn’t done the math until she’d walked into that room and seen his handsome face, a mix of caution and hope written across the hardened, broad features.It was that hope that had made her see red. Had made her ache to give him a matching scar to the slender one slicing across his cheek.She’d been unprofessional in the most horrific sense. Never—never had she been so rude and unkind toward any of her patients.Mercifully, Hasar had arrived, cooling her head slightly. But touching the man, thinking of ways to help him …She had not meant to write the list of the last four generations of Towers women. Had not meant to write her mother’s name over and over while pretending to record his information. It had not helped with the overwhelming roaring in her head.Sweating and dusty, Irene burst into Hadiza ’s office nearly an hour later, the trek from the palace through the clogged, narrow str
He tried not to flinch. Even Nesryn blinked at the frank question.“Yes,” he said tightly, fighting the heat rising in his cheeks.She looked between them, assessing. “Have you used it to completion?”He clenched his jaw. “How is that relevant?” And how had she gleaned what was between them?Irene only wrote something down.“What are you writing?” he demanded, cursing the damned chair for keeping him from storming to rip the paper out of her hands.“I’m writing a giant no.”Which she then underlined.He growled, “I suppose you’ll ask about my bathroom habits now?” “It was next on my list.”“They are unchanged,” he bit out. “Unless you need Nesryn to confirm.” Irene merely turned to Nesryn, unruffled. “Have you seen him struggle withit?”“Do not answer that,” he snarled at Nesryn.Nesryn had the good wits to sink into a chair and remain quiet.Irene rose, setting down the pen, and came around the desk. The morning sunlight caught in her hair, bouncing off her head in a corona.She
So Vincent had, half paying attention to the meal unfolding before him, half monitoring every word and glance and breath of those around him.Despite their youngest sister’s death, the heirs made the meal lively, conversation flowing, mostly in languages Vincent did not know or recognize. Such a wealth of kingdoms in that hall, represented by viziers and servants and companions—the now-youngest princess, Duva, herself wedded to a dark-haired, sad-eyed prince from a faraway land who kept close to his pregnant wifeand spoke little to anyone around him. But whenever Duva smiled softly at himVincent did not think the light that filled the prince’s face was feigned. And wondered if the man’s silence was not from reticence but perhaps not yet knowing enough of his wife’s language to keep up.Nesryn, however, had no such excuse. She’d been silent and haunted at dinner. He’d only learned that she’d bathed before it thanks to the shout and slamming door in her chambers, followed by a huff
Hadiza ’s face darkened. Not with ire, but memory. “I was once asked to heal a man who was injured while evading capture. After he had committed a crime so unspeakable … The guards told me what he’d done before I walked into his cell. They wanted him patched up so he could live to be put on trial. He’d undoubtedly be executed—they had victims willing to testify and proof aplenty. Eretia herself saw the latest victim. His last one. Gathered all the evidence she needed and stood in that court and condemned him with what she had seen.”Hadiza ’s throat bobbed. “They chained him down in that cell, and he was hurt enough that I knew … I knew I could use my combat to make the internal bleeding worse. They’d never know. He’d be dead by morning, and no one would dare question me.” She studied the vial of blue tonic. “It was the closest I have ever come to killing. I wanted to kill him for what he had done. The world would be better for it. I had my hands on his chest—I was ready to do it. Bu
Of all the rooms in the Torre Cesme, Irene Towers loved this one best.Perhaps it was because the room, located at the very pinnacle of the pale-stoned tower and its sprawling complex below, had unparalleled views of the sunset over Antica.Perhaps it was because this was the place where she’d felt the first shred of safety in nearly ten years. The place she had first looked upon the ancient woman now sitting across the paper- and book-strewn desk, and heard the words that changed everything: You are welcome here, Irene Towers.It had been over two years since then.Two years of working here, living here, in this tower and in this city of so many peoples, so many foods and caches of knowledge.It had been all she’d dreamed it would be—and she had seized every opportunity, every challenge, with both hands. Had studied and listened and practiced and saved lives, changed them, until she had climbed to the very top of her class. Until an unknown healer’s daughter from Benjamin was appr