Chapter 5 Moth to a flame

Chapter 0005|Moth to a flame

I walked faster not wanting to miss whatever it was Amelia was hiding if she was going through all this trouble to make her transit go unnoticed.

Tristan was wrong and so was I.

She was clearly not some privileged princess I was just judging merely because I loathed her father but she had some darkness in her she was aware of and cleverly has been hiding for years. Besides, it was foolish of me to think that any creature could possess the amount of evil that flows through Romania's veins and be oblivious to it but it was consolatory that Tristan had swallowed her innocent fake pretence show, hook, line and, sinker.

I pushed open a door and as the wind messed with my hair which made me a bit agitated, I scanned the unfamiliar surrounding looking for Amelia and there she was barely covered by what looked like a garden? with her back facing me. She seems to be conversing with someone whose silhouette I could barely decipher as the lamplight she was holding barely illuminated her fair skin.

"It is time to find out all your secrets, Amelia."

Crouching on the floor shocked at how I was pulling all stops at stooping just to figure out my sworn enemy's daughter who drew me like a moth to a flame nevertheless that should ring a warning bell in my head and make me do the sensible thing like leaving right now, but I obviously have chosen this night to act like a delirious teenager instead of a twenty-eight years old highly respected Mayor, I covered the distance between me and Amelia curious to know what she was up to.

I cursed under my breath involuntarily as I stumbled on the stump of a fallen tree. What was this dark place and who truly was Romania's daughter aside from the Princess disguise she pulled as a front?

AMELIA'S POV

I looked around uneasily worried that someone might see me slip out of the party which was of grave consequences if my dad gets a whiff of such rebelliousness but I didn't really care much about how severely I would be dealt with if Jackson or anyone else at the party discovers Slessor my personal maid though I doubted the former with how wasted he looked could even notice if his shoes got stolen right from his feet.

But I couldn't think of what I would have done if Ron's personal guard who was also Slessor's lover haven't tipped her off on Ron's plans to disrupt my engagement party.

I heard sounds from behind me and quickly turned, but there was nothing which made me shake my head only Ron's obstinacy can work me up to being paranoid and hearing things. No one else knew about this secret route to a garden that dad had hidden from us for many years but took care of obviously because of the wellness of everything in the garden, that I and Ron had discovered in an intense hide and seek game, that I suspected belonged to my mother.

Just another part of my mother he selfishly refuses to share with her offsprings.

Sometimes, I couldn't help but believe that my father truly and intentionally wants us clueless about her identity.

I hissed at Ron who shifted his gaze from me uneasily and pinned it to the floor.

"I don't think you should be here. It is a risk."

"Oh look who is suddenly aware of risks all of a sudden. You wanted to ruin the image of a man who values his ruthlessness over his children." I grabbed his hand uneasily. "That man could easily burry a bullet into your skull to prove a point."

He held my hand, sighing. "I just can't hang around idly and do nothing knowing you're about to get married to a man that you don't love."

"That's where you are wrong." I cupped his jaw, as tenderness overtook the anger I had initially felt when I had stridden into the garden to speak to him that was after sending him a secret coded message for him to meet me here through Slessor an hour ago. "You have something to do. Being alive."

He shook his head in disagreement and I shook my head more fiercely.

"Dying won't stop me from marrying a man of Romania's choosing. He would make me attend your funeral a night before my wedding to prove some sadistic point especially since he is aware of how fond I am of you."

"But..."

"No buts..." I smiled at him. "This is my fate and I have long accepted it. Now, I just need you to find a source of happiness that is obvious would elude me for the rest of my life." I hugged him and slowly he relaxed in my embrace even as I whispered to him. "At least that's something to do and it doesn't get you killed."

"I don't think I can live without you. Look around you. You are the only thing that makes sense in my life."

"That's the more reason you need to live for the both of us. You could do things I never had the luxury of achieving. Promise me you won't try to attempt something so foolish next time because I won't forgive myself if anything happened to you."

He held me tightly then released a low heart wreaking sob that denoted a spot in my heart.

A sob he was never allowed to voice.

A sob that made him a lesser Slovakia and Romania would completely disapprove of.

But in here, in our safe spot where the need to be almost invincible wasn't engraved in these walls, he was my 15 years old brother hugging his older sister that was supposed to protect him from life itself but was even more helpless than he was.

"Ever wondered why I call you what you consider a very girly name, moy lotos?" I plucked a lotus flower while hiding my own tears subtly with my very long hair that my personal hairstylist was prohibited from ever cutting by my father, which comes in handy on such occasions.

"Because you are just a mushy creature who has more pink frills and scarves than any girl I know?' he teased while sniffing.

I pulled a face jokingly and was rewarded with a slight grin even as he took the flower from me and tucked it behind his ear and did a what I would like to point out was a poor mimic of me curtseying since he looked more like he was holding in a fart.

I chuckled.

"That's because just like the lotus signifies resilience, I know you would grow up, overcoming every obstacle and obliterating every challenge life throws at you because you're so much stronger than me and for that to happen, you need to be alive, healthy. For me..."

JASON'S POV

I grumpily walked out of Amelia's Barbie-inspired room wondering what had driven me to follow her even though it was more than obvious it was a cliché secret affair she was hiding. As a man who prided himself on being way too busy to indulge in nothingness, I couldn't believe that the hatred I latched onto for Romania and craving to find out something undesirable about his precious daughter had made me crouch on the floor of a secret love nest of a garden with mud and dirt.

And even after such efforts, the devastating part of the scenario was that I couldn't catch a glimpse of the man because although making such open claims were definitely beneath me but my hatred for Romania makes me reconsider, I couldn't completely create a scandal big enough for this wedding to be halted and his daughter's name forever tainted without knowing something as little as what Amelia's lover looked like which would help me unravel his identity; without facts, whatever I had to say were rumours and I was no rumour monger.

I gritted my teeth in anger wondering why I didn't try to move closer to catch a glimpse of the man I went through all this trouble of seeing especially, going by the identical cobblestones that I kept on seeing and the fact that I wasn't hearing any sound of music there was yet another problem adding to the pile I had in my hands already because of the foolish impulsive decision I had made in a haste without thinking things through. I was farther away from the party than was comfortable to note and consequently lost.

I heard the low rustling sound of the wind and following the sound aware that at least an open place was a progression and better than the identical expensive marbled walls and expansive now, wooden floor that led into an expanse of a bigger and wider unending corridor. I briskly walked towards the sounds of shutters creaking and howling of the wind, grinning as the wind messing up my head got stronger and the sound became more prominent.

I heard the loud chime of a city wall and shook my head at how old fashioned Romania truly was at heart which wasn't unusual, of course only a narcissistic and a male chauvinist would still be obsessed with a time and age when women were merely economic proposition, a means to an end hence reduced to a commodity in the trade and barter system. Though I couldn't argue the fact that he did consider his daughter precious, untainted which made the devil in me smack my lips as I visualize the shame and horror in his eyes when he discovered what was behind the literary scholar in his daughter's room and what more, right under his roof, in the million-dollar ancestral home which was a guise to make sure his daughter forever remained in the confines of the time he so much desired