Hope
Why was he mad at me? His onyx eyes were so dark and his nose was flared up. Veins popped on his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” I looked away from him, only for two fingers to connect with my chin and pull my face back to his view.
“Why are you apologizing to me?” he asked in an awfully serious tone.
“Annalise-”
“Ugh,” he cut me off as he made a frustrated sound with his mouth. “Sometimes I don’t know if you’re pretending to be clueless or if you’re just dense inside that round head of yours.” He spoke through his teeth and I parted my lips.
He just insulted me. I ground my teeth, swallowing down the violent thoughts that crept up my mind.
“I don’t understand.” I said.
He let go of my chin and took a step back from me. “I don’t even know why I try sometimes,” he said to himself, then he looked back at me. “You were a princess before you got married to me, act like one, and not some maid.” He spoke in an agitated tone with a mix of disinterest in it.
What was that supposed to mean? Was I not princess enough for him? I got my answer when he stared down at me like he was expecting a response from my mouth.
“Of course,” I bowed my head a little. I didn’t look up until I head his footsteps turn faint. There would be no need for me to return to the dining room along with him as I had just lost my appetite.
As I took a step forward from the wall, Kyle came into view with his usual stoic expression. I turned my face away. I didn’t want him to see me like this, in my natural element-weak. But it wasn’t like this was the first time that I’ve ever been put down in front of him.
“I’m going to my room now,” I said breathlessly, then turned my back to him and started walking away. It was time to end this nightmare of a day.
*****
The next day, training was no different. Today, I was practicing with a bow and arrow. Since I was terrible with swords, spears, and the likes of everything else but slightly useful with a bow, Commander decided that it would be my weapon of choice. Even though it would prove useless when it came to hand-to-hand combat.
Dare I say, it was not all that terrible but the fact that I had to deal with Commander’s jeering remarks half of the time and some of the soldiers’ backtalk, it made it unbearable for me.
“Come on, human. You can do this. Look at the yellow dot. Nothing but the yellow dot. Concentrate and stop letting yourself get distracted.” Commander said a few feet away from me whilst clapping loudly in an attempt to motivate me.
I’m not letting myself get distracted, you are the one distracting me!
I wish I could say that. I desperately wished that I could say that out loud. I just swallowed it down and aimed for the yellow dot with my arrow pulled back. I let go of the string and it hit the third inner ring of the target. I lowered the bow and breathed heavily as I stared at the target.
It wasn’t the yellow dot but at least I wasn’t very far from it. Commander clapped slowly, showing off her disappointment.
“It wasn’t great but at least, you’re getting somewhere. Come over here,” Commander said to me.
I raised a curious brow, glanced at Kyle, then stared back at Commander and trotted over to where she stood. With her back relaxing against a tent pole as she crossed her arms, she smirked at me.
“How long do you think it’ll be before you start sparring with one of my men?” Commander asked with a sly voice.
I frowned. That was to be an insult to me. What sort of answer was she expecting me to reply her with? Five years? Ten years?
“I don’t know,” I replied, clenching my fists at either side.
“Come now, tell me. One year? Twenty? Come on, you can do it! A few more practices and you’ll be soooo good.” She jeered.
On cue, the young soldier that I’ve seen around both Orion and the commander waltzed into the scene. Commander brightened up almost immediately as she saw him.
“Commander,” he saluted with respect. She waved him off with a smile.
“I watched your spar with Moash. Good job,” she complimented. The boy smiled.
I suddenly felt a rush of jealousy run through my veins. What did I have to do to have her compliment me the way she did him?
“Thank you. I’ve been doing extra training at night,” the boy said to Commander.
On cue, she glanced at me. “You see that? It’s not a crime to do extra training. But you? All day long, you sit in your room and wallow about how sad your life is.” She said, spiking a rise inside me.
“That’s not true,” I spoke up, letting go of the bow and causing it to fall to the ground.
Commander raised a curious brow, expecting me to say more. I didn’t have any other thing to say. If I told her that I spent time in the library as well it would only backfire on me.
What I did instead was clench my fists. “You don’t know anything. Just because you’re something doesn’t mean that you should put me down with all your insults. You might be the commander of the Lycan army but you’re just a big bully.
“You told me that day that when you first joined the army you were treated unfairly by your superiors but isn’t that the exact same thing that you’re doing to me now? The people you hated… you’re exactly like them!”
After I finished talking, the adrenaline rush in my veins dispersed within a second. I noticed that everyone in the training ground had stopped what they were doing and were currently focused on me.
Commander, herself, just stood where she was. The dark expression on her face told me that I had pissed her off. But thing was that I wasn’t going to stay here long enough to deal with the aftermath of my speech.
“I’m going now.” I said through gritted teeth, then shot Kyle a look. He nodded his head and tailed after me as I walked away from the training ground with my head held high.
I was expecting Kyle to say something as we stepped under shade and headed in the direction of the garden. He didn’t say anything, and strangely enough, the silence was endearing. On the way to the garden, maids dusted and wiped the dirt from the supporting pillars of the hallway while gossiping.
The second I passed them, they would change the pitch of their voices into hushed whispers and stare brazenly at me. I wondered the kind of rumor that was circulating about me now. Probably something bad and disappointing. Like always.
I pushed that thought out of my mind as I stepped into the garden which had several flowery scents that put me at ease. I trudged over to the bench at the center and relaxed there. Kyle stood by my side, shading the sunlight from me.
“Thank you,” I said to him with an appreciative smile on my face.
He responded with a nod. I frowned.
“Why don’t you ever talk to me?” The second that question came out of my mouth, I regretted it, then hoped that he didn’t hear it.
My hope went in vain since Kyle tilted his head to one side in question. “Pardon?” he said.
“You never talk to me. As my guard, aren’t you supposed to talk to me? Ask me about things? Give me advise?” The more words that came out of my mouth, the more foolish I felt.
In some of the romance books I’ve read from the library, whenever the main character had a companion, they would immediately become friends. But Kyle and I have been together for almost a month and the only time he had said a complete sentence to me was the day that he offered his aid to me in front of the library.
It wasn’t like he was always mean to me and frowned at me whenever I did something weird that bothered me. It was the fact that he didn’t do anything that bothered me. Why didn’t he like me?
“My task is to protect you from danger, not to give you advise or ask you things,” he responded with a monotonous voice.
My shoulders fell as I sighed. He was right about that. I shouldn’t expect him to be friendly with me when he was just a guard. And why did I even want him to be friendly with me? It wasn’t like I was going to stay here for long.
You are never leaving this castle, bear that in mind.
The words Darius said to me weeks ago buzzed inside my head. He wasn’t going to let me go. The deal he made with my parents about returning me once he found Light was a lie. No such thing would be possible. He was going to keep here as a punishment for bearing the Vitalis name.
“You’re r-right,” I said to Kyle, my voice breaking. “You’re my guard, I know that. But would it be so horrible if you talked to me? If you were friendly towards me?” The desperacy in my tone was beyond evident.
Kyle stared at me, his hand almost reaching to touch me and wipe away the drop of tear that ran down my cheek, but he didn’t. Like he just remembered who he was, and who I was, he retracted his hand and clasped it with the other one behind his back.
“If that is what you want.” He said, turning his gaze to the ground.
I wiped my tear away, a wide smile stretched across my lip. “Thank you,” I said to him with a relieved tone.
Like he was struggling within him, his lips twitched to form a small smile.
“You are-”
“What is going on here?” A familiar masculine voice said, cutting me off.
Oh oh.