A Potential?
1176 Words
"They should not have left you alone!" he bellowed. Summer frowned. She wondered if it was because he didn't trust her to be left alone in his palace or what.
"Is there anything wrong with me being left alone, your Highness?" Summer changed the tone of her voice, showing disappointment.
Lucian looked at her, understanding that his words may have come out the wrong way.
"I meant for your safety!" he said, not wanting to say anything more for fear of being misunderstood further.
Summer nodded.
"May I?" Lucian asked, pointing at the chair in the room. "Yes your highness!" Summer said,already feeling embarrassed that she didn’t offer it in the first place.
Lucian sat on the chair while Summer sat on the ottoman at the foot of her bed.
There was a stretch of silence for a few seconds.
"I hope you are feeling much better today," Lucian said, looking at her. "Yes I am, thanks for asking. Hope you are as well!" she responded.
“I am!” He said and gazed at her. She dropped her gaze, feeling her cheeks heat up. This was the first time she was alone with a man in a room. He was a handsome man and she heard that he was the one she was going to marry. The fact that he came to see her and they are now alone made her blush.
“I guess you may be wondering why you are here in this palace?” he asked her. She nodded. She didn’t know why she felt comfortable with him but it felt good.
“Well, let me inform you!” he said and paused.
He drew a breath and began to tell her. “You are a potential candidate for the position of Queen. To start the story from the beginning, I have been waiting for my match for the past twenty years,” he said.
“Potential?” Summer’s heart squeezed. ‘So I’m just a potential to him? There is a possibility that I may not be his Queen?’ Since yesterday she has been thinking about becoming his woman, meanwhile he only saw her as a potential? There was a likelihood that she wouldn't be his!
“Yes, potential! I came here to inform you that there are a series of tests you have to undergo. They will keep evolving until you reach the one last test, which you will learn as time goes!” He explained, unaware of the storm of emotions brewing inside Summer because of his short and precise answers.
Lucian had never been a man of many words, he didn't know how to express himself through words, unlike his cousin Macian.
He believed in action. He was an understanding man but he didn’t care much about talking but acting. From a young age he had never learnt to sit around people and learn communication skills.
Summer wished she was in her own space because she wouldn’t have allowed anyone to treat her as an option. She was hurt by the fact that he called her a potential but it seemed as if it didn’t mean anything bad to him.
‘Was he such an emotionless robot? Was that the character of kings?’ she fumed inside but kept a straight face, trying not to show her displeasure. Afterall, she had been sold off as a commodity.
“Your first test would be a physical test and you have to train for that,” he continued. ‘Great! Just great! Now I have to go through a test I never bargained for?’ she scoffed inside her mind. It was an irony to her because she would always be called a weakling back in high school and at the orphanage and here she is required to show her strength.
She had to stay away from P.E. lessons because she would faint whenever she exerted a little strength.
It was funny how no one asked for her consent to be sold off and shipped to a strange place and then be treated like she wanted this whole thing therefore had to compete for it.
"I have never been a strong person when it comes to fitness. Maybe you should just let it off? You could always choose a better candidate to be your Queen?" Summer said in a question form but not necessarily that she was asking.
She nearly fell off the ottoman as she jumped at his growl! 'Did he just growl like an animal? I think I heard these similar snarls and growls from somewhere where I can't seem to place. Is he now an animal?' shock written all over her face, Summer was stunned into silence!
Realizing his mistake he felt bad. He scolded Liam for showing up at the wrong time.
Recalling Elora, his second "sacrifice" he remembered how she died out of shock. Josiah said she suffered internal trauma to her organs, that is the heart, the spleen, the liver and pancreas. This was due to the fact that she saw someone shift from human to beast. She wasn't prepared for that and that caused her great trauma.
He didn't want Summer to suffer the same shock. He had to apologize.
"I'm sorry for growling at you. Please don't take it to heart!" he said, trying to sound calm. She remained quiet.
Lucian being the person who lacked communication skills didn’t know what to say next. He decided to let it be. Maybe he would explain himself better one day when she knew everything.
He wanted to inform her about her training but now he had made things go south! He excused himself and left.
Summer sat on her bed, pondering on everything that had just happened. She felt that there was more to everything. She started wondering whether those two Nuns' words were real or made up.
She wished she had a choice in all this, she could escape from there, go to another city and live in solitary.
Though the king was attractive, she felt like there was a lot of mystery surrounding his life. She didn't think she had the strength to battle with that.
The soft knock on the door brought her back from her reverie! She straightened her clothes and adjusted her demeanor.
"Come in!" she invited whoever was knocking inside. Theo opened the door and bowed at her.
"There's no need for all that when we are alone Theo," Summer told her. 'Afterall, I'm just a potential candidate. There's no guarantee that I'll be chosen, after my life was disrupted so dramatically.'
In that case, I don't want to get used to any of this.
Theo could tell something was not right."Are you okay Princess Summer?" she asked, concern lasing her worried voice.
Summer seemed to have been deep in thought because she took a little while to respond.
"Can human beings growl like ferocious animals?" her question to Theo took her by surprise!
Instead of answering, Theo then knew that something must have happened to Summer in her absence.
- Writer
