Once and once again -- The scarred prince's human mate

Twenty-two

Valentina

And I know I’m a pushover for it, but I lose a staring contest for the first time in my life. The green is penetrating my mind, and the sheer sincerity in his eyes has me gulping even though I pretend to be annoyed. The tiny sliver of feeling cared for, of someone genuinely trying to put me first, has to be shushed a little more vehemently than usual. We don’t deal with her in this house.

Sighing, I extend my hand and slowly take the jacket from him. That flash of relief on his face must be a fabric of my imagination. The smell of resin, engine oil, and black pepper surrounds me the second I put it on. And for the next 40 min, I have to fight the urge to sniff myself constantly because that scent is damn near addictive.

::::::::::::::::

About an hour later, all the other girls have been able to get in touch with their families. Every last one of them will be picked up within a day. Travel arrangements made this second by relieved, ecstatically crying parents.

Their families so elated to hear that they’re OK. They all perked up and huddled in the corner of the room to chatter. Leaving only Noemi and me as the ones with no one to call. There will be no one coming for us.

“You can try…. But I doubt my foster parents want me back in Gütersloh after they finally got to pass me on to someone else.”

I shrug, although thinking of them hurts. They were the last ones I stayed with. And I stayed longer than just six months for the first time since I was 12. But then again, they were only too eager to send me off to America on a dodgy Visa and with a little less than 800 dollars in my bank account, so I guess I (again) got attached to the wrong people and should have listened to my gut.

“I’m sorry, where?” Khai (as is the beardless twin’s name, apparently) stares at me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Gütersloh. Small town in Germany. And given my hosts here in the States are the ones that sold me, they would also hate seeing me back at their doorstep, I imagine.”

Yep, real nice, Doug and Belinda, real nice.

“I want their names,”

Silas. I like his name even more than I like his voice. It suits him. Quiet and strong, and a more fitting meaning couldn’t be possible.

“You got it, handsome.”, I wink, pushing away the urge to compare him to a giant oak tree and keep rambling something about other names meaning ‘forest’ to myself.

But then it feels like a boulder is dropping in my stomach. I have one person I need to call, though. Niki. My Nikolai, Brüderchen. The one and only. Feeling a lump build up in my throat, I try to calm myself down before I open my mouth. Inhale, exhale. It’s going to be OK.

“Th-There is someone I… would want to try calling. Not right now... I think I should have some peace and quiet for that conversation.”

“We’ll get you a phone when we get to the palace.” Silas’ sister grabs my hand and squeezes it. Jade seems nice enough. All of the quiet guy’s siblings do. Their parents too.

So it’s harder to hold back the small smile that stretches on my face. “Thank you.”, I whisper. Then clearing my throat again and turning around, I need to find some way to deflect. Of course, we all know what I’m good at. So I push my boobs out in the shirt they gave me and shoot Silas, who is still sitting close, a sultry smile. He turns beet red and looks away as fast as possible as if I hadn’t noticed that he has been staring at me the entire time since we met.

For some reason, that almost makes my cheeks heat, and the compulsion rises to stop the flirty act and just… I don’t know. What do you do if you…fancy someone? Is that a word? Ugh. God, I’m such a lost cause. Say hello to the nineteen-year-old who learned too early what a handjob is but has never actually had a crush. Not that I have a crush on Silas. I don’t. I don’t even know him!

They’re also unable to reach Noemi’s family. After a while, they give up and turn to my friend to maybe get others clues as to how to contact a relative.

“I have no idea where they are...” She whispers. Greer, the one with the kind grey eyes, gives her an encouraging smile. Hmmm.

“I-I haven’t talked to them or…seen any of them in ten years.”

And the guy stiffens at that, almost unnoticeable. Why though? Can’t be the first time he hears something like this, right? First abduction case? Or maybe just a very happy childhood with no abusive parents that ditch you and leave town on a whim. Which makes me weirdly jealous of all of them.

I eye the blonde lady everyone coming in called ‘queen.’ She’s short. I see several closed-up piercings on her ears and face next to the ones she’s still wearing. She looks like an unruly but beautiful elf next to the mountain of a man who is the father of all these dark-haired giants. His kids obviously take after him with deep green eyes, a thick head of brown hair, and tanned skin with a (little more) olive tint.

The only one of the bunch with different colored eyes turns his grey orbs, focusing on Noemi’s small face, then grazing her tiny frame.

“How old are you, Noemi?” Greer’s voice is warm, the edge of concern not all too audible. But I register it anyway.

When you’ve spent years with a volatile drug addict mother, you learn to listen for the little changes in the tone of voice, the way they enunciate a particular word— better that than get a TV flung at you. I absentmindedly rub an index finger over the small scar on my right temple.

Noemi seems more tense in this situation as well, because the question still has her pause, eyeing him suspiciously. The guy only widens his smile, a small dimple appearing.

"How old are you?" Voice even softer than before.

“Tw-Twenty-two.”

“Jesus Christ.” Khai, our clean-shaven twin, blows out and starts plugging at his suit jacket’s sleeve.

But Greer just continues to smile at her. A little more tight-lipped than earlier, though, but it still seems to affect my friend.

"Thank you for telling me."

And it's like none of us exist. Noemi blushes a little, lowering her head, but I swear I see her purple gaze land on Greer, peeking up through her hair.

Her lips twitch for a millisecond, and the dark cloud in her eyes passes, making their unique shade of lavender-ish purple look a little brighter.

I have to fight the urge to gape at her. I am the only one that has ever been able to do that. Make the cloud disappear for a second. Now there seems to be someone else. Someone new. A person we don’t know. We can’t trust him. Not yet. Have to be nice and play along. But he doesn’t get to hurt her. Never!

“No flirting with my girl, surfer boy! Not on my watch.”

And I see Jade suppress a laugh, although I don’t see anything funny with the situation. After Noemi’s skin finally turns back to a healthy color, we all pile into the cars outside, and I get a glimpse at the sky for the first time. Ignoring the seafoam eyes on me the whole way to the palace.