I'm Forbidden To Love You

Chapter 3

Ryan was bored out of his mind. He felt numb to the core with the way this event was dragging.

The sun will set in an hour or two; he wasn't sure about the exact time. He felt betrayed by time as it decided to become like a snail today of all days.

He didn't know why he was even nervous about this event for the past few weeks. He felt like whacking him for being so stupid to worry about this event.

Ryan could fool people, even his parents, and Nora too if he put in some effort. But, how can he fool himself?

Despite being nervous and annoyed at the meeting, the hope in his heart raised despite him trying to squash it.

Hope…

Hope to find 'the one' despite him teasing Nora about it. He had been hoping secretly that he would find his life partner here even though he had no idea how to interact with girls.

Ryan didn't know hope could be this dangerous as it was crushing him after not finding anyone here suitable for him. He didn't know what sort of girl he wanted, but he knew none here made his heart flutter.

His parents, his sister, and even his closest friend, Nora, fails to understand him sometimes, and he was aching for someone to be with him, to understand him, to whom he could speak with, without worrying about anything, to share his dreams, his most profound inner thoughts with her.

He wanted someone, and he had hoped to find someone like that today despite him trying to cover all that up with annoyance and nervousness.

He had been nervous when a lady came towards him to talk. He was a little awkward initially; then it got boring as she started bragging about her beauty and wealth.

He knew he was unfair to them as not all of them were awful and boring, but none of them will understand him on a deeper level.

He didn't want beauty like his mother, who expected her future daughter-in-law to be the most beautiful, or a rich one like his father, who wanted Ryan’s future wife to have many political connections. He just wanted someone open-minded and straightforward about things.

As he navigated the crowd, he caught the eyes of the Princess that had shocked the entire gathering with her arrival.

The mermaid Princess…

She was a stunning beauty; even he could admit that but, never before any of them attended this courting session for years.

The mermaid land had a peace treaty with other countries ruled by humans, but they never attended any meetings as none wanted to interact with humans.

He didn't know why she wanted to attend this courting as they never married outside of their race. Not much was known about the mermaid land as it allowed only foreign ambassadors to enter the country and that too only the decided rooms of their palace. No one was allowed to wander around.

He had never seen a mermaid, and when the announcer paused to read his allocated paper to read out loud, it caught everyone's attention, and it was nothing compared to the shock they all felt when they all heard that the mermaid princess was going to enter the hall.

He glanced at that King after the announcement, his uncle was not surprised, and he should have known that none could enter Avera country without the King's seal of invitation.

He was curious, just like everyone else, to know about the mermaid princess. She looked like an average human, acted like one too. They wouldn't have known she was a mermaid if the announcer didn't announce it.

They all couldn't stop glancing at her for a while. None had seen one of the merpeople, and at least, he was polite about it, unlike people who openly gawked at her.

Why are they participating in human meetings? Ryan didn't understand what was going on with merpeople.

From what he knew of them from the books, merpeople cannot stay on land for a long time. They had to be in the water for hours and that, they become intimate mostly while they are in the water. Mermaid married mermen.

Then what was the reason for attending it?

Maybe, they wanted to mingle with humans again like their ancestors did centuries ago. He didn't want to ponder about it anymore as he didn't know the answer to any of it.

Thinking of the mermaid land, thankfully, there were no attacks from the monster land. Past the mermaid land, there's a land of monsters which they all named monster land, for it was the land of werewolves, monstrous creatures thirsted for human flesh and blood just for the sake of satisfying their violent tendencies.

Maybe, the mermaid land needed the help of various countries as they might be in a tense situation with the monster land. There are human hunters in every country who, all from generation to generation, trained to combat the monsters if they tried to reach the human land.

Nora nudged him, indicating that it has been half an hour since his mother had left the hall. He had been waiting for this, to escape from this boring thing.

He nodded at Nora and subtly moved towards the door. On his way, he was caught by his cousin Ivor who spotted him amid the crowd. He had a look on him that was begging Ryan to rescue him.

With a heavy heart, he betrayed his cousin and turned away from him. He slipped away from the hall, not bothering about the guards outside, and moved towards the east wing to exit this stateroom.

Poor Ivor had the worst, but he would not brave himself to rescue Ivor as it would definitely reach the King's ears.

He was tired of this meeting since the morning, so he hastened his steps to get away from this place.

"How handsome you are, my lord."

"What do you do in your free time?"

"Can you show me around the palace tomorrow if you had time?"

"Will it be too forward if I ask for your time tomorrow?"

"I dance well, my Prince. I look forward to dancing with you at the upcoming ball."

"As a princess of Hetapol country, it would be in both our families' interest if….."

"My lord father has twenty estates and….."

Blah, blah, blah, blah, and blah.

They were all awful. The only person nice was Nora's sister, Tilda Mirabel, who, despite Nora denying his little sister to participate, she had attended this gathering as their father had dismissed Nora's overprotectiveness and had ordered her to attend this as Tilda and he was of the same age.

Tilda was one of the girls he had interacted with in his life because of his friendship with Nora. He had last seen her when they were both fifteen. He couldn't believe how fast she had grown into a woman. She was friendly and didn't speak to him like any other ladies today as if they had a right to his time and attention.

Nora had glared at him when they interacted, smiling at Nora's foolishness and overprotectiveness; he had ended their conversation, moving on to find another corner to hide from these awful and boring people.

As he pondered over his today's event, his legs automatically took him to one of the places he used to hide, which even he rarely visited, and none knew about it; even Nora didn't.

If he was very upset or angry, he went to this place, far away from the main parts of the castle and near to the southern border of the castle where the hills were.

He moved through the trees, noticing their difference in growth as it has been a while since he visited here.

The castle had wells and cisterns as the source of water for the castle, but it was not solely dependent on these. There is an underground stream as the primary source of water and is guarded by soldiers to watch over anyone trying to poison it. And, to the essential royal people knew its location; not many know about it for security purposes.

At last, he reached his destination; this was one of the tributaries that ran by the hill before joining the underground stream.

He didn't know why but, instead of just lying under a tree, like he usually did, he decided to move towards the water as if drawn by magic.

He was surprised to see women's clothes being spread on rocks and bushes near the tributary. There were also clothesline between the trees nearby.

He groaned as he looked at his hiding place that has now turned into a laundry place.

Who would change this beautiful place into this?

But, as he thought about it, it seemed fair that water spots would be assigned to the maids of different princesses and princes who visited here so they could wash their clothes by their personal maids. Assigning spots like these was a clever idea than assigning maids and servants to all these royal people where mistakes could happen, and it would lead to a feud between countries.

He decided to leave this place and rest in his room as he was tired after going through the tiresome day.

But, just as he turned towards the path he walked to reach here, he heard a rustle of clothes. He looked around and found the source in the form of a girl.

She was putting clothes over the clothesline, humming quietly. Ryan couldn't see her face as he was facing her back.

From the looks of her dress, a pale blue long gown and a sleeveless tunic top of it, a wimple over her head, not a strand of hair out, it seemed like she was a maid of one of the foreign guests invited here. He knew that she didn’t belong to his country with her clothes as servants and maids of this castle were given uniforms to distinguish them for this occasion.

He puzzled over why she was doing all these alone as there was no one around here when usually this was a task for two or more servants.

Maybe, the foreign guests didn't want to bring too many servants in their travel.

He was raised polite, so he decided to ask if she needed any help, but just as he took a step towards her, she whirled around, gasping in shock, and her leg slipped.

He covered the few-meter distance between them in a run and caught her waist before she fell into the water.

He couldn't help but gasp at the first thing that caught his eyes about her, turquoise, his favorite color; he cannot believe that anyone could have turquoise-colored eyes. And, here he was, looking and gasping at it.

Beautiful…

She was absolutely beautiful, magnificent, more than anyone he had met at today's event.

The pale blue-colored clothes she wore did nothing but highlight the color of her eyes. You simply cannot look away from them. It demanded attention, held captive by anyone lucky enough to stare at them.

Her hair was ebony black, and you could only tell that by the few strands of hair framing her face, which had escaped from the wimple over her head. The black of her hair contrasted against her light skin.

The hand around her waist, the feel of her against his young body, the first intimacy with a woman made shocking waves all over his body, rendering him speechless.

He couldn't help but notice that she was stunning him with her beauty as he steadied her in position. He unknowingly tightened the hold around her waist and pulled her closer, pressing her against his body.

Her clothes still kept captive an aroma of a hint of lavender and sandalwood. He felt like he could not smell anything better than this.

He noticed the way her crescent-shaped eyebrow inclining slightly with the way her eyes widened at his actions.

There was a fire been lit inside….

It felt as if his whole world had changed, looking at the widened turquoise eyes. No painter could ever do justice to these eyes if they dared to paint her.

He felt all of a sudden that he wanted to keep her in his arms and never let go.

God!

What was happening to him?

Seriously, what the hell was happening to him?