ELIZABETH
The soft caress of the morning sun danced across my eyelids, coaxing them to flutter open like butterfly wings stirred by the first breath of dawn.Its warmth traced lazy patterns over my skin, whispering promises of a new day, painting my chamber in hues of honey and amber.
For a fleeting moment, I let myself sink into the golden embrace of morning, but then—reality.
My mind, still caught in the tangled web of the past few days, spun too fast to grasp anything solid.Yet one memory refused to fade, clinging to me like the scent of rain on parched earth—the kiss with Amir.
His lips had been a revelation, igniting something deep, something untamed within me.It was a kiss that wasn’t just a kiss but a whispered promise, a fleeting taste of something forbidden—something I hadn’t known I was starving for.It had branded me, a spark setting every nerve alight, making the clumsy, forgettable peck from Peter—the baker’s son—seem laughably insignificant in comparison.
How could a kiss like that exist?
It had unraveled me, shattered me, and made me ache in ways I had never experienced before.But as I savored its lingering heat, a bitter truth crept in like an unwelcome ghost.
He had pulled away first.
Leaving me breathless.Alone.
Amidst the ruins of that brief, intoxicating encounter, I was left with nothing but questions.Why?When every fiber of his being had seemed so fiercely entwined with mine at that moment, why had he withdrawn?What held him back?
What shadows lurked behind those dark, intense eyes?
I lay there, tangled in my sheets, my heartbeat still betraying me with its unsteady rhythm.I couldn’t ignore the way Amir had stepped between me and my father’s wrath, how he had followed me home, a silent shield against the storm.And then—he lied for me.
Why?
He was an enigma—all razor-cut angles and guarded walls, his clipped words and stoic veneer daring me to look deeper, to see what he wouldn’t show.
Could a man indeed be as dangerous as he claimed yet still choose to protect me?
Or was the real danger not in him—but in what I was beginning to feel for him?
The questions spun through my mind, a tangled web of uncertainty, each thread leading back to him.Lord Amir Hassan, with his swarthy Mediterranean complexion—a face carved from the shadows he battled—remained a mystery.And yet, despite the secrets that shrouded him, something unseen tethered him to me.An invisible thread binding us together in ways I was only beginning to understand.
I propped myself up on the downy pillows, reaching for my diary—hidden beneath their soft embrace.My fingers brushed against the folded note within its pages, the inked words “I wish things were different, my love,” bleeding into the parchment like a wound too deep to heal.
The word “love” lingered, curling around my heart like an incantation, filling me with an ache that refused to subside.What would it feel like if Amir truly wanted me?If he let go of whatever restraint kept him at arm’s length and surrendered to the undeniable pull between us?
But deep down, I knew.
These were nothing but daydreams, fragile illusions that could never bridge the chasm between fantasy and reality.
And yet, I clung to them.
Every stroke of ink, every curve of his handwriting, tethered me to a different possibility—one where I could flee from Lord Winston’s looming shadow and into Amir’s enigmatic embrace.
Why couldn’t it be different?
The question seared through me as I closed the diary with a soft thud, the weight of unspoken dreams pressing down on my chest.I longed to shed the shackles of betrothal and duty, run wild and free, and choose my own fate.
To choose him.
A shudder rippled through me—not from the morning air’s chill, but from the memory that slithered through my consciousness unbidden.
The Black Wraith.
His kiss had been a storm—violent and consuming, leaving destruction in its wake.It burned as fiercely as Amir’s own, yet where Amir’s touch was restraint warring with desire, the Wraith’s was pure, unbridled possession.
It was danger wrapped in seduction, an intoxicating connection that had left my lips bruised and my soul aflame.
