Page 74 of Her Dark Promise

Bastian looked enraged, whether it was at his brother’s comment, my actions, or a mixture of both.

“She punched you? I am going to kill her.”

Bastian walked past him, but Soren grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop.

“Brother, are you not listening? Yes, she punched me, but that isn’t the point. Look, I am fine, she fixed it. Her blood heals!”

He was too wrapped up in the revelation that had his entire attention. A little broken nose was of no significance. I was sure that he would allow me to break his nose a hundred times over if it meant that he could get his hands on more information.

“Now, our very own queen is the missing princess. She isn’t technically missing because no one knows she exists.”

Soren was too intelligent for his own good.

Leave it to the most annoying scholar in human history to stick his nose in business that didn’t concern him. No one had ever looked through my books, so I didn’t even think to hide them.

I wasn’t annoyed that they knew the truth. I was annoyed because I knew what it meant; the bookworm would stop at nothing to find out the truth of my past. More questions. Just thinking about it made my head pound.

Bastian stared at him briefly before dropping his head and walking back over to his bed.

“If that is all then could you please take your leave before I—”

“Are you serious? Do you know what this means?”

“It means that you have officially gone mad, and I will have to put you out of your misery, but that can wait until the morning.”

He brushed past his brother's words and continued, “I was walking around in the library, merely looking around, and I found this.” He showed Bastian a book of my family tree, with all the gritty details of my past. “I swear, it's her. I now know why she refused to tell us her name.”

Bastian took the book from Soren’s outstretched hands, taking a moment to digest everything his brother said, still groggy from sleep.

“And you know this for a fact?”

“I just saw her and called out her name to test the theory and you should have seen the look on her face. She paled, you could almost hear her heartbeat from how fast her chest was rising and falling. If I hadn't left she was going to kill me just to make me stop talking about it.”

Bastian’s face paled, the same color as my own despite our difference in skin tone, after reading over a certain section of the page and said, in a haunted tone, “If what you are saying is true and this date is correct then that would make her—”

He couldn’t even finish the sentence as he gulped.

Soren finished for him with a huge grin on his face, so big that I could see deep dimples forming. “Precisely three hundred and seventy years old.” He was giddy.

“You are infatuated with her. Have you fucked her yet? Does she have a magical cunt or something?”

“You’re out of line.” The grin on Soren’s face immediately vanished.

They stared at each other. What they were trying to find I was unsure, but I couldn’t look away.

“Nevermind.” Bastian turned from Soren and headed toward the closet, grabbed his satchel, and silently threw his belongings into it.

“Bast. Bast.” Bastian was ignoring him. “Bast!”

Bastian stopped once he was satisfied and said over his shoulder, “She must still be in the library, so now is the perfect time to go. It’ll be hours before dawn and we will be long gone by then.”

Soren looked at him confused. “What?”

“We need to get the fuck out!” Bastian hissed, took a few steps to his brother, grabbed his wrist, and yanked him toward the door.

Soren pulled his hand from his brother’s grasp and said, “I am not leaving.”

“Oh yes, you are.”

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