Snagged by the Rogue [COMPLETED]

23.

Anaya.

The walk to the Princess's suite seemed long and torturous. It could not have taken more than ten minutes but to me it seemed a lifetime.

At any other time I would have noticed the startling white marble floors of the hallway. The deep wine rug that stretched across the hallways, the pictures of long departed Lycan queens framed in gold and hanging so formidably on the walls.

We passed by a maid or two who immediately abandoned their tasks to pay obeisance to the Queen. One curtseyed in greeting to Alexander, but both completely ignored me.

I did not notice this slight for my insides were woven together, and my mind a right mess. I could feel myself beginning to quiver. I was simultaneously excited and anxious but nothing could subsume the fear that threatened to paralyse, or worse still make me run away.

We were being led to meet the woman I had longed to meet all my life. In the first days after she disappeared, all I remembered was the yawning anguish that overcame Tim and I as Papa and Bolik searched for her.

She had been our world, the very center of it. I had never questioned the fact that it was Papa who made our meals and cleaned the little cottage. My mum was either outdoors tending the flowers that she had planted in the backyard. Yellows, pinks, purples and reds, all the colours of the rainbow. When she was not in the garden, she was in the backroom reading one of those thick books that she loved so much. She often read to us from big picture books that she made my dad buy. And although he did it grudgingly for we had little money, she would grin from ear to ear whenever he returned with a book for us.

After she 'died' everything had changed, Papa refused to tend the flowers and they soon withered away giving way to weeds of all kinds. He had become more and more grumpy and he started to drink. He still bought us books but he only read to us on the days following raids. Then he would make sumptuous meals and read to us in the back room. He also taught us to write in that room, but for Tim and I, life would never be the same again, our sun had set, or so it seemed.

We had come in through dark double oak doors into a huge living room with a row of French windows. The open windows let in the startling beauty of the summer blooms in the garden. I momentarily trilled at the awesome beauty of the flowers. They reminded me of my mother.

A colony of flower patterned arm chairs dotted the room, interspersed with oak stools.

"Dahlia," I did not recognize the Queen's voice. It had become hushed, almost tender.
Gone was the authority and self possession.
But then she realized that there was no one in the sitting room. So she swept past us through French doors that led to a beautiful bedroom. I stared at the bed, with its layers of crumpled white sheets, and uncountable white feather pillows, disappointed that there was nobody in it.

I turned to my mate, handsome in his morning coat, he remained composed. I straightened my back, strength rushing into me as I glanced up at him.

The Queen had bounded to a guilded armchair turned to face the open French windows. The breath rushed out of me as I noticed the plump woman staring out the window as though we were not even there.

She was about my height, maybe a little taller. Her complexion was curiously pale, suggesting a life spent mostly indoors. Sunlight shone vibrantly upon a head full of lush black hair cascading down high shoulders adding breathtaking beauty to the pale pink morning gown that hid her voluptuous body.

When the Queen called out again she turned round, face in askance, looking up at her mother.

"Look...You have visitors..." The Queen added softly causing the Princess to stare past her mother at Alex and I.

Her eyes were grey and expressionless as they bore into mine. I froze. Even if it had been dark I would have recognized that face. It may have aged ten years and five, but to me it remained the same. The eyes were huge, like mine. In spite of the colour difference, it took me back to a time when life had been warm and safe. Papa's loud guffaw jerked me back from near trance to appraise the beautiful but glacial woman who sat before me.

"Mama," My voice sounded a bit too loud as I ran forward to embrace the mother that I had missed all these years, but she had turned around again. I reached forward all the same, latching on to her shoulders.

And then she began to scream. A high pitched haunting sound that jerked me back by a foot. It was eery and haunting and so scary that I ran into Alex's arms, clinging as though my life were at stake.

The Queen reeled back from the sound too, holding her hands to her ears. Blood seemed to have drained out of her face as she stared aghast at the back of the arm chair as she struggled to regain her composure.

"Why," she asked me in a seething voice "did you do that?"

I whirled away from Alex looking down at her in barely veiled confusion. What had I done wrong?

"What..." I began to ask.

"She does this. She's not lucid right now. She sometimes slips into this haze where she believes everybody is an enemy. It's the only sound she let's out," the Queen's eyes were sad as she spoke.

We heard boots clacking as James ran through the halls into the Princess's drawing room. He had heard the screams too.

"Do you need help, your majesty? Should I escort the visitors out?" He asked, an evil sneer on his face.

"No, thank you Counsellor. Have the doctor come in instead."

He looked disappointed as he left the room to do as he had been told.

The doctor appeared a few minutes later, walking in with a nurse following closely behind.

"Your majesty," he bared his neck.

"She's in that state," the Queen whispered, indicating my mother.

The doctor's expression didn't change as he nodded once.

In quick succession, the nurse handed him a pair of white sterile gloves, a syringe, and a little vial.

He injected the needle into the vial and drew a clear liquid out.

Then slowly, so as not to startle her, he approached my mother, who was still staring serenely out of the window.

When he was close enough, he took her arm, and before she had time to react, stuck the needle in.

"What's he doing?" I screeched at the Queen who was looking at the scene with teary eyes.

"It's a sedative. It helps her. She wakes up better," she replied, her voice still strong.
Sure enough, my mother went limp, her eyes slipping shut.

The doctor carried her gently and transferred her to the bed.

Alex's hands wrapped around me as tears started to fall down my face.

After all these years, I had found my mother.

But she was still so far.

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