Chapter 12 A Day Outside
Kira’s POV
I exhaled sharply, rubbing my hands down my thighs as if that would erase the feeling of Liana’s fingers.
My pulse was still too loud, too quick. The attic suddenly felt smaller than a coffin.
‘Okay… Abby,’ I muttered in my head, staring at the cracked window like she might answer through the glass. ‘If you’re in there, now would be a great time to help me out.’
Silence.
I rolled my eyes at myself and kept going anyway.
‘Seriously, if you can hear me, maybe drop a manual? A list? A sticky note?’ I thought, as though I conjured her up for a meeting. ‘Something like… ‘Here’s how to survive my messed up life without dying again.’ Or maybe, ‘Here’s who you can trust so you don’t get stabbed, poisoned, or seduced by your own maid.’
Nothing. Not even a twitch in my chest.
I sighed and rubbed my temples. ‘Did you and Liana have…something? Because she’s acting like she owns you. Like she has some kind of claim. Is that a thing? Was she your…whatever? Or does she bully you too but in a nice, creepy, handsy way?’
Still nothing.
Not a whisper, not a memory, not a flicker.
Just my own stupidity echoing back at me.
I dropped my hands and scoffed at myself. Great. Fantastic. I’m standing here making up a conversation with a girl whose body I’m borrowing like she’s going to text me back. What the hell am I even doing?
Yep. I’ve officially lost it.
I adjusted the crisp white uniform Liana had given me, tugging at the skirt so it sat right over my hips.
My fingers still tingled where hers had lingered, and I couldn’t shake the unease crawling under my skin. My pulse thumped like a drum, not from excitement, but from suspicion.
Liana’s hands weren’t comforting…they were claiming. Something in her gaze whispered that she’s not satisfied with being Abby’s safe person.
She wanted more. Or something else entirely.
Well, since Abby won’t give me a hint, I guess I’ll have to deal with it myself.
“Liana…” I began, voice low but steady. “What was that about? Why were you…touching me like that? Calling me beautiful…” I paused, letting the words hang between us. “Is there something I’m not remembering? Something I’m supposed to know?”
Her hands froze mid-motion, fingers brushing the fabric of her shirt. She looked at me, eyes dark and unreadable, a faint twitch at the corner of her lips which was quickly masked.
“I…” she started, then stopped, swallowing. “I was…just making sure you’re ready for school. I’m sorry, princess… I’ve just never seen you in this uniform before. I only meant that you look beautiful in it,” she stammered.
I narrowed my eyes, but was already stepping back, putting space between us before her words could sink any deeper.
“Thank you. I’ll take the rest from here,” I said tightly.
“It’s my job, Princess—”
“I command you to step aside.”
She bowed her head and turned around.
I turned away to fix my hair, heart hammering. The attic mirror showed her reflection behind me…eyes fixed on my ass, tongue wetting her bottom lip in a hungry manner.
I swallowed hard.
Is she a vampire?
Does she want my blood?
But she’s not even looking at my neck…
Wait…are there creatures out here that eat ass? Is she one of them?
Stop it, Kira. Maybe I’m overreacting. Liana is supposed to be Abby’s safe place. But safe doesn’t mean harmless.
And right now, her hands and eyes were speaking a language I didn’t want to translate.
I exhaled slowly and forced myself not to focus on it. Maybe that NatGeo Wild documentary from earlier scrambled my brain a little.
Let it go, Kira. It’s nothing.
Five minutes later we were heading downstairs, the weird encounter forgotten.
The skirt was short…dangerously short…and I’d used a jeweled hair band to push my hair back. I looked like I was ready to ruin someone’s bloodline.
Liana eyed me nervously. “They’re going to pick on you more if you stand out like this, princess. Why are you acting so differently today?”
I smiled sweetly. “Because I’m done letting people step on me. From now on, I’ll step on them first.”
We reached the front door and walked out of the palace. It was my first time seeing how it looked outside.
We reached the front door and walked out of the palace. It was my first time seeing how it looked from the outside.
The second the cold Alaskan air hit my face, I stopped dead on the marble steps.
Holy shit.
The palace wasn’t some fairy-tale castle with towers and flags. It was a monster of black glass and steel perched on the very top of a jagged mountain ridge, like someone had dropped a luxury penthouse from Manhattan straight into the wilderness.
The whole thing was built into the cliff itself, floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere, reflecting the pale dawn sky and the endless snow-capped peaks that rolled out in every direction.
Below us, the slope dropped away, and the kingdom spilled down the mountain like someone had scattered massive log-and-stone houses across the landscape. They weren’t little cabins…they were compounds, each one the size of a city block, smoke curling from chimneys, lights still glowing gold in the windows because it was barely morning.
Further down, the forest started…thick, dark pine trees heavy with fresh snow, the kind of forest that looked like it swallowed people whole. The sky was that insane Alaskan winter blue, so bright it hurt to look at, and the sun was just creeping over the ridgeline, turning everything pink and gold.
Snow glittered like someone had dumped diamonds over the entire valley. It was so beautiful it actually pissed me off, because how dare this place be this gorgeous when everything in it sucked so bad?
I couldn’t stop staring. My mouth literally hung open. I’d never seen anything this huge, this wild, this…perfect. It felt like standing on top of the world.
A couple of guards in black uniforms were standing in front of the courtyard. Two women were walking along the lower terrace with coffee cups. A guy on a snowmobile was idling way down by the first gate, maybe three football fields away.
Aren’t they cold? I should be…I'm always cold. So why wasn’t I this time? The answer didn’t come, but the voices did. Clear as if they were standing right next to me.
“Has she finally lost her mind? That skirt’s basically a belt!”
“Look at her just standing there like she owns the entire kingdom. Maybe she’s trying to seduce one of the nobles into rescuing her from the king.”
“Poor thing thinks the uniform makes her scary. Cute.”
My head snapped toward the voices. They were so far away I shouldn’t have heard a damn thing over the wind, but every word punched straight into my ears. I even saw their lips moving.
What the hell? Since when do I have bionic hearing?
I forced the whispers to the back of my head, grinding my teeth so hard my jaw ached.
Very soon, I told myself, anyone talking shit like that is going to learn what happens when the queen actually starts acting like one. They’ll be scrubbing toilets with their tongues before breakfast.
I lifted my chin, squared my shoulders, and walked down the steps like I was the one who owned the whole damn mountain.
Because apparently, I did.
I looked around and my brows furrowed. “So how do we get to the academy?” I asked.
“We walk. North side of the kingdom. Takes about forty minutes,” Liana replied.
I froze.
Walk?
Forty minutes? In this snow? Are they all insane?
I spun around and screamed at the top of my lungs…
“ADRIAN!! GET YOUR ROYAL ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!”