Chapter 28- Feelings Are Complicated

Seeing the girl’s quick recovery from their ordeal a bemused smile soon formed on Cael’s face. He watched in silent humour as Lily rather blatantly began committing blasphemy right in front of him.

“Useless Dryad, what’s the point of divine protection if it doesn’t even cover demon gods? I should have just been born a nephilim, Lady Ariel is much more reliable when it comes to this sort of thing.”

Looking strangely at the girl next to her Selene on the other hand couldn’t resist her need to retort.

“An alrune is going to eat you if Lady Dryad ever heard you say that. Or rather if you think about it, she probably just did considering how close we still are to the Elder Wood.”

Sighing to herself while completely ignoring the way her cousin suddenly turned deathly pale, the princess then scowled fiercely.

“That Aria, I used to just think she was misrepresented in the stories. When I was a child she seemed so majestic and beautiful. Actually meeting her again though … yeah, no thanks.”

Turning his smile to Selene this time Cael found her change in attitude just as amusing.

“Whatever happened to “Lady Aria”?”

“No way am I still going to be respectful after she just dropped us into a forest full of blood stalkers. Not the cute and cuddly young ones either, the big ones with the even bigger attitudes. I must have been close enough to count the teeth, I really thought for sure that was it for me … that I was going to die just because some prissy little bitch wanted some alone time with you.”

“Well you’re fine now and that’s what’s most important.”

Selene couldn’t believe her ears.

“You, you’re not actually defending her right? I’m mistaken right?”

The silence from Cael was as deafening as a gunshot and told Selene all she needed to hear.

“… I chose not to ask because I didn’t feel like it was my place to pry but I can’t act like this doesn’t affect me anymore. Cael, exactly what kind of relationship do you two have?”

Truthfully speaking Cael himself couldn’t know for sure if his guess was right but the more he spoke with her the more and more he grew convinced of the accuracy of his hypothesis. If he looked back on all his interactions with Aria until now one answer alone made sense.

“Lovers. No that’s not quite right, ex-lovers I think is the best way to describe the connection we share.”

Lily did not look surprised by his words, Selene though …

“L-L-Lovers!”

Her front of royal composure was completely shattered.

“But, but, but we, you know, did that! The thing! Oh no, what is she going to do to me?! I’m dead! Game over, goodbye Selene!”

Cael rolled his eyes at the princess’ melodramatic attitude.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Calm down. If she was going to do something she would have done it already. Besides I could be totally wrong about how we know each other.”

Selene stopped suddenly at that last line.

“I feel like that’s a pretty difficult thing to be unsure about though?!”

“Well it’s true. Aria seems to know me but I have no recollection of her whatsoever.”

The princess was truly unresigned but without means to resist she could only turn to her oldest and most trusted friend for solace; sarcasm.

“But of course I can totally see how one might forget, doesn't stand out in the slightest that one, does she? Well do try your best to remember soon, I would very much like to know the exact reason why it is I will be suffering a most violent and horrifying death. Of course that is if it’s all the same to you, wouldn’t want to be difficult now would we?”

Selene’s business smile was working triple overtime as she delivered a most violent of tongue lashings towards Cael for the extreme mess he got her into.

“Ah … yeah. Well it’s Lillianne’s fault anyway.”

Cael decided to most responsibly pass over all responsibility and accuse someone else as his defence. In his mind the words ‘It was the maid! The maid did it!’ were blaring loudly over and over on repeat.

“Wait me, why is it my fault?”

Ignoring the silkie completely Selene continued her case against Cael.

“Of course we all know it’s cousin’s fault but you have to accept at least some responsibility right? That it’s Lily’s fault goes without saying.”

“Okay I get it’s my fault. but did you have to say it twice?”

“Damn I thought for sure that if I accused the obvious culprit that you might even forget about me!”

“Cael too, am I being bullied? Is this hazing for the new guy? Or maybe it’s just reve…”

“Hey Lillianne, could you maybe just shut up for a sec, the adults are trying to talk here. You were meant to be a cool beauty but with all these words that keep flying out your character’s crumbling.”

“Can you please not tell me to shut up so casual…”

Before Lily could even finish her words the blue jewel on her choker shined lightly and her mouth was forcibly closed against her will. Muffled sounds could still be heard as she tried to speak regardless but in the end she couldn’t say anything else and gave up soon after; of course not until she narrowed her eyes into a look that could kill.

With a naturalness that belied the events of a moment earlier Cael began to speak again

“That’s better. So what it comes down to really is that you just want me to take responsibility, is that it?”

“That’s right, you stole my innocence and have now put my life in danger so I want a promise. A wish. One day I’ll ask you for something and you can’t refuse no matter what it is, that’s our deal.”

“Sounds like a pretty one sided deal.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Pausing for a second Cael considered just straight up telling Selene "no" for her selfishness but to say he felt zero guilt towards her whatsoever would indeed be somewhat exaggerated as well.

“Screw it! You can have your promise Princess, just don’t try to emotionally blackmail me again. That means I don't want to hear you use what happened back then in every little complaint from now on. I'm relenting this time but don't take an inch for a mile.”

“Deal! No take backs!”

Sighing to himself Cael could guess easily enough what Selene wanted out of that promise, she had said as much before. To become his wife out of some misguided ye olde mindset.

Just as he had told the princess Cael was indeed not some smooth collector of women. He did not care to the point of going out of his way to romance anyone seriously.

However if Selene wanted to marry him it was not like he was totally against it from the bottom of his heart either. But … as of this time, apart from his hormones telling him that she was a viable mate Cael did not have strong feelings of attraction for Selene let alone anything that might be called love.

Lillianne in spite of her normally eccentric character probably understood the deeper parts of his personality more so than the princess ever did. Lily used forceful methods to insert herself into his life to meet her own desires, his feelings towards her and her feelings towards him weren’t conflicting in Cael’s eyes because he understood they were separate lines that didn’t need to intersect.

The love Selene desired though was something he did not know if he could give. Selene accepts the current shallowness of their relationship but expects it to deepen and grow with time becoming an entangled and inseparable mess.

Cael can marry Selene, but he cannot love Selene. Why that was…

A girl with long ink black hair and a smile like the crescent moon. He said it didn’t he “His heart skipped a beat”.