Important: My TRR MC is Viktoria Petit, and my King Liam is called King Istvan
Disclaimer: Characters are Pixelberry’s, not mine, fic is just for fun & I don’t make any money.
This fic was written as part of the April Challenge set by laniquelove on Tumblr: April 20th 2018: Bring the Angst
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“NOOOOOOO…….!!”
He sat bolt upright in the bed, his hands knotted in his thick dark hair, his heart racing as if threatening to burst out of his chest. He was only wearing boxer shorts, and the sheet on the bed was thin, but he was soaked in a cold sweat: just the way he was every other night he was jolted out of his slumber by the vision of the masked man in front of him. Every night when closed his eyes, he saw Petit standing there in her beautiful pink ball gown, hair a mass of raven curls, her pale blue eyes smiling. Laughing and carefree for the first time since the Tariq scandal broke, his best friend’s ring glittering on her finger. Then suddenly her face changed; the smile gone. Her eyes wide, recoiling in fear as she looked down the barrel of the assassin’s revolver… He couldn’t let it end like this; he had to do something, he had to stop this…
BANG
His muscular chest heaved as he tried to calm his breathing. He rubbed his shoulder where the bullet had ripped through his skin, the newly-formed scar tissue numb beneath his fingertips. Groaning, he stepped out of bed, padding across the room and hall to the bathroom. He braced his arms against the sink, looking at himself in the mirror. He looked tired. ‘No wonder,’ he thought, ‘When was the last night I actually slept right through?’ He splashed his face with water and patted it dry with a towel, flipping the light off and heading back to bed. He lay flat on his back, wide awake as the moonlight shone through the crack in the curtains. His thoughts travelled back to Petit, as they often did. He’d saved her life. There was no doubt about it. But would he have thrown himself in front of a bullet for anyone else so readily?
He visualised her as he liked her best; a city girl in jeans, not a stuck-up noble in those fussy gowns, dripping with jewellery… One kiss was all they’d ever shared; he’d never even slept with her. And she was marrying Istvan for pities sake! But he couldn’t help the way he felt. He was completely in love with his best friend’s fiancée. How could he have fallen for her? She was never his girl to begin with. One moment shared between them, another hundred thousand moments locked inside his memory, where she didn’t even realise that she was all he ever wanted.
He would never act on it, not again. Istvan was devastated when he had found out about that one kiss between them… Drake had felt ashamed for betraying his best friend that way, but still, it didn’t change how he felt about her… Viktoria didn’t flirt with him, in fact she didn’t do anything to encourage the feelings that stirred within him whenever she was around. She was simply kind to him, funny and beautiful. She didn’t know he was in love with her… It had hurt Drake deeply to know that Petit had instantly regretted their only kiss; he could never deny how he had felt in her embrace. Except for that vulnerable moment after Tariq had burst into her bedroom, she’d been devoted to Istvan; she’d tortured herself about the kiss and confessed to Istvan, begging his forgiveness… Maybe how loyal and filled with conscience she was made Drake want her more?
Drake stifled a groan as he lay there thinking back to that kiss; the smell of French perfume that made his knees weak, his fingers tangled in her silky dark hair pulling her close to him. Her petite frame pressed against his body as his lips tasted hers. He felt like they were the only people in the world at that moment; dizzy, giddy. His racing heart… That kiss set his soul alight…
He’d congratulated them both when they announced their engagement, although it broke him inside. God, he felt so conflicted; Drake was so grateful that his friend had found true love: if anyone deserved it, it was Istvan. But why did it have to be with her? How the hell could he stand up there, as Istvan’s best man, and watch the girl he loved walk down the aisle to marry his best friend…? Would he ever stop feeling like this about Petit? He didn’t know. He wanted to forget how he felt, but he didn’t know how. He had accepted there would never be anything more than friendship between them and he swallowed his feelings, for everyone’s benefit… But his head and his heart ached with unrequited love and unrealised dreams; unable to go back and have never set eyes on her, stuck and unable to move forward wondering what could have been.
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End – VP 💖
