Here is Chapter 20, due to the amazing reviews and how I got so many at once, I'm updating twice in one day! Keep giving love and wonderful things like that and I may update more often. But anyways, enjoy!
After composing herself, Arianna helped Mary get dressed and she did the same for her. Mary hadn't asked Arianna why she was crying, and for that she was relieved. She knew that she needed to let Mary know what happened after her little outburst but she just wasn't ready yet. Thankfully, Mary could tell and didn't ask. Just changed the topic and they got dressed.
Once dressed, the girls decided to go their separate ways. Mary had said she was going to help Catherine figure out who helped terrorize her and Arianna had the wonderful queen training with her grandmother. She wished she could have gone with Mary to help but her grandmother was one you did not keep waiting. Arianna found her grandmother in her chambers and went to see how today would go.
"Grandmother? I'm ready to start." Arianna announced coming into the room.
"Finally. You take much too long to get ready. Now, today we are going to discuss…" Emese started but Arianna just tuned her out.
Sitting by a window, she could see the grounds outside. Her grandmother, still prattling on about something, didn't notice Arianna's lack of focus. She was trying her hardest, but failing to not let her mind wander to Bash. Mary had told her a bit of what happened this morning with the pagans and Bash, and she hoped that he was okay. Arianna had tried her best to stay mad at him, but no matter what, she could not hold onto her anger. She could never stay angry with Sebastian. Even before, when they fought, she'd only be able to stay mad at him for a couple of hours at best. One of them always finding the other and apologizing and making up.
Since she talked to Mary, she understood what had happened better and it helped dissolve her anger. However, she wished it hadn't dissolved. She needed her anger towards Bash to keep her away from him. Even now, her body ached to be near him. It was like he was her drug and she could never have enough. Scolding herself for thinking about this, she tried to focus on something else.
Emese was still going on and on about how she needed to act more proper and pay attention to all the needs of the country and such. Seeing that she didn't miss much, she zoned back out again, looking outside. As she stared out the window, her mind drifted to the other thing she had tried so hard not to think about. Daymen Draganov. He was arriving soon and she could not be anymore terrified.
"Arianna!" Emese exclaimed.
"Yes?" Arianna answered in a monotone voice.
"Did you hear me?" Emese asked. When Arianna shook her head, Emese repeated herself. "I said, once Daymen gets here, we shall make your engagement official!"
"Emese," Arianna started. "I don't know if I'm ready to be engaged after everything that has gone on."
"Nonsense! You're more than of age and you should be married by now. You should have been married a long time ago, but your parents had this outlandish idea that you should pick your own husband. Now that you are the queen, you will need a king at your side. And with the marriage to Daymen, Bulgaria and Hungary's alliance will be stronger than ever!" Emese told her.
"What if I do not wish to marry Daymen, grandmother?" Arianna asked, every word dripping with distain.
"You are the queen of Hungary, you do not get a say in this. You will marry for the alliance and you will not upset the Draganov's. I know his has three other brothers and he is the third of them but he is still royal and will be a great king. You will marry him, and that's final. Are we clear?" Emese had come over to Arianna and her voice had gotten demanding.
"Crystal." Arianna replied, looking back out the window. Upon looking, she saw Bash and someone who looked like they'd been imprisoned riding towards the forest.
Worried for his safety, Arianna stood up abruptly and excused herself from Emese's presence. Her grandmother, fed up with Arianna's defiance, let her leave. Without stopping to think what she was doing, her feet carried her to the forest that she had just seen Bash enter with the other man.
Since Arianna was on foot, she had to keep moving as quick as she could to keep up. Trying to be as quiet as she could, she kept close to the two men on horses straining to hear what they were saying.
"That's Blood Wood? Is that where we're going?" the man asked Bash.
"Would you rather go to jail?" Bash asked the man.
"I might. What do you want from me? What's going on?" the man asked starting to panic.
Bash had moved his horse around to behind the other man's, pulling out a crossbow. "We're not going to meet other soldiers are we?" the man asked again.
"Keep moving. Stop talking." Bash commanded.
Arianna was shocked at what was taking place in front of her. She couldn't understand what Bash was doing and she most certainly could not turn back now, not really remember the way back. Deciding that turning back was not an option, Arianna kept moving forward, wondering what was going to be ahead.
After walking what seemed like ages, Arianna was starting to get tired and it had grown rather dark. Sighing, she was glad when Bash had stopped. However, the scene that was before her was not one she thought she'd witness.
"What are you gonna do to me?" the man asked.
She watched as Bash took a rope and hung it over a tree branch, handing the other end to the man. "Tie it around your feet." Bash ordered.
"My feet? Are you one of those devils of the woods? The ones who spill blood?" the man asked, starting to whimper towards the end of his sentence.
"I said tie your feet and stop talking." Arianna had never heard Bash sound this deadly, this cold.
"Please." The man begged.
"Stop begging. Say your prayers. You have time." Bash told him.
"Time? Time for what?" the man asked, doing as Bash said.
"I need an audience. Or all this will be for not." Bash stated.
"I only stole the money to feed my family. Maybe I deserve to lose a hand but not this!" the man tried to reason with Bash. "My little girl, she's only three. She needs her father to look after her!"
"We all have people to look after." Bash replied coldly.
Arianna heard rustling in the woods around her as the man started to beg Bash for his life. The rustling was getting louder and Arianna was trying her hardest to be quiet. A figure appeared before Bash, however she had not seen where he appeared.
"You threaten someone close to me. Now I need to know. If I kill someone, anyone, even someone as retched at this, my debt will be paid?" Bash asked the figure.
"The conditions are simple. Make the choice and your offering, any human offering, and your debt is paid." The figure said.
Bash had drawn his sword. "Then I choose you."
"Don't pretend this faith is so strange to you." The figure said. "You're betraying your family, bastard born or not."
"Shut up!" Bash shouted.
"It's not just the king's blood in your veins! Your mothers blood is our blood!" the figure told Bash.
Arianna watched as Bash fought the figure and she tried to keep quiet watching Bash fight for his life. She was grateful when Bash got the best of the figure and knocked him to the ground.
"I think you're ignorant." Bash started, "I think the blood lust is in you." Bash plunged his sword through the figure.
"Now it's in you." The figure said before dying.
At the sight of the blood and Bash killing someone, Arianna's breathing had sped up immensely. So much so that Bash heard her breathing.
"Who else is there? I paid my debt!" he shouted into the forest. "Come out and show yourself!"
Terrified of what Bash might do, Arianna stepped out of her hiding place, shaking and cowering in fear.
"Aria?" Bash asked, letting his sword fall to the ground and running over to her.
"Bash…" Arianna whispered as he came up to her. "The blood. There's so much blood." Arianna was now staring at the man that was dead, eyes wide with fear.
"Arianna, look at me." Bash said, forcing her face to look at his. "Are you alright?"
"The blood…" Arianna cried out. "It's everywhere."
"Shh. it's alright. I got you." Bash said, holding Arianna to his chest.
After a few moments, Arianna's breathing had gone back to normal and she snapped out of whatever had her transfixed. She had stayed quiet though. She just watched in silence as Bash released the man he brought into the forest. Bash grabbed her hand and the three walked next to the horses for a bit.
After they had been walking for a while, the sun started to come up, telling the three how long they had been out. Arianna had still kept quiet the whole time. The other man, however, would not shut up.
"In the end, you did nothing wrong. Though I wished I had known what you were planning." The man told Bash.
"Better if you didn't." Bash replied, looking at back at Arianna every few steps.
"Made it more convincing I suppose. Lord knows you convinced me. I'd had done the same in your position. Anything it takes to protect someone I love. But now you don't need to do a thing more." The man said, worry in his last statement.
"And what else would I do exactly?" Bash asked. "After my debt was paid?"
"Nothing." The man replied shortly.
"You think I still mean you harm? Why would that be?" Bash asked, stopping in his tracks, making Arianna run into his back.
"All I meant was, you don't pick your family or their faith. And it doesn't matter whose blood flows through your veins, you choose your own path. Or your kin will. I come from a town where it's better to be protestant but now being so close to the king I'm catholic. Declared, about even." The man prattled on; Bash had started walking again, pulling Arianna behind him.
"How close do you think I am to the king?" Bash asked. "Do you know who I am?"
Arianna knew the answer and she was afraid of it. If he knew who Bash was then he could go running through the town screaming that Bash was heretic and get him burned at the stake. The thought of Bash being burned sent her into a fit, thinking about Bash being hurt and being burned like her family.
"No." the man said too quickly.
"You think that I once shared the faith of the savages, that it was mine. That it was mine and my family's. The family I couldn't pick!" Bash was getting angry, but he kept ahead, keeping Arianna in the middle.
"I don't want anything, I swear. You're the king's bastard." The man confessed.
"And my mother is?" Bash asked.
"Diane de Poitiers." The man said.
Arianna saw that they were near a cliff. She knew she had to do something. She had to protect Bash. She had to protect him like she couldn't protect her family, like she barely protected her brother. She dropped Bash's hand while he still continued forward, not aware that he didn't have her hand yet. Without thinking about what she was doing, she quickly slipped next to the man and pushed him off the cliff.
Bash had turned around at this point and was just staring at her. Her breathing had sped up and she was visibly shaking.
"Aria…" Bash whispered, reaching for her.
At his touch, her wide eyes locked with Bash's concerned ones. "I had to, Bash. He knew too much. He knew who you were. He knew what you did. He could've gone screaming through the town, through the castle, that you were a heretic and he could have you burned. I couldn't let him do that! I couldn't let you die!" Arianna was beginning to get hysterical at this point.
Bash quickly grabbed for her and she went into his arms. "Shh. it's okay. If you hadn't have done it, I would have. I'm sorry that you had to witness all that tonight. I'm so sorry, Aria. Why were you out here anyway?" Bash asked.
"I saw you leaving with the man and Mary had told me a little bit about what happened so curiosity had gotten the better of me and when I realized where you were going, I was too far into the forest to find my way back so I just…" Arianna trailed off.
"I'm sorry. But I am glad you are finally speaking to me again. I've been going crazy with you avoiding me." Bash confessed.
"With my grandmother here, I couldn't let her know what happened between us and then with you and Mary…" Arianna stopped.
"You saw that?" Bash asked shocked. "I didn't mean for you to see that. I didn't mean for anyone to see that. I was drunk and so was Mary and I was thinking about you. I regretted it the instant it happened. I wish I could take it back, Aria. I do. I wanted to be kissing you, not her."
"I know. Mary told me." Arianna said. "There is something else I need to talk with you about. Bash?" Bash was staring at her, not looking like he was listening to her. "Bash? Are you alright?"
Suddenly, Bash leaned his head down and crashed his lips onto hers. At first, Arianna was frozen, but her body's want outweighed her logical thinking, and she kissed him back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, while his hand was on her cheek and the other arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. Deepening the kiss, Bash wrapped his hand in her hair and she held onto him tighter. They both pulled apart out of breath and with smiles on their faces. Being bold and not wanting to waste this moment alone, Arianna pulled Bash in for another kiss that sent her whole body into a frenzy. It was as if her body, her senses, every fiber in her being could not get enough of him.
During this time, Arianna had forgotten all about what she needed to talk to Bash about and the troubles that waited for her at the castle. All that was in her mind at this moment was that she belonged to Bash and he belonged to her. No matter how long they didn't speak or how mad they got at each other, this would always be true. She wanted to stay in that moment forever. Be that happy for as long as she lived. However, as soon as they arrived back to the castle, both of their lives would be turned completely upside down at what awaited them there.