Royal slave: chapter 20
James' POV
Months passed by after that day. No one had heard anything of the duke ever since he had walked out on us after punching me for defending the princess. Jasmine's parents were gratefull for defending her, even though, speaking out of line could mean a death sentence for a slave in any other high class family. But thankfully, this family wasn't as cruel as those families who treated they're slaves as if they were nothing but vermin. If they were, then i wouldn't have been together with their daughter now. Of course, our relationship was secret. Secret for everyone except for her parents. We had told her parents the next day that we were together because i didn't want to have any problems with them. I was glad that they took it better then i expected. But i think that the main reason was that me and Jasmine kind of grew up together. We were glad of course, but we were starting to think that they were doubting us.
I had started to notice when they gave me more workto do then they normally would. I wouldn't mind, except for the fact that i almost had no time to spare for Jasmine. I liked to spend my evenings with her. But all the extra hard work made me to tired in the evening and i had to go to bed earlier because i needed my rest in order to work tomorrow. I wasn't the only one noticing the sudden change. Jasmine noticed aswell. She wanted to question her parents about it, but i reassured her that it was probably temporarily. But i was starting to have my doubts the more time passed by and another little problem had arisen between me and Jasmine. This little problem was going to change both of our lives. Maybe even for the worse. We had to tell the royal couple, but first we had to have them explain why they changed the way of everything so suddenly.
I was walking around in the salon of the palace. Lost in thought. I knew i had work to do, but i had to talk to them aswell. I had asked them to come here as soon as they could. I had been waiting for a while now, but they still hadn't showed up. I was becoming nervous as more time passed by. I was beginning to hear noises outside of the salong door. I walked over to the door to see if they were arriving untill i accidently knocked some papers of off the salon table and onto the ground. I went to my knees to pick it up. I stood back up and read a few lines of the letter unpurposelly. Those few lines i had read prevented me from putting the letter back down. I looked up from the letter in shock. I held it tightly in my hand and walked out of the room. I had to show this letters to Jasmine.
I knocked on the door and a soft 'come in' was heard within the room. "Jasmine?" I said and walked in. "James! come in! i'm on the balcony." She said with a welcoming smile. I walked in, closed the door behind me and sat down next to her on the bench that stood outside on the balcony. "how are you feeling?" I asked and laid a hand on her stomache. Our little accident was about 2 months far now. Thankfully, not far enough to show yet. But that won't be for long anymore. "i'm feeling fine. don't you worry." She said smilling and laid her head on my shoulder.
"i know why your parents are acting weird." I said. Jasmine lifted her head of off my shoulder and looked up to me. "it's because of this." I said looking down on the letter in my hand and handed it to her. Jasmine took it and read it. The letter was talking about it's writer knowing of our relationship and what consequences i, and undoubtly our child, would suffer. "w-what? b-but how?" Is all Jasmine could say when she finished reading the letter. "i don't know. and what's even worse about this is that it's the duke who wrote this letter." I said and sighed. The duke owned a slave house and so he knew all about the rights of a slave and consequences when they did something. With something as serious as this, i would certainly be killed and the child would be taken away from it's mother as soon as it was born. And in the worsest case scenario. It would be killed aswell. Unless the king and queen would go against it, but still the royal court, who had more saying in this country then the actuall royal family, wouldn't allow it.
I leant my head into my hands in despair. There was only one option left if we wanted to stay together and secure the future of our infant. "Jasmine, if there was only one option left. and that option could make your life turn for the better or for the worse. would you take it?" I asked, not facing her. "if that option meant staying with the one i love, then i would take it no matter what." She said and smiled at me. "then, would you run away with me?" I asked and looked up at her. She thought for a while before smilling. "of course. aslong as i'm with you, i know that everything'll turn out alright." She said smilling. I smiled back hesitantly. I know that she wants to stay close to her parents, but it was our only option. She tried to hide the sadness in her eyes, but i knew her to well.
A few hours passed by. It was deep in the night now. Everyone had gone to sleep and everything inside aswell as outside was quiet and dark. I turned my gaze over my shoulder and looked back at my pregnant mate with a worried expression and followed her with my eyes as she walked past me out of the room. It didn't take us long to leave the royal palace. I had hid a bag with usefull bagage, like clothing and food, somewhere in the gardin by the gate. We had made the guards believe that Jasmine couldn't sleep and that we were going to take a walk. Instead walked towards the bush i had hidden the large bag in and held the gate open. Thankfully i was able to open it due to the butler mostly forgetting to close it. We walked out through the gate and stopped for a moment to look back at the palace for the last time. We turned again and walked down the path of the forest. Not knowing that this decision had made our lives turn for the worse.