Chapter Seventeen

Ryan stalked through the hall to her bedroom, knowing he shouldn't be here, that he'd promised his best friend he wouldn't do anything rash, but finding it particularly hard to care. He had to see her, had to tell her. He gave a sharp knock on the door, hearing someone scrambling to open the door quickly.

"Sir?" Layla almost gasped, surprised not only to see him by her bedroom but in such a state. She'd never seen him looking so harassed.

"Is Nieve there?" he asked, needing to know they'd be alone.

"No sir, she's still with…" the blonde handmaiden started to answer but before she could finish her sentence, the Simia heir almost barged in, shut the door behind him and, cupping her face with one hand, leaned in to kiss her. She was almost aware that the force of his entrance took her a few steps back as she was pushed against the wall, but she wasn't scared. For possibly the first time in her life she felt at peace and exhilarated at the same time. His kiss, while tinged with a little desperation, was everything she'd imagined; strong but gentle, hard yet soft, teasing while also serious. It was such a rush to be able to kiss him back, as a pleasant warmth tingled through her, but reality did slowly start seeping in; she wasn't supposed to be kissing him back. "Ryan?" Layla managed to pull back slightly.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, "I should've done that earlier. I should never have ignored you. I know, I wasn't supposed to fall for you, but I've given up on giving up on you." And with that she felt her heart swell in relief, with happiness, that she wasn't alone in her feelings. He could feel her positivity and love wash over him as she smiled, as he leaned his forehead against hers.

"What about Evangeline? You're engaged," she dared to ask.

"I know, I'm working on it," Ryan said with a sigh. His blue eyes looked into her brown earnestly. "I don't love her," he promised before his lips softly brushed hers again, waiting for her to take it further. Casting aside all her doubts and shouldn'ts, she pulled him in closer as she kissed him back.

Some days were just plain horrible from the moment she'd wake up. Today was one of those days. It wasn't necessarily that something had happened, Evangeline had been as horrible as always, but today the degrading comments, the yelling and the abusing of her powers just hit her harder. So when the future lady Simia dismissed her for lunch, she knew she wouldn't be able to pretend to be happy. She went to the only place that no one else but Ryan and Riven ever went; the top of the highest tower. There she sat, in a corner, her knees pulled up to her chest as she stared out over the city without seeing it. Quiet tears spilled down her cheeks as she contemplated her life. Sure, Serenissima was beautiful, but a beautiful cage was still a cage.

There were moments where she actually enjoyed it here, mostly the moments when she was in her room with Layla, when she could pretend that they were still in the Marsh, only with better beds.

She couldn't remember how much time had passed since her arrival in the city, but it had been months. In all that time she'd managed to make one friend, Jacqueline, but they rarely saw each other. And even with Jacqueline she felt guarded. She supposed she considered Riven a friend. Maybe. But after everything that had happened in her past, she had a hard time trusting anyone that wasn't a common. Of course, there was the fact that his powers were useless on her, but he still chose to live here, he chose to stay and work for the same people that had chewed his mother up and spit her out like she wasn't worth a thing.

No one had given her a choice.

The sound of the door opening made her jump up and quickly wipe her tears.

"Hey, I was wondering where you were," Riven said, concern creasing his brows. "Lady Simia has called for a meeting," he added before Nieve could ask him why he was looking for her. She could see he wanted to ask her what was wrong, but he probably knew she wouldn't say anyway.

Lady Simia had asked her son, daughter, her future daughter-in-law to convene in one of the meeting rooms. No one had a clue what it could be about but there was no chance to talk as Lady and Lord Simia were waiting for them when they arrived in the room.

Riven, Layla and Nieve took up post along the walls, as far as possible away from what was about to happen. Evangeline sat herself delicately in one of the side chairs, as Kaitlyn perched on the edge of a table and Ryan remained standing. It made him nervous when his mother summoned them together like this; the last time it had been to announce his engagement to Evangeline.

"Evangeline's parents and we have agreed to bring the wedding forward. To two days from now," Lady Simia told them now.

"What?" her heir asked shell-shocked, sounding a little petulant. "Why… why… why so soon?" he stammered now, receiving three sets of raised eyebrows at how nervous he sounded from his parents and his fiancée.

"Her grandmother is really unwell and they're not sure how long she might have left," his mother said, wondering what was going on with him.

Ryan managed not to glance over at Layla, but his thoughts went straight to her. He'd been banking on having several weeks to postpone the wedding or to come up with a plan to get out of it. "But…" he tried now.

"No buts, Ryan! This is happening," the ice queen said as she got up and the room temperature noticeably dropped a few degrees. She was about to continue to explain the plans and how they were going to make it work, when the room shook as if there was a small earthquake. All eyes immediately turned to Kaitlyn.

"Don't look at me, I didn't do that," she objected with her hands held up innocently.

"Then who did?" Lady Simia demanded. The room stayed eerily quiet for what felt like forever as people exchanged blank looks; the only prime they knew of with an earth power was Lady Kaitlyn.

Layla blinked away the tears she'd been trying to hold in before she stepped away from the wall. "I think I may have done, ma'am," she said. In her attempts to not outwardly show her upset at the announcement that his marriage to the redhead would really be happening and sooner rather than later, after he'd finally kissed her earlier today, she'd placed her hands against the wall to ground herself. Even though she wasn't entirely convinced it had been her, since it was so far removed from her ability to keep flowers alive, she thought she'd felt something had change inside her. Whatever power she had must have channelled her feelings into the wall, making the room shake.

"Come forward," Lord Simia now spoke for the first time. Even though his tone was softer, she feared him as much as his wife. "You have an earth power? How?" he asked, taking her in with a keen eye. Servers were always commons and commons should not have any powers, especially none that powerful.

"I don't know my Lord. That's the first time I've done anything like that, and I didn't mean to. I mean, it may not have even been me, but I did have my hands against the wall as that happened," Layla started honestly as she chose a point on the wall behind them to fixate on, trying not to start rambling. She didn't see the concerned looks they briefly exchanged. "All I could ever do before was keep my garden alive against the odds, where others couldn't," she added now, which told them more than she knew; her powers had grown because of a prime. There was a simple reason that the ruling class didn't want primes and commons having relations: genuine love between a prime and a common could unlock any latent power in said common. They obviously didn't want commons to discover this and start seducing primes in order to get a better lot out of life.

"And who is the prime you seduced to have relations with you?" Lady Simia demanded now, seeing the genuine confusion on the server's face; what did a prime have to do with any power she might have?

Oh, dear Lord, here we go. "Me," Ryan spoke up now as he stepped up towards the common who'd captured his heart. "Except I was the one to pursue her."

"What?!" his mother and his betrothed exclaimed at the same time. His father sank into his chair a little as he observed them.

"How dare you?" the redhead almost shrieked and the Lady of the house had to silence her with a look.

"Ryan, how could you?" Lady Simia asked, disappointment in her son dripping from every word and he could feel it creeping down the back of his neck like a chill.

"I didn't plan for this to happen. I just wanted to get out of the city for one night and met Layla and Nieve by chance. They didn't know who I really was," Ryan said honestly.

"Riven?" Lord Simia asked calmly.

"It's true sir," the bodyguard said with a simple nod, not bothering of going through the pretence of reading either Ryan's mind or those of the server.

"I don't care whether she knew at the time, she's known since she's been here, since the engagement. And I want to know…" Evangeline spoke up shrilly as she almost shot up from her chair.

"Please calm yourself. I would like to get to the bottom of this," the white-haired Lady tried to regain control as she cut off their guest. The redhead sank back down in her seat for now, trying not to seethe too obviously; at present she was still showing an acceptable amount of annoyance or betrayal. "Surely you know this can't be acceptable," she addressed her heir now.

"I tried to do the right thing, and keep my distance from her," Ryan said. "I'd been fully intending to do my duty, but… I couldn't ignore my heart." His blue eyes strayed over to her and his parents could plainly see the depth of his feelings written all over his face.