Broken Prince: A New Adult Romance Novel (11 page)

Richard Feynman

Eliot woke up from a nightmare. He'd been driving again, through a rocky landscape that burned bright red, and the deer had jumped again in front of his car, and he'd turned the wheel, crashing into trees that sprung up out of nowhere. Turning his head, he saw Clare with the tree branch through her chest, and then he blinked and it was Brynn, Brynn with the drop of blood at the corner of her mouth, Brynn who looked up at him and whispered his name—

He opened his eyes, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Beside him, Brynn slept soundly. Her full lips were slightly parted, a few strands of hair stuck to her cheek. A sleeping beauty.

Eliot pushed back the covers and slipped out of bed quietly. Pulling on his robe, he tiptoed downstairs and went through the kitchen to the back door. It creaked loudly as he opened it, the sound the only noise in the house. Outside the moon shone brightly, high in the sky, and he walked out into the middle of the garden.

The roses in the garden had lost their color in the light of the moon, and all looked like different shades of blue. The white roses took on a tint of the moonlight, but the red roses looked nearly black under the night sky. He touched one of the red roses and pulled off one of the petals, rubbing it absentmindedly between his fingers. The air was only slightly chilly here at night.

He thought about Budapest, and why he was staying. He was here for Brynn, to offer her the opportunity to study at the Academy for her final year. She could very well finish without him there, he knew. It would only be a school year, and he would feel horrible asking her to leave Hungary and come with him. Yet he would feel horrible without her.

It wasn't just Brynn, though. He needed to finish this proof, to prove to himself that he hadn't lost all of his mathematical ability. When Brynn had come here with him, he found a new drive inside of himself that he thought he had lost. But drive wasn't enough—he needed more than that. The spark of genius that had burned brightly through his youthful days as a mathematician now had died to a low ember, and he longed to stoke the fires again, to do the work that he'd once done so easily.

He had money. It wasn't that. It was the math.

The problem had taken hold of his mind. Every day now, he found it easier to retreat into the algebra instead of talking to Brynn. She let him immerse himself in work, but it seemed that the more he surrounded himself with the math, the harder the proof became. The numbers tangled up in his head when before they had marched easily into whatever structure he was looking for. He redoubled his efforts but the problem, too, grew twice as thorny, seemed to fight even harder against his attempts to understand. The first results had come in a burst of light and inspiration, and he'd thought that the rest would slide into place easily. Not so. Brynn supported him, worked alongside him, and he tried to draw her closer while still giving her room to heal.

Last night he had put his arm around her and it had been wonderful. He wanted her so badly, but he'd taken pains to hide his desire. After all that had happened, he couldn't rush her into anything. Oh, but the touch of her skin under his fingers!

The sound of the kitchen door made him spin around.

"You left." Brynn closed the door behind her and pulled her robe tightly around her deliciously curvy body. In the moonlight, her red hair looked dark. He wanted to run his hands through it, pull her hot mouth to his...

"I needed to think," he said.

"I saw you out here," she said, coming closer to him. "But I can go back if you want to be alone."

"No, no," he said quickly. "We can go inside if you'd like."

"I like it here." She looked out toward the woods. "At night, anyway. They wouldn't come around to take pictures at night, would they?" Her eyebrows knitted together.

"It's too dark," Eliot said. Her shoulders relaxed slightly and she breathed out. So beautiful. He remembered her body, naked and pale. His hands caressing her skin.

"So what are you thinking about?" she asked, looking up at the stars.

"The story I told you about before," he said. He did not want to talk with her about his misgivings. She was already under enough pressure; she didn't need to deal with his insecurities. "The Little Prince."

"I'd like to read it," she said. "Maybe we can read it together. I want to know if the prince gets back to his rose."

Eliot bent and picked a rose from the bush, breaking the stalk with his fingers. The bud had just started to blossom, its petals slightly revealed at the sides. The center still hidden in the middle, dark silk readying itself for the outside world.

"He finds another rose bush," Eliot said. He held out the rose to Brynn and she took it, her fingers brushing his and causing his nerves to spark—for a second, he thought he might see lightning flash between their hands, the feeling was so strong. "It's full of roses, just like his rose. But his rose is special."

"How?" Brynn asked.

"Because it's his rose," Eliot said, remembering the story as his mother had told it to him. He should reread the book with Brynn. It had been too long. "Because he loves it."

Brynn put the flower up to her nose and inhaled, closing her eyes. Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks.

"I miss my grandmother," she said. Her voice was so quiet that Eliot leaned forward, not understanding at first.

"Your grandmother?"

Brynn looked up at him, her eyes shimmering. Was it the moonlight or tears pooling in her eyes? He could not tell until her voice caught and choked.

"I don't know...I don't know how to say..."

"It's okay," he said, pulling her to his body in a bear hug. His arms wrapped around her completely. She was so warm against his chest. He felt himself becoming aroused, and fought the sensation. "Let's go to sleep. We'll talk about it tomorrow morning." Perhaps it would be alright. Perhaps she would want to leave Hungary as well.

"Okay," she said, and the way she looked up at him so gratefully caused his guilt to rise up again. He was not good enough for her.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Brynn

Back in bed, Eliot took me in his arms, and I kissed him. He kissed me back so tenderly that my skin flushed hot. I was glad that it was dark and he could not see me redden.

I paused, and he sensed my hesitation. He drew me close to his chest and pressed his lips to the top of my forehead.

"It's late, princess," he said. "Let's go to sleep."

"Yes," I murmured. I would talk with him tomorrow about Nagyi. Relief flooded through me, and I let my body snuggle up against his. His breathing was slow and even, and soon I found myself drifting off to sleep.

The dream started off so realistically I could not tell that I was dreaming. We were in bed and Eliot kissed me hard, so hard that I could not breathe. He rolled over on top of me, began to thrust himself inside of me. Slowly at first, then harder and harder. As he thrust, he kissed me again and I gasped, all of the oxygen torn from my body. The air in the room was like fire in my lungs and we moved together. My legs wrapped around his thighs and we moved together and it was fire, fire everywhere, every square inch of me burning up in a frenzy of passionate lovemaking. Even in my dream I knew that it was not real, for I had never been so brash in bed.

He shuddered over me in what I knew was his release. I moaned, but no sound came out. The fire had died to embers and Eliot lay by my side, stroking my hair.

He looked at me as though he was uncertain of something. I sat up on the side of the bed.

"What are you doing?" Eliot asked.

"We have to leave," I said. "Follow me."

All of the rooms in the castle were the same as I walked through them, and it was only my newfound confidence that reminded me that I was still dreaming.

We went down the stairs, down to the baths that were built up around the hot springs underneath Eliot's castle. The lights of the torches were shining all around us, the gilded edges of the tub glittering. The pools of the baths were filled with white rose petals floating on the top of the water. It was a sea of white, almost like snow on top of the water.

I walked toward the pool, unconscious of my nakedness. The water glinted in the torchlight where the petals separated. Welcoming me.

I took one step in. I could feel Eliot's breath on my neck, urging me forward. He did not touch me, but his presence was calming. My feet were warmed by the hot water of the springs. I took another step forward, and when I looked down I gasped.

The white rose petals were turning red, the color spreading outward from my feet.

"Forward," Eliot whispered, his voice faint. I stepped in farther, the water now up to my waist. My hand trailed through the rose petals and everywhere I touched the white petals turned a dark, dark red. Ripples of color spread outward from my body.

I could hear the soft murmurs of water behind me as Eliot followed me down into the baths.

"Don't look back," he said. "Whatever you do, don't look back."

One more step, and my chest was submerged. This was as deep as the baths went, but as I looked forward and saw the white petals transforming, turning red, panic seized me. My chest seemed compressed, unable to draw enough air. My feet slid across the bottom of the pool, the tile slippery, and for a moment I was so dizzy that I fell forward, losing my balance. I thought that I would drown.

"Eliot!" I caught my balance, my arms spread out in the rose petals which were now almost all red.

"It's alright," I heard him say, but his voice was farther away than before.

"Eliot!" His name echoed off of the walls of the baths, ringing again in my ears, calling out. I couldn't stay in the water without him. I needed him, I needed him there—

"ELIOT!"

My hands splashed the rose petals as I spun around to hold onto him. My prince. My protector.

He was gone. The light of the torches grew dim, and I could hear a whisper of his voice trailing away through the cavernous baths.

"Farewell,
" he said.

I raised my hands up to reach out, and saw that they were covered in blood. I looked down. The bathwater around me had turned to blood, the rose petals awash in dark scarlet. I screamed. Hands thrashing, I tried to move backwards, to get out of the baths, but the steps seemed no nearer as I splashed through the red petals.

"Don't look back," I heard the whisper say, and then the bottom of the baths fell away from under my feet. I was drowning, drowning—

I woke up panting, my fingers clutching the sheets damply. Beside me, Eliot slept on. I rolled to his side and held on to him, and he put his arm around me sleepily, drawing me close.

"Don't leave me," I whispered, so softly that he couldn't hear it even in his dreams.

It's easy to slay dragons. It's harder when they're in your mind. If I was living in a fairy tale, why were my nights filled with terror?

Eliot held me every night as though he wanted to make love to me. I reached out to him but pulled back always before temptation could overcome me, although I was not sure what I was afraid of. We had slept together already, many times. The first time after the attack was my first time, and Eliot made it gentle. The time after, I thought things would be different, but still he held me delicately, as though I were a rare orchid he had transported from its warm environment. Opening my petals softly.

When I retreated away from him, though, he made no attempt to keep me in his bed. His tenderness both comforted and alarmed me. Could the passion between us have been taken away so easily? I grew frightened to tempt him, for fear that he would not even notice me. I still had secrets and so did he, and those secrets, ugly and worming, slipped into the space between us.

Now every night in this Hungarian castle was filled with nightmares of my mother's death, of Clare's death, of my own. Filled with blood and pain. Even Eliot's arms could not keep away the bad dreams. I was living like a princess. An enchanted castle. A handsome prince. How could I not be grateful? And yet, I knew in my heart that I was no princess, that if Eliot tried to fit a glass slipper onto my foot it would be the wrong size, that I was only pretending. I was holding a mask up to my face that was beginning to slip, and soon everyone would know the truth, if they didn't know already. Eliot would know the truth, and he would cast me aside like any other young stupid girl who wanted more than she deserved.

So I held my secrets close to my heart, and when the dragons breathed fire down my neck I clenched my teeth and tried to forget that I wasn't happy.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Eliot

“Let us grant that the pursuit of mathematics is a divine madness of the human spirit.”

Alfred North Whitehead

Eliot was in his study, struggling. The proof was impossible.

No. Not impossible. That would be better. If it were impossible, if he could
prove
that it was impossible, then he would be done. But every avenue he tried, every method he used, led only to uncertainty. He'd tried manipulating the equations in every way he could think of, and nothing worked.

"Meow!"

Lucky jumped up onto his desk.

"Shoo, cat," Eliot said absentmindedly, running his finger over the one line of the proof that had broken down under scrutiny and scratching absentmindedly at the scar running down his face.

"Meow." Lucky walked across the papers and sat squarely on top of Eliot's notebook. He licked his chops, his whiskers twitching, and waited to be petted.

Eliot sighed and leaned back in his chair. He stroked Lucky on the head and the little gray cat rubbed against his fingers eagerly.

"Good morning." Brynn stood in the doorway. Her eyes looked red around the rims. He knew she hadn't been sleeping well. While she slept, she whimpered and moaned. Eliot sometimes rubbed her back until she stopped making noises, but still she would toss and turn until he wrapped his arm around her tightly. Then she would wake with a frown on her face.