Chapter 48

Viktor’s P.o.v

The mark on my neck stung against the itchy fabric of my shirt. The pain reminded me that what happened wasn’t born from my imagination.

I could have never anticipated someone like Princess Arabella, or her decision to accept me. Guilt swirled in my stomach, an emotion I had experienced little. The small Princess was making me feel things I had only heard about, but never experienced.

I felt true fear for the first time in her presence. Fear had been a distant memory, present in the mind of child-like Viktor. My name had been different back then, but I had also been a different person. Fear was a constant companion as a child, but it was beaten and torn from my body until nothing remained. I had felt fear in its rawest forms at the Princess’s Birthday Gala. Her life had been hanging by a thread, threatened in her need to save my life.

She knew nothing of my past, nothing of the things I’ve done and yet she still acce