The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 423

Liora’s POV

I smelled cheap detergent and something faintly musty underneath the faint trace of fast food somewhere nearby. I blinked my eyes open and found a low, popcorn ceiling hanging above me, a large water stain in one corner.

I frowned. The last thing I remembered, I was in a dark room. A cellar of some kind, with my wrists and ankles bound and poison coursing through my veins.

Now…

I groaned and tried to sit up. That was a mistake. The room lurched sideways the moment I tried to move, and I gagged again. A bucket landed under my mouth just as I began to retch.

“Hey.” The mattress dipped. A warm hand found my back, gently rubbing. “It’s okay. Let it out.”

Callum.

When I was finished puking, I rolled onto my back and cracked one eye open. He was sitting beside me on the edge of the bed, still in the same clothes from last night, and he looked like he hadn’t slept at all. There were shadows under his eyes and his jaw was rough with stubble. But he was alert and looking at me with concern.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Terrible.” I swallowed hard. My throat burned.

He nodded, then reached over to the nightstand and picked up a plastic cup of water and two small white pills. “Zane raided the vending machine in the lobby,” he said. When I eyed them suspiciously, he added, “It’s just ibuprofen.”

I took the pills and swallowed them with most of the water. Callum held the cup steady when my hands shook a little. When I was done, he took the cup back and set it aside, and I laid back against the pillows.

“You scared me,” he said quietly.

I looked at him. “What happened?”

“I was hoping you could enlighten me, actually.”

I sighed and rubbed my face. I told him what I remembered about the whole ordeal, and saw his face darken with each word. When I was finished, he told me, in a gruff voice, how he and Zane had found me.

By the time he was done, he looked like he wanted to punch something.

“I’m sorry, for taking you there,” he ground out. “I knew better, and I took you anyway, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is, actually.” His jaw shifted. “But it won’t happen again. Any of it.” He laced his fingers with mine. “I love you, Liora. Protecting you is all that matters to me in this life. I’ve spent too much time watching you lay in a sickbed, and I’m not going to let it happen again.”

I smiled wryly as I tightened my fingers around his.

“I think I’ll find a way to wind up in a sickbed again regardless of what you do to prevent it,” I snorted softly.

We fell silent after that. Callum let out a small breath, then stood to refill my water.

It took close to an hour before I felt marginally better. The ibuprofen kicked in, easing some of the ache in my head. Callum kept making me sip water and eat the saltines Zane had gotten from the vending machine. I found out that it was eight in the morning, and that I had slept all night.

I had just managed to push myself upright without the room spinning when Callum said, “Can I ask you something?”

His tone was different. I looked at him.

“You were talking in your sleep last night,” he said, furrowing his brow. “I couldn’t make out all of it, but I heard enough.”

I held my breath.

“Something about a female Alpha. And a perfect princess.” He paused. “I know you said there were things you couldn’t tell me yet. And I said I trusted you, and I meant it. But, Liora…” He exhaled slowly. “I told you I loved you. I’ve never said that to anyone. If there’s something big you're keeping from me, I think I should know.”

The ache behind my eyes had spread down into my chest.

I thought about my father’s flat, final voice through the mindlink: “Obey your father.”

“Liora.” Mia squeezed my fingers. “Tell him.”

I didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. “My father said—”

“Since when is listening to your father your top priority?” Zane cut me off, then made air quotes with his fingers. “‘Miss Guided’.”

I pressed my lips together.

“Whatever your father’s reasons are,” Mia said gently, as if to soften the blow of Zane’s words, “he loves you. He’ll understand.”

Maybe she was right. Maybe she wasn’t. But I thought about sitting in that cellar, bound and cold, certain I wasn’t going to make it out. I thought about all the things I hadn’t said yet. I thought about the pinky promise I had made on a picnic blanket with candles burning low around us, and how Callum had said just now, “I told you I loved you, I’ve never said that to anyone,” and I thought about how tired I was of carrying this weight on my shoulders.

“Okay,” I said. I swung my legs over the edge of the bed with some effort and a lot of help from Mia. “I’m going to tell him.”

My friends protested, but I stood anyway. My legs were weak and rubbery as I hobbled to the door.

I found Callum outside. He was sitting under an oak tree at the edge of the motel parking lot, his back against the bark and his legs stretched out in front of him with a half-eaten granola bar and a can of soda in his hands. He looked up when he saw me approaching, and shot to his feet.

“What are you doing up?” he asked.

“Just help me,” I said.

He did. He took my elbow and guided me over to the tree, where I sat down next to him. The ground was cold through the thin fabric of the dress, and the morning air was cool, and somewhere behind us on the highway the traffic droned steadily past.

I pulled my knees to my chest and stared straight ahead for a moment.

Then I took a breath.

“Callum,” I said, turning to him, “I’m the princess. Not Bianca.”