edited

|Adara De Clare|

Someone knocks on the door, and my head immediately snaps to Nikolai as he looks at the door. "We're not expecting anyone are we?" I ask him but he shakes his head then he goes and opens the door.

Is that who he's been texting the whole time? He unlocks the door and opens it, revealing Flora. He stares at her with distaste, and she invites herself in.

Her long royal dress is so long she has to hold it up with both her hands so it doesn't get stuck on any of the low branches and the dirt.

Nikolai locks the door behind her and he puts his hands in his pockets. "Can we leave now?" He asks her, but she ignores him and she walks over to me. Anxiety fills me and I smile at her.

Should I bow? I think I should.

Before I could even have the time to bow before her she hugs me. Oh my gosh, the Queen of ArchDale is hugging me. Holy!

I hesitate as I hug her back. "Hello dear, how are you doing? I know that we didn't really get off on a good start." She says, smiling at me.

I remember the first and last time we met. It was when they were originally telling me about the contract and I was mad. Yup, it wasn't really a great first-time meet with the Queen. I'll say it was one of the worst.

"Yeah, that's my fault, I'm sorry." I apologize.

"No, no, dear don't say 'sorry' you had every right to feel how you felt. It was a life-changing thing." She tells me and I nod.

"I'm so sorry for what happened at the movies with you two. How are you feeling?' She asks me.

I sigh, "It's awful." I tell her the truth.

She tuts at me, "Alright, we'll arrange for a therapist for the both of you." She looks back to Nikolai and he grimaces.

"I've seen dead people before, I don't need to go to therapy." He retorts but Flora gives him a stern look, and he throws his hands up in the air.

"Alright, fine." He conforms which makes Flora smile in contentment.

"Well as to answer your question earlier," she looks at Nikolai, "Yes, you can leave now. The man who bombed the movie theater and killed all those people have been caught. Apparently, he bombed the place because he wanted to kill you."

She turns to Nikolai and my eyebrows shoot up. I had an idea that it was aimed at him but for it to be proven blows my mind. I can't believe it. He just killed all those people just to try and kill Nikolai.

All those people lost their lives because of that reckless, awful man. Horrible. Nikolai doesn't move a muscle nor does he seem surprised at what happened. It's as if he's used to things like this happening. That's frightening.

"So we can go home?" I ask her, hope builds up in my chest.

"Him? Yes. You? No," she says and I crease my eyebrows wondering why. "We have to pick out your outfit to wear to the event tomorrow."

I look at Nikolai for help. I don't really want to tell her that I don't want to go but I can't go through with this. That whole thing would give me anxiety, I just know it.

Nikolai smiles at me a little.

'I got you, but she's impervious to objections.'

I nod a little and he tries to save me from going to the event, "She doesn't want to go. Besides, it wouldn't be great for her, the people there would kill her. By the time she leaves she'd be extremely racked with nerves and anxiety." He says.

Flora looks at Nikolai as if it's the stupidest thing she's ever heard, "What? That's nonsense! Of course, she wants to go right, dear?" Sher turns to me and my eyes widen.

"Uhh, yeah, of course, I do," I say in a rather high voice.

Nikolai's eyebrows furrowed together.

'For real?'

I'm sorry, how can I say no to her? She's the Queen.

Nikolai shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose in disappointment.

I'm sorry.

'Don't apologize, I understand.'

Flora claps her hands together in contentment and she side-hugs me, giving me a little squeeze. "Well, let's go then." She says in excitement.

My eyebrows crease, "Go where?" I ask her, "The mall?"

She laughs, "Oh no sweetie, to the Palace." She tells me and my eyes widen.

T-The palace?

She sees the shock on my face and smiles dearly, "Don't be worried dear, it's going to be great. We're going to have lots of fun together." She tells me, and I smile trying to be as excited as she is.

It's not that I think it's going to be awful, it's just that I'm rather nervous. I'm going to be trying on outfits in front of the Queen. If that isn't nerve-wracking for anyone I'd say they're lying.

We gather our stuff and Nikolai locks up the safe house then we get into this big black vehicle. The drive back to the city is quiet, no one says anything.

I lay my head on Nikolai's shoulder and I close my eyes, feeling comfortable. I'm not tired, I just want to be comfortable.

As I feel myself about to drift off into sleep, the vehicle comes to a stop. I open my eyes and I look outside, my mouth falls open. Woah.

Golden brown walls go up for miles it seems, green gardens occupy a wide space of the area, the big golden doors are right in front of us. I've seen the palace before but it was only in pictures. Now it's right in front of my face and I'm starstruck. This place is magnificent.

I mean, of course, it is, it's the palace, this is the most important Kingdom in the world.

The driver gets out of the car and opens all the doors for us then he bows. Wow, that's weird.

I step out of the vehicle and onto the white gravel below us. I watch as Nikolai goes to the side of the palace, leaving us.

I'm sure he didn't want to stay with us anyway. Dressing up is probably not his forte, maybe he has some duties to attend to.

Flora squeezes my arm, "I know how you feel, I used to feel like that whenever the King had to attend to his duties. It could get lonely." She says and I nod.

"Let's try on dresses for you. I'm sure we'll have a hard time picking out the right one. You're so beautiful." She comments looking at the dress I'm wearing.

I smile, blushing a little at her compliment. We walk into the palace and I admire everything that I see. All the tapestries, wallpapers, and even portraits, I stop and admire.

We walk up some stairs and around corners until we come to this door. She takes out a key and she unlocks the door. We walk in and I see a beautiful big bed in the middle of the bed with two small tables on either side. The closet doors occupy quite some space and there's a desk opposite the closet, right by a window along with a window seat.

My eyes widen at what I consider to be my dream room. Woah, this room is absolutely beautiful. I love it.

Flora walks to the closet and she draws it open. She turns back to me, telling me to close the door and come over to where she is. I do so and she walks into the closet with me following behind her.

Woah, for one, this closet isn't a closet at all, it's literally the size of my entire room. Two, all the outfits in here are dresses to wear for different occasions, some are more simple than the others while others are big poofy ones, I'm assuming you wear them to balls and stuff like that.

Flora invites me to sit on this big white round seat in the middle of the closet and I oblige. She takes out a few dresses from off the racks and she holds them up to me then she clicks her tongue putting it back. She does that for a few more dresses until she holds up a light brown beautiful dress. She analyzes it for a few seconds.

"Please stand and change, come out when you're done." She says giving me the dress and walking out of the closet, closing the doors.

I strip out of the dress I have on then I put that on, I take my extra time with it to make sure that I don't tear anything. I'm rather small, but I do have a little chub just like everyone else. It still doesn't hurt to be extra careful.

I get the dress on without any tears or complications, I go into the full-body length mirror and I look at myself.

Eh, I have to say I don't really like it to be honest. It's not the dress itself, it's the color. My skin is brown and the dress being brown just washes it out and makes me look bad a bit.

"You can come in!" I call out to Flora and she opens the closet doors. She looks at me and grimaces a little.

"Oh dear no." She says then she rushes through the closet trying to find another one.

Thank God, at least she feels the same way about the dress as I do. It would be bad if she liked it and wanted me to wear it. There's no way I would be able to say no.

After shuffling for a little bit through the dresses and gowns, she takes one out and smiles in contentment. She turns around, showing it to me. It's a light blue medium-length dress, the back is longer than the front. It has small blue flowers embroidered onto it and it's off the shoulder.

It's beautiful. I'd prefer if it was green of course but it's still pretty. Green is such an amazing color, it's my favorite.

She hands me the dress along with the shoes, and she steps out once more, closing the doors behind her. I carefully take off the brown dress and I put on the blue one. I stare at myself in the mirror patting down the dress.

I put on the shoes which are low-heeled, a cute baby blue color with daisies shrouding the strap that comes around my ankles.

Wow, it is beautiful. Absolutely wonderful.

"Come in!" I say but after a few seconds, she doesn't. I crease my eyebrows and I walk to the doors pushing them open. The doors open and I look to see Flora speaking with Nikolai.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did I interrupt?" I apologize and they both stop to stare at me.

Nikolai's eyes roam my body from my shoulders to where the dress ends. His eyes a bit wide, he swallows, shifting his stance and putting his hands in his pockets. Flora claps her hands together in excitement.

"Yes! I love that!" She squeals, running up to me, "Do you like it?" She asks me.

I nod, smiling wide, "I do."

She claps her hands then she runs out of the room. I walk over to Nikolai who's still looking at me, starstruck.

"Do you like it?" I ask him, biting my lower lip.

He lifts my chin up, smiling his oh-so-charming smile. "I do. You look perfect." He tells me, and I blush hard.

"Thank you."

"I'm going to have to fight for your attention at the event. I am not looking forward to going." He tells me, and I blush even harder.

"Thank you, Nick."

"You're welcome, Adara." He looks at me, his eyes sparkling.

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