.: Entry Fifty-Eight :.

My name is Elliot Parker, but right now I am so glad that it’s not.

… Betraying myself, makes that yes the most deafening yes I will ever remember in my life.

The smile on his lips when he kissed me after the word had left my lips was unmistakeable. The kisses were hungry and intense and unquenchable. I fight the fog of the hunger. It feels like a fight I am loosing before I manage to break our lips free at last for a moment.  “You need to answer my question.” My breath feels as unsteady and as shaken as I feel. “Who are you really?”

It had sobered us both like a bucket of ice.

I waited, the silence was heavy, I could see the confliction flashing through his face. “It’s better you don’t know.”

My temper hits me in a white hot rage. Without knowing it my right hand has raised and been caught in his vice like grip, his reflex stopping me from slapping him. His other hand has already wrapped itself around my other wrist. His anger isn’t a mask this time, neither is the hurt registering in his eyes, I can feel it is a mirror reflection of myself. Bitterly like a hot knife a tear rolls down my cheek. I try to look away but I can see something strange in his eyes, guilt? Remorse? I feel his grip loosen.

Slowly my hands are allowed to fall freely to my side before I wrap them around my body. The sting of the tears I am defiantly wishing away are falling without my permission.

Finally, when he speaks, he is beside my ear and his breath tickles me. What he says, turns my insides into cold lead, “I’m the Prince you ran away from.”

The lump in my throat is solid, it doesn’t go away when I try to swallow air. It feels like I am suffocating. Suddenly my whole body is on fire and I have to get out the room. I push past him and this time he lets me as I burst from his cabin and run to the furthest end of the ship dizzy and hot and burning from the inside out.

I could jump, I could try to out swim the ship but there’s no land to rescue and no other ship in sight. I can feel his every stride across the deck, he stopped standing in the door, I could feel him reading my desire to jump, to feel the cold splash of the sea on my skin. I feel him approach, I feel more trapped with every breath I take. The pounding in my ears, I feel like I’m drowning in my own fire.

His voice cuts through me, he turns me to face him, “I am addicted to you, regardless of who you are and who I am.”

This time he doesn’t stop me when I slap him. “Where are we going?” I feel every word heavy and painful from the pit of my lungs.

“Home.” My knees buckle under me.

I never escaped, not really. I can never escape. He pulls me up and somehow I find myself floating into his cabin. “You lied.”

“Can you blame me?”

“Yes.”

“The moment I saw you I knew no matter who you were I was under your spell. I wanted to know you, really know you.”

“You were under the contract of the arrangement.”

“No, the moment I saw you and new you were running away, from me, you didn’t know who I was; I wanted you to choose me, not have your hand forced.”

“You can’t be serious?” I finally notice the door is closed, it’s just us. “What is the damn truth with you?”

He takes a deep breath. How did I end up sitting on his bunk? When did he kneel in front of me? When did he take my hands in his? “I am the Prince you will marry; I am the Prince who fell from grace the moment our eyes met. You are my addiction and an adventure with every breath. Finally, you told me what I had hoped for, I am your addiction. That hasn’t changed.”

“The crew know who you are?”

“Yes. They found out who you really were when you got us out of that chamber.”

“You knew exactly who I was, and your men have seen me naked at your demand in that cave.” I feel the fury and fire in my throat burning again. I pull my hands free of his.

“I had no choice, you refused to do what I said and you would have died of cold, you almost did.”

“I was nothing more than a game to you.”

“You were everything but a game. Running away like this, at least you were safe, I never once gambled us or risked losing you, unless I told the truth. I could have not said a word. We could have carried on running.”

I pull my legs up so my knees are hugged tight to my body. His words were supposed to do something, but what? Stop me from being angry? To make me feel lucky? What? All I know is the confusion is a thick fog. Am I angry or thankful or hurt or betrayed or happy or relieved or trapped or embarrassed or humiliated?

He sat with a thud beside me, I speak, not moving, knees still tight in my arms. “You locked the door didn’t you?” There is no key in the lock, I already know the answer. He nods. “I can’t leave can I?”

“There’s nowhere out there to run to, I know you want to run, but please,” he turns his body towards mine and pulls me towards him so that he can look me in the eyes. I give up staring at my feet, “please, Princess, don’t run from me again. I will do anything to not lose like I could have done. Now that I know you, I don’t think I could ever recover. If I had never known you, if we had never stumbled into each other and never met, the Princess who ran away wouldn’t hurt as much as it hurts right now to see you look at me like this.” I look away, I keep how I am feeling unvoiced and stare in silence refusing to break my own resolve.

The pre-order link is available now… Due to release 10th June!

Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XP14ZX2

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.: Entry Fifty-Seven :.

My name is Elliot Parker. Except, here it’s not.

I maybe the Captain’s addiction, but he is not mine, my addiction? Staying alive.

I might have charmed the Captain to cut himself free of the dead wood men ready to mutiny. On this boat there are two types of men, those that accept that forbidden magic has kept them alive and those that are struggling with the morals. The ones who were dead set against it are now just plain dead.

The Captain accepted my set up as the stowaway girl but no regular stowaway girl would have these powers, no regular person would even have a chance of these powers. They come from specific, influential bloodlines, the stronger the magic… the Captain knows this. The crew have enough knowledge of rumours. What interests me, is that the Captain has magical control. Not just the basic charisma most Captains have that brings the men like moths to the flame ready to serve. Something more. His past is more than just the plain Captain he has lead us all to believe.

I sit on the steps to the helm watching the water around us. Nothing but sea. The Captain had kept himself locked in his cabin since the kiss after we danced on deck.

I’ve been sat here stewing over what I want to do. There has been so much that has been bothering me about all the questions floating through my head about the Captain. I finally decide to stop trying to calculate what the hell my next move is and stand up, straightening my shirt. I pull my hair into a rough bun with a tie of cloth.

I knock on his door, there is a shift and I stand out of view. I knock on the door; curiosity is what forces him to open the door, I just take advantage of his surprise and push past him and into the room. I watch the hesitation before he closes the door. No point making an unwinnable war.

“You’ve not been on deck in a few days.” I feel his eyes tracing my body.

“I’ve been working.” He refuses to meet my eye and looks away.

“Have you? What on?” I cock my head to the side and let a loose strand of hair fall down on my cheek covering my eye. He shakes his head, “nothing” I slowly wrap the loose strand around my finger and push it behind my ear. He sits on his bunk, his cabin is tidier than normal, he’s cleaned up. He must have been bored. I let him catch me looking, at the tidier cabin, I try to hide the racing thoughts. I take a deep breath and lean against the desk taking a deep breath I cross my arms. “What do you want Princess?”

“I want the truth.”

“How very vague, what about?”

“You.”

He smiled, “me?”

“Yes. Who were the blue and creams really after, you or me?” I try to get him to meet my eye but his eyes are fixed on the wall.

“Who do you think?”

“That’s what I can’t decide, I might have more than you may have expected. But I know that you are more than the man you claim to be.” I let my words linger in the air, the silence as deafening as the roar of the ocean on a stormy night.

“That’s an interesting theory.”

“Theory? Who are you really? I don’t believe you are a Captain with that much control by happenstance.”

“You want answers?”

“Would I be here if I didn’t?”

“If you want answers, you need to tell me what turned you into the runaway Princess begging for a strange Captain’s help to escape.”

“Then you will tell me?”

“If you tell me the unadulterated truth. No masks, just us here, and I’m telling no one.”

“Responsibility.”

“What responsibility?”

“I am running from an arranged marriage that I never wanted.”

“Did you meet him?”

“No. I left before he reached the palace.”

“So you are the Princess running from her palace and prince? You take a lot of risks.”

“Are risks really risks if they are calculated?”

“Yes. He could have been a good man.”

“Or a terrible one. It was an arrangement of alliance not of match made romance.”

“You could have come to love him. Instead you chose this life on the run.”

“I chose freedom.”

“Will you ever go back?”

“How can I?”

“Do you think it was an accident you chose my ship?” I felt a shift beneath my feet and it wasn’t the boat, it was me. Was this all an accident. Was this part of something else?

“Who are you really?”

“I want my question answered first.” He stood, he took two or three strides to stand in front of me, the palms of his hands bracing the desk on either side of me, no longer lazily leaning on his desk. His face is close to mine, I could feel his eyes locking onto mine, he wanted honesty, and he stripped the masks between us away completely. “Am I your addiction to?”

I felt every breath harder in my chest, I couldn’t charm my way out of this in any remote option, the best, to tell the truth and hope it’s the one that keeps me alive. I find myself unable to speak, I try but there is some strange feeling in my throat. I could swear my heart beating could be heard on deck. I can’t break free of the struggle to say the words. His face is so close to mine the warmth of his breath is intoxicating. I lean myself a little closer, this time when my lips brush his I am nervous, a different kind of nervous, a giddy heart racing nervous. Our lips touch feather light, I kiss him, so gently I am wondering if it was something of the imagination. Until I kiss him again and his lips meet mine firmly. One kiss then another falls into another, a breathless hunger of kisses fall between us, I pause for the briefest second and my voice is no more than a whisper, even though it is my own biggest betrayal, “yes”…

The pre-order link is available now… Due to release 10th June!

Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XP14ZX2

Amazon US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XP14ZX2

.: Entry Fifty-Six :.

My name is Elliot Parker and that crazy day didn’t stop there obviously.

So how far did I get? Ah, the parking lot, or leaving it I should say. So we drive down the main road talking about the day so far still laughing at the audacity of the man that Clover described as a “ropey piece of…” You get the idea.

So anyway we turn off to avoid the traffic of town and turn off just past the hospital and we are driving along to the first crossroads. A man is standing to cross, well sort of standing, more zombie walking across, he had blood dripping down the side of his face and he reached the other side. Clover shouts out the car asking if he is ok, he nods, like a zombie and she points him in the direction of accident and emergency a road down and has to drive to pull up on the other side of the cross road so other cars can pass. So we call the emergency services, Clover has her eye on the man and I explain to the ambulance team about his injuries and the man runs off. Literally runs off, we turn the car and we are trying to see him, its dark outside and he has disappeared. We try to see if we can spot the man as we drive, however because we can’t find him the ambulance can’t come out. We look up and down the side roads for the next twenty to thirty minutes hoping to spot him.

We can’t find him and we try one last attempt to see if he is ok and we head to accident and emergency. A conversation we don’t quite know how to have.

“This might sound like a bit of a weird question…” Well now the receptionist is listening… “But we saw this man a few roads away and he had blood dripping down the side of his head and…”

The receptionist rolled her eyes, she knew who we were talking about “we know, he did it in here. He came in and kicked off and did that to himself and ran off before we could do anything.”

Ah so it was self-inflicted, suddenly we felt a lot less concerned and responsible. So we got back on track and had to head back to the MaccyD’s we had just been in for the play pit. The other place had closed.

Well the little one ended up having fun playing with a few other kids while we sat on the floor watching her chatting. It had been such a crazy day.

And do you know, the only thing I wanted by the end of the day was to cuddle up with Adrian with a nice hot cup of tea and something stupid on the TV. Out of all the things in the world, he is still what I wanted to comfort me.

With some of the decisions I’ve been trying to make recently, I just needed his special brand of cuddles, even if it’s one of the ones where he pokes me in the back a little. I know I find it agitating but the way we just seem to fit together, it just feels so safe and so much like home. He is my safe place, even if he doesn’t know or understand that, it’s ok. I just don’t think I can forget that day. I don’t think I can forget that he is my safe place. I don’t think I will ever forget that feeling, that after a long hard day when I am exhausted and just in need of feeling safe and comfortable he is the person I think of.

I haven’t discussed this with him, how can I? Just like I really don’t know if I want his opinion, because I think he would tell me to do it and make it all very public. It has been suggested to me that I should write a memoir, about something specific, about the relationship I have with my mother. There is a reason why I am scared to do this, actually there is many. I’ve given it so much thought. Too much thought. But it doesn’t feel right or ready yet. Not because I am protecting her or protecting myself, really protecting myself. But right now, I am still living it and I need the space from it rather than to keep thinking about the way things are. I don’t want to do it and feel worse for it. I want to do it for the right reasons. I want to be able to do it and be able to say “I accept that this made me feel (insert whatever feeling fits like scared or hurt or angry) and that’s ok. I accept that it made me feel like that and I am happy to be in a position where I no longer feel this way and I am able to begin to feel thankful for this experience because it has enabled me to become who I am today. Who I am today is awesome and full of happiness and love and the past has been released.”

That would be the position and emotional place that I want to be in if I do ever decide that I am ready to sit down and write the memoirs that people tell me I should be writing. Right now, I am living it, and just living it is hard enough as it is. I never expected to feel or live this way. But I am not willing to hurt myself more now, when there is a chance that in the future I will be able to write it in a place where it benefits me emotionally to release me from the past, and the present.

I don’t doubt that Adrian would understand if I explained it that way, I just don’t want to feel like I am running away from or avoiding writing it for the wrong reason. He wants the best I am sure but I don’t feel ready for crossing that bridge.

The pre-order link is available now… Due to release 10th June!

Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XP14ZX2

Amazon US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XP14ZX2