Bren held Adriana gently in his arms as if she were made of fragile glass that would break. She raised her head up to look at him as she fiddled with his hair.
"I want to know the whole truth, Bren. All of it." He breathed in deeply. "Telling you about my past is like reopening old wounds, but for you I'm willing to endure the pain."
He remained silent for a long while as if thinking, and Adriana almost thought that he would change his mind before he finally began. "It's been two years, and I can still feel the scorching heat of the fire. I am the fourth prince of the once great kingdom of Valeria. For me, life had always been a bed of roses, until the day they came. Two years ago..."
"Who?" Adriana asked, paying rapt attention.
"The slavers. My father was a man who abhorred violence, even to the extent that he enforced it as a traditional law on our country." He chuckled.
