It’d been a week. A week since I’d seen my best friend Adara. A week since the failed assassination attempt on her life in the palace.

How I missed her terribly. She complimented me in every way possible, even though she and I had virtually nothing in common. We’d been best friends for as long as I could remember when the King took me in as a child.

It was only by the King’s orders that I, or anyone stayed away for that matter. Why?

Adara was the King’s daughter.

Why was I not allowed in the palace then when she and I are best friends? Good question. I just happened to be away from the palace for a reason I don’t even remember now.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Adara. Everything about her made me melt. Her rich, full, very dark brown, almost black hair with equally rich brown eyes. Fair, snow-white skin, a captivating, mesmerizing smile, and the very way she walked made me weak at the knees every time she approached me.

Yes, if you couldn’t tell…I’m secretly in love with my best friend. But what terrifies me the most is I think she is secretly in love with me too.

That’s what made this separation so hard.

You see, my father was killed in battle when I was barely a month old, and my mother died of dysentery when I was only three. That’s why the King agreed to take me in, and I studied to become a Knight just like my father.

Every attempt or request I’d made to see her had been denied. No one was allowed to see her. Only the King.

I was warned the last time that because I’d requested clearance so many times now that the King himself would come out to tell me I was not welcome to see Adara.

I couldn’t ignore the growing suspicion though that someone was deliberately keeping her away from me, someone that secretly wanted her all to himself…

And I was being prevented from keeping her safe…