"Time is upon you, young Nasir, make way to her, things are about to take a dark turn." Are the remaining words my memory recites from Patrick. Hastily I make way towards the Queen, intent on being at her side in this very moment. I never should have left her side, especially not for this long. I feel her eyes on me as I make my way up towards the throne section.

The feel of my heart ramming at a thousand miles per second burns, I'm losing focus and sight. For some reason I suddenly feel like it is me against the racing of time, Charlottes voice spearing through my emotions through the earpiece.

"Nasir, what is it what is wrong?" her voice sounding distraught, garnering Ray's attention as he spoke in.

"I'll tell you all later," I heaved, flying up the steps to the thrones. "Right now, I need you all in position."

"Yes, sir." They say in sync.

And seconds later, I finally reach the thrones, my eyes instantly finding the back of her curls as she was turned away mingling with a greeting guest. The woman standing before her ceases her words mid-sentence as she looks up to my troubled expression in question, thus cueing for Tiana's eyes as well, who follows shortly after. And as she meets my antsy eyes her lips slightly parts.

The drumming in my chest recommences, once again, at the sight of her face.

She proves to somehow be my one weakness in this short span of time, and it weakens me to the core. I clear the gravel in my throat now that I stand near her, in her presence, held by the weight of her captivating glare in a shorter proximity. It became too much, and I dismiss my glare with a hard nod. Positioning myself within the corner of the booth nearby.

Gunter has paid no mind to me; he chats away with the elite gentlemen.

Her gaze tears away to finish whatever conversation she was in the middle of before, releasing me from her hold. The king and queen mingle amongst their guest, leaving me to secure each approaching individual, all whist my eyes flick between her the old man within the crowd, careful not to lose him.

Luckily, the platinum strands of his white hair are the only thing that was standing out amongst the crowd. I am tall enough to peer down from these Gold encrusted railings, allowing my keen eyes to follow the old mans every move. Yet, that lingering foreboding feeling courses throughout my body for the remainder of the time.

"As my bodyguard, I am not too happy you distanced yourself from me throughout this night."

With the sound of that voice, a surge of heat waves through me, winding down the tensed muscles, and I break away to look down at her. With the help of those thin heels, her face was just mere inches from mine, so were those plump lips, and I curl mine to abstain from speaking.

"So, I take it you will still keep up with this mute charade, won't you?" The tone of her voice lowered in pitch, ladening with gloom.

I swallow the words at the tip of my tongue, discreetly shifting my eyes over to Gunter's backside, and glided them back to her skeptical eyes. Even when he does not look at me, he is watching, I am never truly alone. I lingered seconds too long in my mind, leaving her words to go unanswered. Yet again.

"Very well, I won't ask again. It is clear, you maybe aren't the person, I was hoping for."

My brows soften, burdened by her statement. I study her every move, even as she turns from me, giving me her side view, where I took a nano second to rake up her shapely physique, and landed on her eyes, they drop in desolation as she looked over to Gunter, then floated away to gaze at other matters.

"Ah, there you are!"

The seam of my brow's crease yet again, my annoyance flares, and I curl my lips at the sound of the nuisance heading towards our direction.

With the glimmering crown atop his head, Gunter strides towards us, leaving the elite gentlemen to mingle amongst themselves. "My beautiful wife." he breathed, slithering a hand around her waist.

We stand face to face, with Tiana within his grasp, I'm careful not to clench my jaw.

"Guard", he says to me. "Where have you been all night, my wife has not been tended too?" He scorns to me with a smile.

Though visibly repulsed by him, Tiana looks back up to me in discretion, angsty for my reply.

"Ah, that is right." He chuckles, darkly. "A low IQ." A darkness pools around the rims of his blue pupils. And with those pupils he gazes down to my clenching fists amusingly.

The silence between us three is disrupted than, by a blood curdling cry from a woman down at the crowd, but before we can all peer over to the scene, all lights of the ballroom disperse, blanketing the room with an inky black.

On cue my instincts activate, and my hands propel to reach for the gun in my vest in this darkness but instead flung my arms around Tiana in the darkness instinctively, elicitating a small gasp from her throat.

Strands of her hair fly into my mouth as I cradled the back of her head, digging my fingers gently into the soft strands of her tight curls, inhaling the scent of an essential oil mixture of honey and flower petals emanating from the locs.

"Nasir sir, it's a murder."

I blink away, shifting my focus from the aroma of her hair to the sound of Charlottes heaving voice in the earphone, unconsciously wrapping my arms tighter around Tiana's curvy physique, as I try and look over the edge of the railing for any signal from the crew, when the lights beam back on.

The confused bickering and panics settled, everyone stares around confusingly to each other, when all attention wondered to the floor of the ballroom, laying lifelessly on the floor, was one of the bishops. His mouth foaming with blood and the sockets of his eyes leaking red spilling onto the painting of the soldiers, I glanced further and noticed a spilled green drink aside him.

Silence settles amongst the crowd that scattered around him, we all stand still, not even a murmur or a gasp, we process the scene in silence and shock, when it was disturbed by the shriek of an elder women. The roar of her fearful cry pulls us all out of our daze and within seconds everyone was sent on a stampede, flinging and climbing over each other for the exit all at once.

Elder men and women are run over, and a child broke an arm, minds are scattered but they all have one will, and that is to live.

How could this be?

"Nasir sir, get the Queen to safety." I hear Ray muffle before it distorts.

Just as he spoke is when I looked down to the treasure cradled in my arms. One of my hands nestled behind her head, and another around her waist.

Unmoving. Trembling. And afraid. Yet she doesn't move or make an attempt for me to release her, unlike her so-called husband who has already fled the scene, along with the Elite gentlemen.

Our close proximity causes the veins within me to inflame, I clear my throat and gently grip her clothed wrist, granting us a safe distance. The diamonds embedded in the sleeve of her gown make it difficult to grab her firmly, I couldn't afford her to slip from my grasp, I didn't want any more blood on my hands than there already was if anyone harmed or knocked her over. Instead, I glided my hands around her waist, cautiously moving her forward against me until she is at a shoulder's touch, and we made way out of the throne section, with me shielding her from the running individuals until it was safe.

"My queen, please follow me." I spoke in the midst of the roaring, it never occurred me at that moment, I broke my only rule, and that is to never speak.

The hallways are brisk, as large men run by not paying mind to who they could trample over, for the sixth time I plant her against the wall with my hands at her side, giving my back to the hall until it was safe.

Her shimmering eyes never blinked away from me, trusting me and my words until she herself points to a room, on the other side of the hall, "In there."

This time it is she that grips my wrist with her smaller hand and guides me over to a dark room as the coast was clear to move.

The space within is minimal, for sure only a one-person confinement. I'm Instantly hit with a strong whiff of lemon and citrus acid as the door was swung open, in the jet darkness she scurries in first and I follow behind hitting my foot against some bucket that discombobulates my balance, and I tumble right above her. Our bodies are smudged together, and my frame plants onto itself above hers, her breath catches in slight shock from the action, she flicks the lights on, and I realize than we were secluded away, in a cleaning supply room. And the door is shut.

The moving heard of large feet on the other side of the door continue like buffalos crossing the river. When it is time to face death, everyone believes they can flee from his grasp, if only they knew that death himself roamed within the ballroom, posing as one of them from the beginning, foreshadowing this moment the old man spoke of.

I grunt gutturally feeling the end of a metal rod on my back, a railing of a sort nudging my spine. I try to move myself away and accidentally press down on her chest emanating another innocent gasp from her throat. All that's left in here is us, and the heaving of our chest. Our lips mere inches from each other's, but my height puts me at a disadvantage, if I align myself to my full height I'd hurt my head. If I stepped away, whatever was behind me would impale or damage my spinal cord.

Yet with me pushed up against her like this, feeling her heartbeat wildly, invading her space and comfort. I'd take that pain over and over again.

"It's ok." she whispers to me, listening to the strained grunts. "Please, don't move, I feel safer, with you close to me." The warmth of her breath fans my face, the aroma of her perfume sets my mind on a frenzy.

And as she requests, I stay still in the most comfortable spot. Against her. With my left palm planted on the wall aside of her head granting me stability, our lips the only thing keeping its distance.

I fight the urge to look down at her, for sure knowing my eyes would roam lower for a deeper glimpse at her grown features. More so worried about getting entrapped by her eyes, -- my favorite. I could always tell when she was happy, sad, and angry, her eyes would always give it away back then. And now, getting caught in her gaze is enough to drown me.

Seconds transcends to minutes, the outside noise and scampers never seemed to settle, leaving me and the Queen to remain silent and secluded. Chest to chest, my stance begins to numb, and my body begins to weaken and our skin touches, even if it is only a featherily graze. Her body pinned against the wall with my strong frame against her softer figure. And when I stole a moment to glance down at her, I witness her foxy eyes move from my lips to meet my eyes.

I gulped.

Feeling the sizzling heat coursing within me as I survey all her features. The perfect contour of her head, to the almond shape of her eyes and those honey brown pupils I would always find myself getting lost into.

My fingers against the wall involuntarily fiddle and twitch to touch her skin, and really feel the softness, taking my time as I run them from her shoulders, down to her arms, gliding them down to the curve of her waist until I firmly grab a handful of her round -

I quickly blink away as the thoughts spiral, shifting my gaze to the white paint of the walls, and clearing a thick grovel in my throat. Yet the collar around my neck suddenly tightens and I struggle to breath properly.

Never will I ever force something upon her or follow these urges. Not to an old friend, not to my Queen, not to Tiana my Queen.

"I want to know who you are." She whispers than. Disturbing the silence in the quiet confinement, and I glance down to look at the dough of her shimmering eyes. "I want to know more about you,"

My shoulders relax. I'm swooned by the soft sultry of her voice, carrying a nurturing tone, enough to put me at ease. Inconspicuously I lean in a little closer allowing her warm breath to fan across my chin, it contrasts greatly from the frigid temperature in this room. And smelling the scent of strawberry champagne on her tongue. Just engulfing myself in the rich aroma she emanates.

"You remind me of someone, I once knew, and ... and can never forget." Her voice drawling from sound, as if she is searching within her past.

I found myself leaning in too lowly, my eyes keen on her moving lips. But when my frivolous tongue hungrily slips from my mouth to run itself over my bottom lip, I quickly divert my eyes elsewhere.

"No. Look at me."

Against the clothed of our bodies, our chest thump in sync, but I gaze back up to her eyes, her honey pupils swirling as she deepened her gaze in mine.

"Your wings were clipped before you even knew you could fly, weren't they?"

A nerve was struck in me like an Eletric shock, zipping right through my blood stream in nano seconds like an adrenaline. How would she know? how can she see such a horrid past? I never told her and never planned on it.

She surveys my blank expression but deadpans on my hard eyes, steadily widening hers at the silence. Yet again, I leave her words to evaporate like thin smoke, and she shakes her head from any remaining thoughts.

"Forgive me for saying too much, I must have entered a past you didn't want anyone to have access to. I only ask, because I can relate to you."

The adrenaline settles than, leaving a pulsing thud in my chest. My eyes glide down to a whimsical look in her eyes.

"My childhood was horrid, I lived in seclusion. And abused by someone that was to look out for me." she shrugs apathetically, "My father was almost never around, no one wanted to deal with me. And any and every friend I made, abandoned me."

Listening to her words were like knives piercing through me slowly, skinning my flesh right off the bone. Her life childhood life sounds familiar to mine, grief-stricken, miserable, and full of sorrow.

"Except one." she says, cutting me from the sudden anger scorching slowly through my body. "There was this one boy, who I befriended, he was eleven years old." Her lips curls into a shy smile, and her gaze deepens into me.

"Full of life. Kind. And protecting. I found myself never wanting to separate from his side, and even when we did part, I would be locked away in my bedroom in the dark and cold, unable to sleep out of fear, but he would visit my dreams to tell me everything was going to be alright, as long as we were together." she huffs, her eyes reddening as she sniffled softly.

"He was all I had, and he was all I wanted, he was the only one that saw me for what I was at the time, a child. A little girl that didn't care for royalty at the time, rather a metaphoric escape, he created all of the wildest adventures, pirates, ghosts, thieves, and mutants. And we would get lost into the moment for hours and hours on end. Right out there, by that tree."

Her eyes flicker to the rise and fall of my chest. I couldn't steady myself, not when she speaks of the past that we created together, after so long those memories stayed, the memories of us.

The sound of a sniffle pulls me from a sudden gaze as my mind wonders to the past.

"I never told him", she continues all while trying to regain herself. "That he was my one-man army."

I furrow my brows and she caught on, "Because despite all these guards around me. Only being at his side is where I ever felt the safest."

A sharp spear flings itself across my body, numbing me down from head to toe. The seam of my brows relaxes as I felt the heat in me while my chest rammed. Now I held her gaze, watching a tear glide down her cheek.

"I'm sorry" she sniffled. "I didn't mea-"

Her remaining words dispersed, never leaving her mouth, I didn't allow them. The thud in my chest skyrockets and I feel my fingers jitter. Before she could apologize, I inconspicuously silenced her, with my finger to her lips. I bite my bottom lip to the feel of her soft lips against the pad of my finger, succulent, glossed and kissable. Just like how I imagined.

Her chest rose, those breasts brushing against my chest while filling her lungs with oxygen, I feel the heat her skin radiates at my touch, she stares at me with those shimmering dough eyes of chocolate, the seconds stretched between us as we stared each other lullingly.

My Tiana, oh so beautiful, how I just imagined what touching you feels like, and now I craved more. The rim of my eyes darkens, keen on those lips. And with just an angle of my head I lean down, no longer could I hold back this urge flaring within me.

Just let me taste you, just this once.