Hers To Keep (Servite Academy #2)

Chapter 22

Chapter

Twenty-Two

DRAKE

H ow. Fucking. Poetic.

I shout after her as she turns her back to me.

After everything he’s done, everything his family has done to her, she stays faithfully by his fucking side. The fucker smirks smugly at me as they walk away, his arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders, leaving me here with the bitter taste of betrayal like venom on my tongue.

I’m not angry that he took her from me. I’m not one hundred percent sure she was really ever mine to tell the truth. I made the mistake of being so possessive with her, so controlling it pushed her away, but I can’t see how being with him is any different. I guess the threat of being destroyed, the fear of being ruined is enough to make someone fall in love. Either way, they deserve each other.

What pains me the most is that I lost my best friend. I’m too much of a bastard to ever admit turning my back on her might not have been the right thing to do. The more I think about it, the less I think I loved her and the more I think I just needed a friend who understood me and was by my side.

She’ll survive this, she has to. The fire inside her, much like mine, is the will to keep fighting. It’s what kept me alive that night, as they relentlessly tried to break me; blow after blow, I held on, for her. I knew the guilt would break her even worse were something to happen to me, and I can’t let that happen. So the only thing left to do is accept defeat.

I must acknowledge the fact that she was never weak, nor a damsel who needed saving. She was my princess until he came and claimed her as his queen. Then they rode off on his dark horse, never once looking back at me.