A cold truth (part 1)

Meryl was glad the castle was empty of all the people teaming up and down when she left about a few hours ago. She didn't want to attract any attention to herself. They were back in her decorated prison of a room in no time and Rangard left to get the maid to come look after her foot.

Now that she observed it under the bright light and saw how swollen it was, she cursed under her breath. How is that she had done nothing but harm herself ever since she came into contact with these people.

Isla came in a while later with things for her ankle. The other woman said nothing to her, Meryl deduced that she might have been the one to find out about her little escape. Maybe when she came to inspect whether she had eaten her food and quickly alerted the others that she was gone.

She bet the creepy killer of a prince also knew about her escape plan.

"You caused quite a stir with your little plan," she finally said what seemed to be on her mind.

"His highness was beside himself with anger when he learnt you were gone. I don't know why he's good out of his way for you, you must be special to him, the other woman spoke what was on her mind without reservation. It was Meryl's time to look baffled.

"Trust me I'm as baffled as you are, for I know nothing about what your prince or highness or whatever he is wants from me," she said getting agitated about the other suspicion behind the woman's words. She searched paused from her tax and looked up searching her patient's face, she frowned as if realizing something for the first time, she muttered under her breath,

"You're human," which Meryl barely made out if she wasn't staring at her lips. Of course she was. What stupid question was that? The other woman's relaxed face as if she now understood something unsettled her.

"I'm I supposed to be something else?" she couldn't help asking. She paused again, she was now applying a lotion on the swollen area. But she didn't say anything and just went on to wrap the bandage around her ankle. Great, she rolled her eyes seeing that she had no plans of responding to her questions.

She was plagued with thoughts and memories long after Isla left, now that she was caught from trying to run, she couldn't pull any escape plan off because she knew people would be watching her. If she felt a prisoner before now she felt worse. What lived rent free in her mind though was her wolf and zombie beast encounter and now Isla's claim about her being human and how she nodded like she understood something. It appeared as if she wasn't…? Right, I'm going insane now, she thought.

In the chaos of her thoughts she heard the footsteps of the man or she should say the ice prince of her nightmarish. He stopped at the door to exchange a few words with Rangard who was keeping watch by the door. Meryl willed her heart to stop beating fast as she sat on the large bed that could accommodate ten more people as she stared at the hand knob being pulled down from outside.

Guess she couldn't hide from him any longer she thought as the door pushed open softly

He entered, his hands behind his back, he stood by the door for sometime before walking further towards where the bed was; His cold aura preceding him.

He dropped an envelope on the bed and walked to the window. His shoes making the noise she hated so much. She hesitated for a while before picking it up, staring for a while. She didn't know what point he was trying to proof but she still opened the envelope and let its content fall out onto the bed. Flawed by what she saw, she opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out, picking up the pictures of her boyfriend and one of her best friends making out and another with them naked on bed in his apartment. There were armies of those pictures now scattered on the bed.

"What is this?" she asked her eyes trained on the photos. There was no way this could be true. Brandon and Hannah hated each other, they made their animosity toward each other show every time they met. She knew this because she had witnessed it on so many occasions. She looked over to his direction when he didn't reply to find him looking outside the window, completely unbothered. His dark hair one with the starless night.

Meryl noticed the white sheet that came out of the envelope with the photos. She couldn't help her curiosity and picked up the sheet. It was a DNA test result, her DNA test results?

"You can't be serious?" she shrieked when she understood what the test said. Now he was pushing her buttons with his crazy ass claim.

"Who the hell are you and what the fuck do you want from me," she went at it again, properly pissed about his indifference. She was way past sitting around waiting for an answer from someone who could be a psychotic killer. If he was going to kill her, he must as well do it and get it over with.

Maximus was taken aback by her outburst. In all the time that he had been following her, he'd never heard her use any profane words. His shock though was short lived, as he turned to look at her. He was again taken aback by the raw mixture of emotion in her eyes. Once again, her recovered immediately from his shock and proceeded to approach where she sat.

"What is the meaning of all of this?" she asked again the fear he'd seen a couple of hours ago. He liked this version of her.

"I am Maximus, the crown Prince of this country. It is nice to finally meet you," he said in his charm but Meryl was far gone to be affected by his charm. Technically, it was their third to fourth meeting but he was not going to bring out dirt from the coffin. He continued when she said nothing, obviously waiting for him to continue. She had the look of so what if you're a crown prince on her face.

He left the window, walked towards the bed and crouch slightly beside it at where the pictures were scattered. He picked one of them, the one he picked had Brandon's tongue down Hannah's throat.

"I believe this is your boyfriend and that is your friend," he said as he pointed at Brandon and Hannah respectively. "I also have reason to believe that you are old enough to understand what is going on in this photo," he said sounding a little cocky. She didn't want to know where he got that information from. But then Green Point wasn't that big of a town and news traveled far and fast and people would be happy to share whatever they knew with whoever would listen.

"You had me kidnapped, what makes you think I'll believe a word you say about my family," Meryl called him on his bull shit but he was unfazed.

"You can believe whatever you want love, the ball is in your court," he said in his effortlessly seductive voice, distracting Meryl for a while. She has not gotten over how godly he looked. She wondered how someone could look so tempting yet annoying at the same time. He took a few calculator steps towards where she sat stopping a few steps away from her and picked up the DNA report that said her parents weren't her parents.

"I had this done a couple of times at different hospitals, the results came out negative for all three hospitals," he said confusing her the more.

"What is this about, why are you telling me all of this?" she asked feeling agitated. "Do you want me to feel grateful?" she asked shaking her head and continued. "And then what? What will happen after that?" she demanded.