Twenty-Five:
Haven Haywood
The very last person I wanted to see was Octavia Garza. For one summer, she’d worked in the palace undercover as a maid. And I had been involved with her, only to realize that she was stealing things from the royal family. We were supposed to arrest her, but somehow she’d escaped before we could.
I’d never told Ashden about her. I wasn’t supposed to get close to her. I was only supposed to guard her. But it hadn’t stopped me from yearning for her. But I had thought that I would never get a chance to know her the way that I wanted. Or a chance to be with her. When Octavia came along, I’d been sad and miserable. Pining after a girl that I couldn’t ever have.
She had gotten me through a dark time, when my yearning for Ashden had been at its zenith. But she w
