#chessmate

She had to pull away.

It had never occurred to her until now, and she blamed her foolishness as she looked at her lover napping soundly in her lap.

She had to leave, when the wound was still shallow and she couldn’t hurt him more than this.

Her immortality, the fact that he’d have to watch her stay eternally youthful while he’d slowly waste away until he died alone, that his time with her was limited, and even she doubted he’d be the last lover she’d take, when he wasn’t her first.

To the rest of the school, he may be quite old at the age of 20, but he was still young, and had so much more to him besides living as a shunned second prince with a socially powerless whore. She couldn’t take his future from him. She couldn’t ruin what little happiness he could still seek to attain.

But she knew, that she herself wasn’t willing to let go either. Her claws had sunk too deep into him. She had him chained to her emotionally, and she loathed herself for her selfishness that she never unlearned after all these years. No matter how many good deeds she tried to rack up, she was still cruel by nature and evil at heart. She didn’t deserve him, he who chose to slowly open himself up to her bit by bit while he figured out his path to recovery, he who had already been hurt so many times and seen as second-best, washed up, doomed.