Sweet Romance12 min read
I Was Kidnapped by a “Flower Thief” and He Refused to Let Go
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I have been called many things. Tonight, when the city slept and a reward of gold flashed across the capital like a fever, I tore my veil off, sat on the bed, crossed one leg over the other, and drank a little wine.
"You're mine now," I said to myself, thinking it was a joke.
He cocked his head and spat three words that made my evening less funny. "Damn, ugly."
"You're so charming," I muttered. "Are you always like this?"
He looked at me like he wanted to throw me out of his sight and then folded, with a casual motion, all the things that proved he had come to take me far from the capital.
"Get up," he said, flat.
"Are you—are you returning me?" I asked, stunned.
"Yes."
"Return me? A thief who takes beauties should be proud to keep one."
He didn't laugh. He just packed and watched me like I was something gone wrong.
"Are you really that ugly?" I asked, feeling a fierce shame and an odd defiance.
He rolled up his sleeve, tossed it aside, and stared. "Don't you know yourself?"
I flopped back. Playing dead is an art I mastered early. He frowned, then reached for a blade and began to sharpen it. The sound in the dark was intimate and horrible.
"What are you doing?" I squeaked.
"Sharpening," he said, almost with a smile.
I sat up. "If you're going to kill me, at least tell me why."
He stopped. "Get up," he ordered.
I stumbled after him. He walked like he kept three paces between us on purpose. Whenever I closed the gap, he slid away as if the air itself had teeth.
"Put the veil back on," he said suddenly.
I was furious. "I will not!"
"You will." He didn't ask.
We walked under a sky that could not decide whether to rain. I begged like a child. "Then at least carry me a little."
He jerked as if I had used a bad word.
"Don't be ridiculous," he said.
"Then promise you'll come back tomorrow."
He paused, breathed out, and said, "What will you do if people see you and the father sends soldiers?"
"I don't have one of those safety tokens," I admitted. "My father never thought this would be necessary. This is the first time anyone has taken me."
He looked surprised. "No token?"
"No."
He blinked slowly and a dangerous light came into his face. I had the oddest thought: perhaps the reward my father posted was not only for a thief. Maybe it was an ugly girl's fate for sale.
We kept walking until rain fell for real. I had folded a leaf earlier and put it over my head like a silly hat. He stared and I handed him half.
"There's a storm coming," I said.
He watched the leaf like it was proof that I had powers.
We reached a quiet house by dawn. He pushed me in and said plainly, "I will return you after dusk."
"It is a theft custom?" I asked.
He left. The house was clean and empty. I stepped through rooms. There was a white lantern hanging at the end of the hall, faded by wind and rain. I touched it and a small memory prickled at the back of my head.
Then I heard a voice above the wall. "Ah, Hu. Why are you hiding?"
Another man dropped down, young and bright-eyed, smiling like everything was a joke. He flicked a branch of flowers and laughed when the thief—my thief—stuck a knife into the blossom and then awkwardly shoved it back on. "You did this, didn't you? Cutting the real thief up?"
The thief—Germain—tossed a handful of small knives at the laughing boy. The boy escaped with grace. "Germain, did you kidnap the prime minister's daughter?" he teased.
"Maybe," Germain said without looking.
"Germain, you are something else," the boy said, then turned and bowed with dramatic flair.
He introduced himself with a flourish. "I am Chance. Pleasure, Miss."
"You're a pleasure," I said, miserably. I had heard the names that used to haunt our home: the killer called Hu—Germain—and another named Rain Dark. The world had stories. I had lived behind tapestries and tea.
Chance nudged Germain. "You hid her? She is of the prime minister's house. Isn't that big?"
Germain's expression didn't change. "You just arrived. Sit."
Chance gave me a mock bow. "Lily Bradley. The famous Lily Bradley. I've heard stories."
"Excuse me," I wanted to say. "They are all wrong."
Chance looked me over with a grin and reached out to scoop a loose flower near me. "This dress, these trinkets—she's not common."
Germain waved him off and then, quieter, he asked, "Why do you wear a veil?"
I lied, hands suddenly clumsy. "My father made me."
He nodded slowly. "You control the rain."
I froze.
"No," I lied again. "My mother—no, I don't."
"Do not lie to me," Germain said coolly. "I noticed last night."
Before I could answer, another voice slid through the room. A tall white-robed man came to my side, polite and strangely calm, "You did well, Germain."
He added, "She is not small fry. Keep her safe. Bring her back on the fifteenth."
"What fifteenth?" Chance cried.
"Wedding day," Germain muttered, like it was a bitter thing.
The house became busier and the gossip quickened. The group moved like a net in the underworld. People called Germain many names: thief, killer, traitor, savior, a man who cut another thief into pieces then took the prize.
I learned they thought Germain had killed the notorious "flower thief" and then cut him into eight pieces. If that was true, the one who grabbed me had killed a man who had once been called the most daring thief in the capital. That night, the rumor warmed into a legend.
I tried to hide my face, but when I spoke, I could not help teasing, "You look better than the stories."
He blinked at that. "Do you like me?"
"I..." My laugh fizzled. "I like when people are honest."
Germain's voice was softer. "Then stop hiding."
He meant my face. He meant my truth. He touched nothing.
Days passed in strange rhythms. They tested me. They made me eat fruit with the others. They watched me as though I were a rare instrument. Germain often sat quietly outside my door. He would not touch me but one night he knocked on my window.
"Lily, are you awake?"
"Yes." I sat up. "Why do you come?"
"To ensure you are still alive." His voice was dry, but when I crawled to the window, he caught my sleeve and smiled like someone who had found a small prize. "Will you come back to the capital with me? Tonight is the fifteenth."
"You mean my wedding night?" I blinked.
"Yes."
"I don't want a wedding." I felt silly as the words came. He laughed, low and genuine. "Who says it's a wedding your way?"
We trained. I tried to summon hail. My mother had taught me once, years ago; she said she used the rain to trap hearts. I could make rain, but hail had never been mine. My attempts made small, thumb-sized pebbles fall, thanks to a memory trickle that I could hardly hold.
Germain found me one night hiding in a tree. "Training?" he asked.
"Trying," I said.
He went silent, then asked, almost in warning, "Do you know who your mother is?"
I did not want to answer. "Esther?" I whispered into the dark, unable to say it aloud.
"Germain," Chance had called earlier, bounding into the yard, "our big boss is pleased. She calls you son, Germain."
"I am not sure I want to be related to rich people's wars," Germain said.
We grew closer in small ways. He would catch me when I fainted, but he would not let me keep my veil off for long. He teased me about how ugly I thought I was. I stared at him and said, "Keep your hands to yourself."
He smirked. "Yes, wife."
"Stop calling me that," I snapped, blushing.
"First: you look like a wreck today."
"Second: you are mean."
He planted a soft, sharp little smile. "Maybe I like mean."
At the center of my life was a secret: my mother, Esther Powell, led a group of killers and tricksters. She had been away for years. Her handwriting—so terrible my father had once tried to fix it—hung on a lantern in the house where I had first woken. It was hers. She was fierce and she was the one who taught me rain.
But beyond my small world was Indigo Allison—Rain Dark—who had a history with my mother. Indigo stormed back into our lives during the wedding preparations. She stood across from my mother one night and flung an enormous hailstone into our yard, shattering the roof of the treasury my father had prepared for me. The hail left pits of metal-broken stone and tears in my father's chest.
"Why would she do this?" I asked my mother.
Esther smiled the way a sharp person does. "Because old debts must be paid, Lily."
Rain Dark's arrival turned many things public. She had once been my mother's rival in love, both fighting for a man who refused to be cured by vows. Rain Dark's fury line had not softened. She had long believed my mother took the life she wanted. Jade and ice and flash fights carved the air between them.
On the morning of my wedding, as the sun laid banners of light across the yard, Rain Dark came again. This time she did not hide. She came to the front gate with a procession of hired men. Her action was not minor: she threw down a hailstone the size of a person onto our treasury. The bankers who worked for my father stared in disbelief; neighbors came out. Farmers and servants and officials—my wedding had turned into a public stage.
"Arrogant!" Rain Dark shouted. "You think the world lets you keep such a treasure?"
My father, Dalton Rinaldi, was broken, and his face folded into worry. Germain stood close to me, not touching, but his hand had the effect of a warm rock against my back. The onlookers crowded closer.
"Who is she?" someone asked.
"She's Rain Dark, my mother's oldest rival," Chance whispered in my ear.
"Bring her." Germain's voice had a new note. "Bring her to the courtyard."
The crowd parted. Rain Dark stood like a queen of storms, wet but unbowed. She smiled at my mother, and the air hummed.
Then things shifted. My mother, calm like a summer sea, did something that surprised everyone. She stepped forward and held Rain Dark by the sleeve.
"Why humiliations today, Indigo?" Esther said, soft as a knife.
Indigo sneered. "Your daughter grows beautiful. Your treasures grow tenfold. It is time the world remembers you cannot have both."
The crowd murmured. I felt the heat of all those eyes as if it were physical.
"Is this why you smashed my husband's house?" my father cried, thin and hurt.
"Because you took comfort I wanted," Indigo said. "Because you loved who I loved."
"Stop," Germain said.
Indigo laughed and spat on the ground. "You think a killer like you can save her from me? I can show her to the city and tell them that she is a puppet, that you hide lies."
"No." My voice came out brittle. "You cannot. She is my mother."
Rain Dark's eyes flickered at that word as if it was an arrow. Then she did what only people who live too long need to do: she screamed so everyone could hear.
"Everyone!" she cried. "This woman is a murderer! She leads a gang that kills for coin and for power. She has taken young men and women—she has done worse!" She lifted her chin. "I will show you proof. She tried to kill me. She keeps a ledger of deeds hidden in her chest of treasures. She took the life I loved!"
There was stunned silence. Then a low, ugly hush. Faces turned to my mother.
Esther dropped her hands as if to accept the day, then looked at me. "My child," she said, softly, and then, addressing the crowd, "If you will listen, I will tell the truth."
Germain moved to stand between my mother and Rain Dark. "Enough," he said.
Indigo stepped forward and threw a challenge. "Then tell them," she spat. "Tell them in the market. Let the city judge."
"Judge in the market?" a merchant whispered. "Fine. Let the folk see."
Within an hour, the city square filled. The market, usually a place of bread and goats and bargaining, had a crowd like a river. Someone had bad blood to settle; the drama fed the crowd. Rain Dark walked up with a small group of men and pointed at my mother. "She hides a ledger. She trains killers. She sabotaged harvesters. She planned crimes."
My mother, calm like an old ship, removed a cloak and stepped forward. "You will not smear me unopposed," she said. "You will stand here and explain to everyone how you came to think you own my life."
At that, Rain Dark laughed and struck the first blow into the lie. Men pushed, the crowd gasped, and two older women from a nearby stall moved forward to inspect a chest Esther presented. Then my mother cried out in a voice people recognized: the voice of the woman who had raised me.
"She lied," Esther said quietly. "Rain Dark has a ledger." She produced a paper—pages of centuries-old accusations that looked convincing under sun. "She has also kept a list of those she has angered. She burned one of my friend's houses. She sent men to flood a small village. She pretended to be innocent but kept a ledger of wrongs. She tries to dress hatred as righteousness."
Indigo's bravado slipped. She tried to speak and the crowd listened less, for when someone gives proof and someone else yells, the one with proof begins to look credible.
"Show us the ledger of her crimes," Germain called.
A man in Indigo's group tripped and dropped a set of old letters. The letters were heavy with threats and signatures that matched Indigo's known handwriting. A trader from the city—he had been to fields that had been ruined—stepped forward. "She hired men to burn my silos," he said. "She set my horse loose on the roads. I lost months and it was Indigo's doing."
The market turned into a stage for memory. People who had once lost goods, who had once seen crops ruined, stepped forward. A chorus of small voices grew louder. "We remember," they said. "We recall the night our roofs were smashed by ice stones." They produced scars, torn garments, small mementos, a child's broken toy.
Indigo's face creased. The stories piled up like wet stones. She looked around at the crowd. "Lies," she hissed. "She writes her own history. She looks pretty, so you will listen."
A woman in the crowd cried out: "We will not be bought by pretty faces!" She lifted her hand and the market broke into sound—clamors, murmurs, and suddenly the city itself seemed to open to truth. The mayor stepped forward, an official now compelled to act.
"Enough." The mayor's voice cracked but held. "This is not a place for private vengeance. We will hold a public examination."
A public examination is a thin place where reputations are stripped naked. I did not sleep that night. Germain did not leave my side. He whispered to me, "If they say anything, hold my hand."
I held his hand. When Indigo was called forward she trembled. They made her tell stories, one by one. People named names. They replied with evidence. The painter who had once sold Rain Dark a canvas came forward with a letter where Indigo had threatened a family. A former mercenary spat the words Indigo had paid him to hurt a man.
The turning moment came when someone who had once loved Indigo—an old friend—stepped forward. "She poisons with stories," he said. "She takes the face of a victim and wears it like a mask. She hunts people and then forgets the harm she makes."
Indigo's steady mask cracked. Her eyes darted, then she lost her composure. First she was bold, then she was angry. Then she denied. "This is a conspiracy!" she shouted. "They are all liars!"
"Prove it," the mayor said, and the crowd watched.
Indigo's face fell. She tried to scream and they turned away. I watched her in the hard light of accusation: from smugness to rage to denial to a brittle silence. People recorded her with devices and scribes wrote down her words. The watchers who had come for gossip now weighed in like judges. "You told us you were injured by Esther," one cried. "But the letters say you sent men to burn houses." Another spat, "You are a thief of people's peace."
The humiliation came slow and public, and it was worse than a blade. Indigo found herself suddenly alone in front of the whole city. Men and women who had once feared her now circled her with the quiet of neighbors who know a secret. The mayor declared that Indigo would be fined, banished from certain markets, and forced to repair what she had broken in the neighborhoods she had harmed. The crowd's reaction turned: where sympathy had been for a dramatic villain, now the crowd wanted to see justice, not spectacle.
Indigo's face crumpled. She begged for mercy in the dirt, then tried to bargain, then tried to threaten. She had been used to being feared. Fear is a currency. But coins have weight only when people accept them. The crowd did not.
"Please," she begged, voice thin.
They answered with facts and the names of people she had hurt. "We remember our fields," said a farmer. "You will repair what you broke." A child who had lost a toy shouted, "You hurt my uncle!"
Indigo's reaction changed as people peeled away. Her demeanor unraveled. The proud woman who had hurled hail into our roof now knelt and sobbed. She leaned on the mayor, trying to explain that she had been wronged too. But the crowd would not be moved by old grievances that she had begun. She had turned her past cruelty into a story that people did not accept anymore.
When it was done, Indigo Allison was led out, paid to repair the damage, and publicly named as an instigator and aggressor. The shame was heavy. Her face red and wet with tears and fury, she stumbled from the square.
Germain wiped his hand across his mouth and did not say anything. My father, who had been attentive and tall in his grief, finally bowed to the crowd and to the market's sense of justice. The mayor arranged terms: Rain Dark had to pay a large fine, had to publicly correct her lies, and had to do repair work for those she had hurt. It was punishment suited to the public stage: humiliation, correction, and service.
The crowd did not clap. They whispered. They photographed. They watched her reaction change: from arrogance to shock to denial to a small, bitter pleading. Some people hissed; others turned their backs.
That day, Rain Dark's fate felt like a sort of cleansing. The capital had seen its share of blood and bargains. It had also had its share of grudges. But to stand in the light of accusation and be found wanting is a unique ache.
Afterward, at home, my wedding went on in quieter tones. The treasury damaged by hail remained a ruin, but the important thing was that I stood before Germain and the city as myself—veiled and then unveiled. He said my name in a voice that felt like a promise.
"Lily," he whispered at the ceremony.
"Yes?" I answered, and inside I was a child with a lantern and a pen.
"You are not the thing you think you are."
"What am I, then?"
"The woman who survived being seen."
That night, after the guests left and the candles guttered, Germain leaned down, very close.
"You are mine," he said.
"And you are mine," I answered, and for once the words were true.
We married with oddness stitched into our vows: my mother, the leader Esther, sat with a calm smile; my father tried to look forgiving; Chance danced and pretended to be a clumsy minister of ceremonies.
It was not a perfect ending. Indigo's punishment was not the vengeance some had wanted, nor is public humiliation perfect. But the crowd had done what the law would not: it made a public mirror.
As for me, I kept one thing: a small piece of hail I had pocketed from that night's ruin. It was the size of a bead. Germain laughed when he saw it.
"Keep that?" he asked.
"Remember," I said.
He nodded once, and his hand found mine in the dark.
The End
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