The door says PRIVATE WING in enormous red letters, but I slam through it anyway.

“Where is she?” I shout at the nearest nurse, a middle-aged woman wearing white scrubs.

“Sir, you need to—”

I feel like a thousand elephants are stampeding just below my skin, like I could fly apart with rage and terror and sheer nerves at any moment.

“No. You don’t fucking get to tell me what to do, you get to tell me where the princess is and you get to tell me right fucking now,” I say, fighting to keep my voice down. It doesn’t really work.

The bitch stands her ground.

“This is a private wing, sir, and I’m afraid that information is available to family only—”

I walk away from her, down the hall, head swiveling from side to side as I try to move quickly while glancing through hospital room windows, checking them for Aurora.

I think I’m falling apart. My hands and feet don’t feel connected to my body any longer, my heart a twisted black mass. She’s here somewhere, she has to be. She has to be, because every alternative is worse, because not two hours ago she was moaning with my tongue in her pussy.

In the back of a car. In the back of that car.

“Sir!” the nurse calls again, and I completely ignore her, pacing along the hallway faster. She can fucking call security if she wants, I don’t care. They’ll have to tie me up and bodily drag me out of here before I’ll leave, so I hope whoever comes is ready for a good fight.

“You can’t be back here, I’m afraid I’ve got to ask you to...”

I round a corner, still ignoring her. These rooms are empty, beds white and waiting. There’s something gut-wrenching and final about an empty hospital bed, and I force myself not to think about it.

As I walk, ignoring the nurse, the call echoes through my brain.

Princess Aurora was in an accident.

An accident?

A car crash, sir.

But she’s all right.

Silence.

She’s all right, isn’t she?

The man calling from the palace paused, cleared his throat.

She’s in the hospital, sir. I’m not sure of her status.

I threw up. I was outside, having just gone for a walk, and I knelt on the grass and heaved my lunch up until there was nothing coming up but bile.

Then I came here.

“Sir!” shouts another voice, this one deeper, male.

I still don’t respond, just check another room.

“We’re going to have to escort you out, if you’ll just—”

One of the guards grabs my wrist, and I wrench it from his grip, snarling like an animal.

“Don’t you fucking touch me.”

“You’re not allowed back here—”

“Then tell me where she is!”

“Just come with us—”

“The fuck I’m going anywhere until you tell me where Aurora is!” I shout, absolutely at my fucking wits’ end.

The guard doesn’t answer, just grabs my arm. I wrench it free but there are two of them, and then they grab my arms together, twisting them behind my back.

The pain’s blinding, but I struggle, gasping and panting.

I’m on my knees before I realize it, shouting, “You have to tell me where she is!” but one of them puts a foot between my shoulder blades, the pain sizzling down my spine until I gasp for air.

“Tell me,” I still growl, teeth gritted, eyes closed.

And they stop. It still hurts but it stops hurting more.

I gasp, on my knees, cold sweat dripping down my forehead.

“It’s fine,” a deep voice says, and my head snaps up.

King Maxwell, Aurora’s father, is standing ten feet in front of me, looking ten years older than the last time I saw him.

They release my arms, and I fall to my hands and knees, body shaking with the echoes of pain.

“Thank you,” I manage to whisper as the guards retreat down the hall.

“Come on,” he says.

* * *

He doesn’t take me to her. He takes me to a waiting room, and even though it’s expensively appointed — carpets, windows, paintings, even a small library, it’s the worst place I’ve ever been.

I sit in a plush chair, and for hours, I don’t move. I don’t speak. Grayson’s whole family — parents, Ella, baby Stefan, their cousin Bianca — are all there, but no one says a word once they’re finished telling me what happened.

Aurora’s limo was stopped in an intersection after the car in front of them suddenly rear-ended someone. While they were there, an elderly woman tried to stop, swerved by accident, then mistook the gas pedal for the brake and hit the side of Aurora’s limo going full-speed.

She’s still in surgery. There might be internal bleeding. There might be brain damage. She might be in a coma and never come out, or she might be fine in a week.

No one knows. No one can tell me anything.

I just sit in silence. I wonder, idly, if I should tell her family that I want to marry her, but it’s not the right time, so I say nothing and let the empty hours tick by.

* * *

I’m there all night. I’m there into the morning. At some point, breakfast is brought into the room, and I manage to get down half a bowl of cereal before I lose my appetite completely.

I try to read a magazine. I try to read a romance novel, try to watch some television program, but it’s all noise.

Midmorning, a doctor comes in. She looks tired too, her graying hair back in a bun, a clipboard in her hands. Everyone hushes when she comes in, her eyes steady behind her glasses.

“I’ll say this all as simply as I can,” she says. “Aurora has some very bad injuries, and frankly, we won’t know the full extent for a little while. But she made it through the night.”

The doctor swallows, the room stone silent.

“However, she hasn’t yet woken up,” the doctor finishes.