Free Web NovelChapter 2: Chapter 2: Well. This Is Something.
White.
Too much white.
Arjun blinked.
Hospital, he thought. Okay. I survived. Messy, but okay.
He waited for the beeping. The antiseptic smell. The nurse asking him his name and date of birth in that particular flat voice.
Nothing.
He blinked again.
The ceiling was — high. Genuinely high. Ornate crown molding ran along the edges, curling into small gilded flowers at the corners. A chandelier hung dead center. Crystal. Real crystal, not the fake kind hotels used to look expensive.
That is not a hospital ceiling.
He sat up slowly.
The bed was enormous. Four-poster. The sheets had a thread count that his fingers could feel before his brain could name. Heavy curtains, half-drawn. Pale morning light coming through gaps.
He looked around the room.
Fireplace. Marble. A writing desk with actual gold fittings. Bookshelves built into the wall. Paintings — not prints, paintings — in heavy frames.
Someone has money.
Real money. Old money.
He filed it. Kept looking.
A writing desk near the window, papers stacked with precision. A wardrobe, doors slightly open, showing fabric that probably had its own insurance policy.
He looked down at his hands.
Soft.
He turned them over. No calluses. No nicks from ritual work. The nails were shaped, clean, maintained. The skin was pale in a way that said this body had spent most of its life indoors, away from direct sun, away from anything that might roughen it.
This body has never carried its own groceries.
He flexed the fingers. They moved fine.
He looked at the arms. Light build. Narrow wrists. The kind of frame that made tailors happy and arm-wrestlers nervous.
I respect the body’s choices, he thought. Completely. No judgment.
He pushed back the covers and stood.
Legs worked. Good.
He looked around once more, slower this time.
Okay. Unknown location. Unknown body. Not dead, apparently. Not in India. Not in Korea.
Survey first. Panic never.
He spotted the mirror.
Floor-length. Gilded frame. Standing in the corner near the wardrobe like it had always been there, minding its own business.
He walked over.
He looked.
The face looking back was not his.
He stood very still.
The face was — fine, was the first word that came to mind. Objectively, empirically fine. European features, clean and symmetrical. Brown hair, the rich dark kind that caught light and held it. Slightly wavy. The kind of hair that did what it was told.
Blue eyes.
Not grey-blue. Not blue-green. Blue. The specific shade of blue that made painters reach for their best brush.
The face was young. Early twenties, maybe. Delicate jaw. Long lashes.
Good-looking, Arjun thought, with the detached professionalism of a man assessing a con target. Genuinely good-looking. Like, absurdly so.
He tilted the head. The mirror tilted with him.
He raised one hand. The mirror raised the same hand.
Right. Okay.
He looked for a long moment at the reflection.
What, he thought carefully, is happening.
The door opened.
A young woman walked in. Maid’s uniform. She was carrying fresh linens, looking down, completely unprepared.
She looked up.
She saw him standing at the mirror.
For one second, nothing happened.
Then she screamed.
Not a gasp. Not a startled yelp. A full, genuine, from-the-lungs scream that bounced off the marble fireplace and hit every corner of the room.
Arjun did not move.
The maid dropped the linens and ran.
Interesting, he thought.
Thirty seconds later, footsteps. Fast ones.
A man came through the door. Middle-aged. Impeccably dressed. Silver hair, straight posture, the specific expression of someone who had been trained since birth to handle situations.
He saw Arjun.
He stopped.
Then — and Arjun watched this happen in real time — the man’s composure cracked open like an egg, and something genuine and overwhelmed came through.
"Your Highness." His voice broke slightly. "You’re awake."
Your Highness.
Arjun filed that too.
"You’re awake," the man said again, like he needed to hear it twice.
"Apparently," Arjun said.
His voice came out wrong. Lighter than he expected. Accented differently. The vowels sat in different places.
Right. Different body. Different voice.
The man — butler, Arjun decided, the posture and the clothes and the controlled relief all said butler — pressed a hand briefly to his chest. Then he straightened and turned to someone in the hallway.
"Get the doctor. Now."
The next hour was noise.
Doctors. Three of them. They spoke over each other in a language Arjun didn’t recognize, which was alarming, except that somewhere under the surface of this body, there was a current of comprehension. Like muscle memory, but for language. The words landed and made sense even when he didn’t reach for them.
Interesting, he thought again. The body remembers.
They checked his eyes. His pulse. His temperature. They asked him to follow a light, to squeeze their fingers, to state his name.
He gave them a name without thinking.
It came from the same place the language did. Automatic. Not his.
He stored that to examine later.
Food arrived. Soup first. Then bread, warm and dense. Then something with cream and herbs that had no business tasting the way it did.
He ate carefully. Methodically.
This is extraordinary, he thought, taking another spoonful.
Then more food. Hot tea with something floral in it. Small pastries that dissolved.
He ate those too.
Nobody asked him to do anything. Nobody needed anything from him. They moved around him with practiced efficiency, adjusting pillows, checking windows, refilling cups.
I haven’t been taken care of like this since —
He paused.
Actually never. I have never been taken care of like this.
The doctors conferred quietly in the corner. The butler hovered near the door with the energy of a man restraining himself from hovering closer.
Arjun leaned back against the pillows and looked at the chandelier.
If this is a dream, he thought, it is the best dream I have ever had. And I would like to stay in it.
He ate another pastry.
The doctors eventually left. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
The maids cleared away the dishes with the quiet efficiency of people who had done it ten thousand times.
The butler remained. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
Arjun looked at him.
"Tell me," he said, in the language that wasn’t his, "what I’ve missed."
The butler’s expression moved through several things in quick succession. Relief. Grief. Professional composure snapping back into place.
"You were unconscious for nine days, Your Highness. The physicians were —" A pause. "Concerned."
"Nine days."
"Yes."
Nine days. Arjun filed it.
"And everything is —" He gestured vaguely at the room. At himself. "In order?"
"Yes, Your Highness. The household has been managed. All engagements were postponed." The butler straightened. "His Highness has been informed of your recovery. He will arrive tomorrow."
Arjun looked at him.
"His Highness," he said.
"Yes, Your Highness."
A beat.
"And that would be —"
The butler blinked. A very small blink. The kind that meant this is an unusual question but I am professionally obligated not to show that.
"Your husband, Your Highness."
Silence.
He didn’t move.
Husband.
He looked down at his hands. The soft, pale, very male hands on the very expensive sheets.
He looked at the mirror across the room. The very male face looking back.
Husband.
"I see," he said.
His voice came out remarkably steady. He was proud of that.
The butler bowed and excused himself quietly, pulling the door shut behind him.
Arjun sat in the silence of the enormous room.
He put the teacup down.
Okay, he thought. Okay. New information. Processing.
He stared at the ceiling for a long moment.
I was shot. I died. I woke up in a stranger’s body. A man’s body. In a palace. And tomorrow—
He stopped.
A husband.
For the first time since waking up, Arjun had absolutely nothing to file.
