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Chapter 31HopeI woke up to a headache. My entire body ached. I sat up on my bed with a sigh. I turned to look through the window and saw that it was already dawn. I suddenly became alert. What time was it? Why didn't Kyle wake me up for training?As I was about to stand up from the bed, I noticed that my shoulders were heavy. I threw my head down to check and saw that I was wearing a jacket. A heavy one that did not belong to me.Darius.I pulled the jacket off of me in an instant as memories of what happened last night replayed inside my head. I facepalmed myself at the thought. "I can't believe that I did all of that." I said to myself with a shameful tone.I wondered what he was going to do to me today. I called him out so ruthlessly. Was he going to finally send me away or maybe even kill me me? I shook the thought from my head. If he wanted to do either of the two, he would have done them already.What was he waiting for? What did he even want? I stopped to think. Did it even ma
Chapter 32HopeOnce we got to my room, Gwendolyn and I fell Kyle onto my bed. Ignoring the blood on my sheets, I walked over to my dresser to take out the first-aid kit in there that had been put when I had injuries on my feet."Help me turn him around," I said to Gwendolyn. Not needing to be told twice, she held onto Kyle's other side and we both flipped him around so that his front was against the bed, and his back facing us. As I got a good look at his injuries, my stomach churned in disgust. His back was designed in slash marks with no exception of any part. Monsters. Those people that did this were monsters. The ones who watched it happen were even bigger monsters. And my husband who ordered it all was the worst of them all.I poured the entire bottle of alcohol on his back and Kyle screamed in pain. I flinched, somehow being able to feel his pain as well. After that, I helped clean the wounds and wrapped the entire thing with bandages.Kyle fell asleep sometime while I was cle
Chapter 33Hope"What do you want?" I asked Darius, pushing out my chest to seem unafraid of him. Unfortunately, I was actually afraid but I hoped that he couldn't tell.His eyes darted to Kyle, who suddenly became alert and wanted to stand up. I pressed my hand on one of his shoulder, holding him down from standing up."What are you doing here? Why aren't you at the training grounds?" Darius asked Kyle with an agitated tone, totally ignoring me.I frowned. "He's not going back there," I said to Darius.Darius didn't even glance my way as he marched into the room and attempted to pull Kyle up. "Get to the training grounds, right now." Darius ordered. I took a step in front of Kyle, blocking him. "I said, he's not going back there. And what are you even doing here? Nobody invited you in." I mentally gave myself a pat on the back for being able to stand my ground against Darius like this.For the first time since he walked into the room, he met my eyes. "Are you fucking him?" Darius a
Chapter 34HopeI was wrong. It was stupid of me in the first place to think that Commander would ever change. After her whole apology that day, I walked into the training grounds a week after when Kyle was all better and it was like the apology never happened at all. Commander still treated me the same way.The only difference was that this time, I didn't swallow down all her antiques. She thought that she would be able to push me to the wall and I wouldn't do anything. That was before. Now I knew that no matter how badly everyone wanted me out of this place, they couldn't get me out. And I was going to use that piece of information to my advantage.Right now, I was practicing with a dummy. A moving one which I had to block the attacks of. And one which was set at full speed, courtesy of the commander. On a normal day, I shouldn't even be sparring with a dummy at full speed but since I happened to piss Darius off at dinner last night, I didn't need anyone to tell me that Commander wa
Chapter 35KyleI hated this. I thought I had escaped this life of war when I had been assigned as my lady's guard. But I was back to it. After a hard day of training, there was ale and forgetting all the worries of the day.Things were a bit different. Now, I wasn't friends with everyone and wasn't allowed to lose myself in the safety of my friends. As I took a swig of ale from my glass, I noticed a few of the men in the barhouse were staring at me with malicious intent clearly written behind their eyes."Don't pay them any mind, my friend," Soren threw an arm over my shoulder, laughing a bit. I used my free hand to pull his sweat-soaked arm off my shoulder, all while he was still laughing, along with the other guys who had noticed our interaction. "Why are you in such a sour mood?" Kirk asked, raising brow as he took a swig of his ale."I am supposed to be on duty." I said with a gruff tone.It took them all three seconds to burst into a unified laughter at my expense. I didn't kn
Chapter 36Hope"Look here, princess. It is too late and I am too tired to deal with your antiques for today. If you really want to raise up this matter this night, take it up with your husband." Orion said to me with a hint of tiredness in his tone."You look well and able to answer my question. So please do." I stretched my lips wide.Orion sighed heavily, then pinched his nose, as though he were thinking of a quick and efficient way to get rid of me. Like he shook all those thoughts out from his head, he dropped down his hand and pressed his palms against each other."Good night, princess." He said quickly, sidestepped me and attempted to go up the stairs. I quickly jumped two steps ahead of him and pitched right in front of him, blocking his way.He sidestepped me once again, I closed the gap and blocked his way. We did this a few more times till he got the hint that I wasn't going anywhere till he answered my question."All this time that you've been spending to throw me off, you
Chapter 37HopeI ground my teeth in anger as I watched Annalise crawl off my husband's body naked. Darius, himself, seemed to be naked as well but luckily for my eyes, the second Annalise crawled off him, he covered his lower half with the sheets.I felt like any moment from now, my teeth would crack because of how hard I was grinding them. My fists were clenched so hard with my nails digging deep into my palms. With any luck, I would soon start bleeding."I have to talk to you." I said to Darius, blatantly ignoring Annalise who was sitting on the other side of his bed with her legs crossed, wearing nothing but shamelessness.Darius frowned at me. "You want to talk at this time of the night?""Yes, I do," I replied immediately. I felt like if I didn't confront him now, all my rage and confidence would elude me and I wouldn't be able to confront him another day."That would be considered rude, my dear Hope. As you can see, Darius and I were in the middle of something." Annalise spoke
Chapter 38HopeThe last time I saw Darius like this was the other day when he had been upset with me about Kyle. But this time there was no one here to tell me to run or bear the brunt of Darius' aggressiveness but me."Let go of me!" I tried to wrestle myself free from his rough hold but he didn't budge one inch."I said try again, princess. It seems I've been too lenient on you which is why you have the audacity to slap me twice in the span of a month." Darius' voice sounded husky and harsh. Like he was not himself.I wasn't a fool not to know that his Lycan side had taken over. What I didn't know what how much time I had till the beast cut my head off my body. "Just let go of me. I've said all I wanted to say to you so leave me be." I lowered the pitch of my voice, hoping that it would somehow tune down Darius' anger. It didn't. "That is not what I said you should do, princess! You've been acting all high and mighty these days, parading around with that lover of yours, and now yo
Chapter 78Hope Kyle was quick. It didn't take up to two days and he had already set up a meeting with the witch for me. According to him, she wanted to keep her name and location a secret.So, instead of leaving the castle to meet her, she would be the one to come over. I had no problems with this, as all I wanted to do was get this phase of my life over and done with.She arrived at midnight. Earlier today, I had told Darius not to come to my room since I wanted to rest well and him being around would only disturb and irritate me.Though he had been against it because of his recent overprotective behavior, I still managed to wear him down at the end of the day.By the time the witch arrived, I was seated by the window in my room. She and Kyle entered so quietly that I didn't even notice them until they had gotten close to the window.The moon was incredible bright this night and my room was brightened with lamps and lit candles. The witch was dressed as a castle worker to avoid sus
Chapter 77 Hope When I regained consciousness, I saw that Darius was sitting on the side of my bed with a worried look on his face. I let out a soft sigh, and he jerked into action, noticing that I was finally awake. "How are you? How do you feel? Hope, are you alright?" he questioned. I rolled my eyes and stretched to take a sitting position on the bed. "I'm fine, just a little tired and thirsty." Darius quickly took the cue to stand up from the bed and pour in a glass of water from a jug and gave it to me. I emptied the glass and handed it back to him. "Hope, I was so worried. It's all my fault. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have kept you up working all night. I should've—" "It's not your fault, quit acting so pitiful," I chided him. "It was just a sunstroke. And I'm not the first person in the world to get dizzy under the sun. Stop worrying unnecessarily." "You say that so easily, but I wouldn't be able to bear it if something bad happened to you. You've been so moody these da
Chapter 76HopeA cold chill slapped my face after Darius said that word. It was foolish of me to have expected that something like war would be taken care of with no hitches along the way.And because of this reason, I softened up a little and used a small voice to say, "I want to see. Show me what you're doing." Darius stared at me for a little while before shaking his head negatively. "It's nothing. You don't need to bother yourself with things like this. Please, go and rest. I'll take care of everything."Darius must have thought that saying such things would put my mind at ease but all that it did was anger me as I raised the volume of my voice and said:"You'll take care of everything and I should go rest? Have you forgotten that I'm the queen of this kingdom? I should rest while you deal with the brunt of things and I remain a silly little oblivious queen. Is that what you want me to be? You want me to be stupid and ignorant for you?"Darius immediately stood up from his chair
Chapter 75HopeI turned around to look at who just spoke. To my surprise, it was Thomas—the grumpy son of the commander. There was a clear frown on his face as he came forward. But before he could step in front of me, Kyle stood between us."Her majesty was not speaking to you, back away." Kyle said with a firm tone.Thomas glared at him and said, "So what if she wasn't talking to me? Is it a bad thing for me to offer myself to my queen?"His last two words were coated with deep sarcasm that I couldn't even ignore. I patted Kyle on his shoulder, gesturing for him to step aside. He did so, but begrudgingly.I faced Thomas and asked, "You want to fight me?" He didn't even bother to hide the defiance in his tone as he said, "Yes, and so what?" I smiled, surprising the kid who was one or two years younger than me. "Okay then, let's spar." Kyle stepped forward, probably about to stop me but I held my hand up and gave him a look, causing him to step back. I spoke to him with my eyes, an
Chapter 74Hope Darius marched over to Kyle and I with a sudden possessive aura clouding his being."Her majesty was attacked by a spy posing as a human maid," Kyle explained solemnly.Upon hearing Kyle's explanation, Darius didn't ease up one bit as he told Kyle to get a physician and leave the two of us. Darius then replaced Kyle and led me to sit on the bed, his face painted with worry."I'm sorry," he said. "I should've gotten here faster. You wouldn't have gotten injured and I would've been able to catch the bastard who did this to you." Hearing him say such words, I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit. It was stupid because I believed him. He had done it once before, back then when there was nothing but hatred between the two of us.It got me thinking that maybe the assassin who snuck into my room that night could've been another of Light's underlings who was sent to kidnap me and bring me to her.I sighed mentally at the thought."I have something to tell you," I whispered
Chapter 73Hope I've put up with this long enough now. It was early morning, a week after 'forgiving' Darius. I was preparing to have breakfast with him when Gwendolyn began speaking."His Majesty has been treating you very preciously these days." It was only ten words but they stirred me up so bad that I stood up from my dressing chair and faced her. "Gwendolyn, you can stop putting on an act now." My voice was firm and my frown was even firmer.It took only a few seconds for her innocent expression to change. Her usual doe eyes narrowed to an almond shape and a wry smile made its way on her lips.She backed up a few steps and placed her hands on her waist. "How long have you known now?" she asked.I glared at her. "You know, I wasn't sure of anything until you just asked that question."Shock flashed her features, but it was too fast for me to decipher her level of surprise.I had always found Gwendolyn annoying and suspicious. But after the entire thing she told me about the st
Chapter 72 Hope "What are you trying to say? Are you trying to mock me or make me feel pity for you?" I questioned. "No, that's not what I'm trying to do. I can assure you," Darius said. I didn't believe. In fact, I didn't even want to believe him. I didn't want to sit here and listen to him wail about his childhood, trying to concoct an excuse for why he acted like a big bully. I liked myself and hated him too much to give him a chance to thaw my heart with his story. "Anyway, I had a very normal childhood fitting for someone that was to be king in the future," Darius heaved a sigh as he spoke. I unconsciously raised a questioning brow. If you had such a normal childhood, why did you then kill your family and make yourself such an unapproachable tyrant? As though he heard my thoughts, Darius said, "But growing up in such a way only made me weak, thought my parents. I wouldn't blame them, I was far too kind in the past." I almost snorted. "There was a time when I
Chapter 71Hope"Someone's looking pretty," Darius said with a smile the second he saw me.It was midnight and I had already dressed up, anticipating his arrival. I wasn't wearing anything especially pretty. Just a dark blue tunic with a pair of black trousers. My hair was parted at the middle and I donning a few jewelries around my neck, wrists, and fingers."Hm," I said in response to Darius."Don't you have anything to say about me?" he teased.He was also dressed as casually as I was. What was there to compliment him about? I turned away from him and said, "Stop fishing for compliments."He made a psh sound before putting out a hand for me. Begrudgingly, I placed my hand in his and unexpectedly, Darius leaned down and placed a kiss on my hand.I flinched and almost retracted my hand, but his hold was firm. He quickly roped an arm around me and began leading me out from my room.To be honest, I was curious about this 'date' of ours. What was Darius hoping to achieve? Why was he so
Chapter 70HopeAnd to think for a second I believed that Darius had summoned me for something important. The moment I stepped into his office, he had engulfed me and in a tight embrace and quickly assaulted my lips with his own.It took me a second to push him away and catch my breath. With a frown, I said, "Stop doing that. I hate it." "What do you hate exactly? Kissing? Or kissing me?" Darius questioned languidly."Both!" I bit out.He chuckled at this, then wrapped his arms around me once again. "What can I do to make you like them both?" "Nothing. And stop holding me!" I tried pushing him away but he held onto me tightly, refusing to let go."To think by now you'd know that physical contact is my love language," Darius said carelessly.The side of my lips tugged up in irritation. He could take his love language and shove it up his ass. I didn't want it. But Darius had other thoughts as his hands begin creeping to my erogenous zones.I bit my bottom lip to mask the shameless sou