The Dragon Prince's Bride
Chapter 108. I want him gone.

Chapter 108: 108. I want him gone.

"What! You let her ride into the night alone?!" Barak bellowed.

"There was no stopping her, Your Highness, she seemed furious. She abruptly snatched the horse and took off. But I put two of our men to foll—"

"Go get me Nychta." He ordered.

"Sir? You mean your war horse, Your Highness?" Farhan asked with his eyes widened.

"Are there any other horses with that name in this entire royal castle?" Even in the darkness his eyes had darkened and Farhan could see it.

"Right away, Your Highness." He swiftly turned on his heel and went to do as he was told.

...

"There is nothing to think about anymore! I cannot stand being with those people any longer! I am sick and tired of seeing his face!!" Neriah paced up and down the small empty room, fuming with deep fury.

"Calm down Neriah." Said the man who stood in the room with her.

"I want him dead! I do not care, I want to escape him by any means possible. I hate him so much." She kicked the wooden wall of the room, and it affected the small table, shaking the small candle that lit up the place, causing the fire to flicker.

"Calm down and tell me what has made you so vexed. And please tell, what happened to your face? Did you get scratched by a wild animal?" The man held her hand and forced her to stop. The single small candle wasn’t really doing a great job lighting up the place, but he had seen it when she first entered the bookstore in search of him. There were small cuts on her face. One thin cut was bleeding but she was yet to tell him how she got all those scratches.

"That filthy bastard. I hate him and his entire family!" She hissed in response.

The man’s eyes opened wide as his lips opened and closed with disbelief, then he opened them again and spoke "Did he touch you! Was this his doing?"

"No. It was his stupid sister!" She roared and kicked the wooden walls again, and again the light flickered.

"Can you imagine the audacity of such a disgusting creature to actually slap me! I hate them. And that bastard, he did not even ask what happened. He just looked at me like I was the one to blame." She boiled with anger, and the man beside her tried to calm her but it was pointless.

"My love, I know you are angry right now, come let me treat your wounds." He tried to pull her by her wrist but it was that time she lifted her hands in the air dramatically explaining how much she hated them all.

"I hate them all! I hate him in particular! I hate that he is alive and breathing. Lyle I do not care how, but I want him out of my life." She paused in front of him and spoke again.

"I want to be away from him forever. I want him to pay a visit to the demons that guard the underworld and never return! Ahhh! I hate him so much. He always scolds me. Always treats me like I am wrong. He is the worst person I have ever met. That is why I love you. You never scold me." She smiled and stood before him.

"Even when I was scared you would, you only whispered your love to me. And that is how it is supposed to be. If you love someone, you would not scold them no matter what they do. That is how I know you truly love me." She smiled and his lips followed the pattern of hers and curled into a smile too.

"How can I bring myself to scold someone as precious as you? I can never for the life of me scold you." He took her hand that rested upon his cheek and kissed her knuckles, then he kissed the center of her palm. "Because I love you deeply."

Neriah knew it. She was sure of it. This was love and she would do anything to hold on to this love. Even if it meant taking the life of her husband.

...

Since Barak had once successfully used their connection with each other to find her, he thought he would be able to do the same now, but even as he earnestly rode the beautiful black Nychta, he tried and tried but he got nothing.

There was no way to reach the men who Farhan had sent after her, so now he just rode round the capital foolishly.

Why was he behaving this way? He also could not understand the case of his own actions. Well, maybe for one, it was already late and dark and a lot of things could happen to a frail fair woman when it was dark.

Yes, that had to be it... but then there was also the reason that he was suspecting her because she was indeed acting suspicious.

That day when she had gone out on her own for the first time, and chased him out of their room after she returned, he had met with the men that Farhan sent to watch her.

They told him everything that happened. From how she almost got run over by a reckless carriage to how she ended up fighting with a human girl.

"We did not get involved because Her Highness seemed like she needed not our help." They had explained to him.

"After that, Her Highness entered the store and spent a good amount of time in there. But I believe that the time spent inside the store was natural considering the amount of luggage she came out with afterward." They explained and Barak listened, then he asked...

"How did she when she was going there, when she was entering the store, what was her expression?"

"I would say she seemed excited to visit the store, Your Highness. Even in the carriage as she rode there, her head was out of the window and the smile on her face could not be missed. Like any other lady going for shopping, Her Highness looked eager to reach the inside of the store."

"At what point then did her demeanor become dark?" He had asked them, and they both stared at themselves for a while as if trying to coke to a silent conclusion on the actual time.

"We would say as soon as she came out of the store. We did not follow her into the store, but it was obvious that the excitement had left her features at that time." One of them diligently explained.

"B_but she also seemed tired. The inside of Alison’s stone is huge so I am certain Her Highness simply felt tired because she had gone round every corner of the place."

He replayed his discussion with the men over and over in his head like over the past days and no matter how many times he thought about it, something was off. Barak could not picture Neriah as someone who would allow her excitement to be killed by tiredness. Especially when she happened to achieve and fulfill what got her excited in the first place.

Seeing how many things she purchased with his own eyes, she should have been happy. Her excitement should have lasted. She was a woman who got excited by many little things, but her excitement was one that lasted so there was only two reasons he could think of that would kill her joy.

One, something happened inside Alison’s store that burdened and bordered her deeply to make her feel dejected, probably something that had to do with him considering the way she had reacted when he went to see her.

Or two, her earlier excitement hadn’t actually come from the mere fact that she was visiting the famed Alison’s store. She had gone there for some other reason. Shopping at Alison’s store was just a charade. She was after something else. She had gone there for something else entirely.

Maybe even...

Nychta galloped majestically with her tail swinging sideways. Barak’s hold on the reins tightened as his thoughts wandered...

Someone...

Maybe

Her lover.