The Dragon Prince's Bride
Chapter 45. NO REMORSE.

Chapter 45: 45. NO REMORSE.

Barak would have not been surprised to see that he was not wrong. For instead of feeling sorry, she was furious! Gerald did not even want to see her after the incident. He had ordered the guards to bundle her back to her room. He doubled the guards around her room too.

And though it had been hours since the incident, she still could not shake off the anger.

"Ahhhhh!" She screamed as she picked up her pillows and tossed them around. "The more I think about it the more furious I get." She gritted her teeth.

"I am even more furious! To think you got slapped because of a mere Tragonian!" Riri hmphed. She was equally furious like she was the one who had been slapped. "Albeit your plan was bad, you did not deserve to be slapped! Your precious royal face. I cannot believe His Majesty did that!" She scoffed and used her hands as a fan to blow herself because she was fuming with anger.

"Exactly! Can you believe it! Not once but twice." Neriah placed a palm over her swollen cheek. "Look at how red my face is right now. It’s been hours and it is still visibly red!" She screamed furiously.

"That is because you refused treatment. Please My Lady, allow me to put some ointment on your face." Aria begged. She had been trying to do this for a while now and Neriah was just too stubborn. It was still a shock to her that the king himself struck Neriah, he had always left the punishment of Neriah to the queen. So Aria was shocked that he raised his hand and hit her.

What was even more shocking to Aria was the fact that no one had sent for her. After Neriah had returned from her failed plan, Aria had expected that she would be summoned by the queen to face punishment for aiding the princess, but no one was yet to send for her.

She had no idea if she was to be happy or dread what was probably still to come.

"I want no ointment!" Neriah yelled. She just could not take the ointment. She had no idea why she was being stubborn about it, but she just didn’t want it. "Who would have thought, who would have thought that the bastard was the prince?" She gritted her teeth again and began pinching her arms.

"Even though he is a prince, who does he think he is? He is nothing in front of the most beautiful damsel in the empire! He is nothing compared to you. Just because he was born the prince of a nation does not make him royalty. All those wretched barbarians." Riri added to her mistress’s rage. It almost seemed like she was more angered than Neriah.

"And you should both have seen his father! They are one in the same. Father and son are disgusting! I hate them all. He even asked for my head. Can you believe it? The nameless barbarian was asking for my head in exchange for his son’s honor!"

"What honor do barbarians have!" Riri sniggered.

"My thoughts exactly!

Aria just watched them both. They were so alike. Neriah and Riri. They were like twins with just different body sizes. They had the same personality. Aria knew very well that the one at fault was Neriah, but saying that was not going to change anything so there was no point in saying anything.

All she had to do was support Neriah as she always did.

"My Lady, what will happen now?" Aria asked and Neriah’s gaze finally wavered from anger a little. "The plan has failed. What are we going to do now?" She asked again and Neriah pinched herself harder.

"What do you mean by my plan has failed?" She scoffed and walked toward her mirror. Her eyes traced the markings on her shoulder and then she stared into her own green eyes that were staring right back at her, "I did not fail. Things did not go as planned but it does not necessarily mean that I have failed." She smirked, then she turned around and faced Aria and Riri.

"After all that happened today, father will be too embarrassed and ashamed to give a woman who has caused disgrace like me to a prince to marry. Even though it is that said prince who deflowered me. His pride and heart for justice will not allow him to overlook the fact that I deceived a man I did not even know and slept with him."

She had also been worried that her plan failed, but when she thought about it again, she realized that it wasn’t a total failure at all. If anything, things were probably a little bit better like this.

"And if peradventure father still chooses to give me away to the barbarians, do you think they would want a woman like me? Of course not. A woman who schemed all that? They would see me as a witch. A wicked soul. They would definitely call off the engagement." She cackled like an evil witch.

Aria watched her intently. The talk about the King she could believe, but for the barbarians breaking off the engagement part, she could not fully take it in. If they were as vicious and wicked as the stories claimed to be, then would they not want to have Neriah? A woman who could do something like that, would a barbarian not fall for such a woman? A woman who was somewhat similar to them by heart.

"Oh I must be damned." Aria muttered and almost slapped herself as she realized she had just thought of her mistress as someone whose actions resembled a barbarian. Her precious pretty princess! How could she think that way?

"Aria, Riri, the main thing is that no matter what, I have successfully ruined everything. I am not going to marry a barbarian."

...

"Erra, do you think we have raised her wrong?" Gerald calmly asked as he laid in the arms of his wife to sleep. "Maybe we have treasured and sheltered her too much. Maybe we gave her too much. Maybe... Maybe we should have been more strict with her." He sighed deeply and Erra placed a kiss upon his head.

"There is no point in wondering where it all went wrong. It is not too late to put her in the right path. We taught her to value her life and happiness,, we failed to teach her to value the lives of others equally. I see that now. We shall get through this together, my love. Rest. It has been a long day." She calmly said.

She was also disappointed, in Neriah and in herself as a mother, but there was no point in dwelling on disappointment. They just had to rectify things.

...

It had been three days after the incident and King Gerald had finally sent a message to King Bashan for them to meet again.

Now they all sat in that same hall again, only this time Neriah was not rolling on the ground like a possessed witch. Instead she was quietly seated next to her mother with her chin held high.

Barak quietly studied her appearance. She wore a long swamp green gown that covered everywhere on her body. It was turtle-necked and it was touching her chin. She was covering up the markings, he could tell.

Since there was no use in showcasing it like the last time. He could not help but scoff at the sight of her arrogance. "Devil’s little messenger." He muttered to himself.

"First of all," Gerald finally spoke up as he rose from his seat and took some steps toward Bashan and Barak, "I and my family have caused you much insult and dishonor. You are our esteemed guests and yet we have treated you with the most disrespect, so I as the king and the head of this family would like to formally bow my head in apology to prince Barak who had to have his name sullied by my daughter." And he bowed his head. Much to the shock of everyone present.

Barak’s eyes instantly moved to Neriah to see her reaction to her father bowing his head for her misdeeds and he could see the nonchalance into those eyes. It was almost like she felt nothing at all. Her father, a king, was bowing his head before the prince of another kingdom for her sake and she looked unaffected.

She needed to be taught a lesson, that little witch.

"Forgive me King Gerald," Barak suddenly rose to his feet, his eyes wickedly eyeing Neriah. "but I do not believe that you are the one who has wronged me. Neither are you the one who claimed I had forcefully taken their chastity. So I see no reason why your head is bowing before me and yet the one in question is seated there with no sort of remorse on her face."

She finally looked at him. He could tell she was clenching her teeth with so much force. He was going to break her. That stubborn unreasonable pride. He was going to break it.

"I want Princess Neriah on her knees before me."

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