Chapter 47 - 46

"I'm not accusing you of anything. That note I gave to you is something I confiscated from my team. It seems like they're planning on trying to catch your clan in the act" Colin pointed to the note that Emilia took stubbornly.

Her red eyes still looked at Colin with suspicion. She opened the small paper note and it's a planned-out map of where to take their "suspect". It looks like they planned on silencing said person while making it seem that they were attacked by the monsters.

"Why should I believe you?"

"We came from the same village"

"Even more reason for me to not believe you. Aren't you forgetting that they branded me as a witch in your history?"

"And I never once believed it"

"yeah right..." Emilia scoffed and Colin just looked sad. She put away the note on her person.

"Under Lady Kassandra's orders, I was going to around 30 members but since you gave me this note... I'll just minimize it to 15 or 20. The lesser the better. It'll be hectic but at least I can watch over them easier"

"That's a good idea" Colin nodded and Emilia crossed her arms.

"Minimize yours as well. Our manpower will be replaced with Lord Damien's troops anyways. That way they can't execute what they had planned"

Colin smiled and nodded. "I will"

Emilia sighed and smiled as well. She walked up to Colin and raised her hand. From a distance, it would look like she was about to choke him. But instead, she slid her hand to his nape and pulled him downwards. She kissed him on the lips and then on the cheeks before whispering something that can make anyone blush.

"Don't work too hard ok?" Emilia tells him before running off.

Colin walked back to his area and a few of his subordinates spotted him. They wanted to talk to him but they were lost for words. Their leader, who always had a serious expression and would only loosen up when he was drunk, was covering half of his face that was red as a tomato.

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"I haven't seen Lord Amias around" Alex blurted out to Damien who had been unfocused the entire time.

"Ah? ah yeah..." Damien answers to his subordinate who was helping him plan out their route once they set off.

"Did the two of you fight?"

"Fight? I don't think so. He suddenly just-"

Damien kept thinking about that scene yesterday. Amias was never the person who actually cared if he was flirting in broad daylight. Even if it wasn't the case, why was his face like that? Why was he so upset.

The last time he saw Amias make a face like that was when he refused to save Yohann. After that incident, Amias pretended to still be fine around Damien. But a person can sense if they are not needed.

Sensing that his rude questions made Damien's mood worse, Alexander kneeled and lowered his head.

"I would like to apologize for making the Lord's mood terrible. I will accept any punishment from you"

"No need"

Damien may have a terrible temper, but he wasn't the type to lash out for no proper reason. He knows Alex was just concerned for him, rather than being angry he's actually thankful that he was still worthy of concern.

Alex raised his head and Damien was smiling sadly at him. Alex felt awkward because he knew that his Lord was upset. But how can he help him?

"If there's anything I can help the lord with, please ask away"

'Help? Do I look like I need help?' Damien thought about the offer. Maybe he did need help.

"What do you do if your friend was upset with you but you don't understand why?" Damien hesitated in asking this.

"It depends, what happened between the two of you for him to be upset"

"I was asking something and he made a fuss about it. We both got kicked out and he started shaking me until a button from my shirt flew at his face"

"That..." Thankfully Alexander raised a little sibling and he now mastered how to mask his expression.

'LORD DAMIEN I'M SO SORRY BUT THAT SOUNDED TOO RIDICULOUS TO HAPPEN'

With a straight face, he replied "Maybe it was the thing that you asked that made him upset?"

"No rather... he looked upset when Azazel saw the both of us and said that we should do it somewhere private"

Alexander's willpower to not laugh is being tested with this situation.

"So, Lord Azazel "caught" the both of you in a rather unsightly state and assumed something else. Did you try explaining?"

"We both did but Azazel looked uninterested to hear it. After that, Amias wouldn't look at me properly"

"Maybe Lord Amias was upset that he got misunderstood? But then again, everyone had been misunderstanding him for so long... Oh my apologies, it's a slip of tongue"

"No you're fine, we're aware of that actually" Damien leaned back on his seat.

Actually, he knew exactly why Amias was upset. He would see the interaction between him and Azazel. It was the same expression he had when he was still with Kassandra.

Amias liked Azazel.

Of course, a lot of them knew that Azazel liked someone. They just didn't know who since this crush apparently lasted for a thousand years now. They once asked about it and Azazel just laughed and said that the person they liked had someone else. It looked like Azazel never noticed his feelings and Amias kept it like that.

"I'll just give him time, for now. If I try to talk to him he'll just get angrier" Damien states as he gets out of his chair and went to the door.

"Gather the rest of the troops. Kassandra's team will be making their trip back soon, we can't waste our powers on long-distance teleportation arrays"

"Yes and shall we be setting off in vehicles?"

"yeah and we can do short-distance teleportation arrays in between to shorten the time to arrive"

"I'll relay this to the rest for preparation"

Yeah... Amias needs more time. And in the meantime, Damien was determined to look for the reason on how Yohann ended up like that.

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Gideon ended up spending another day in this castle but this time he was in Kaiden's room. At first, he insisted to go back to his room but Kaiden refused. Then he asked if he could just use a guest room since there's bound to be one here. There were but Kaiden still refused. The rooms were far from his room and he made it very clear that the servants here had a terrible impression of Gideon.

"Even if I assigned the least problematic servants to you, the king and other nobles can still meddle with my affairs." is what Kaiden said.

In other words, the safest spot is being next to Kaiden. Well, it was not that bad being next to Kaiden. Because he was upset, Kaiden offered him delicious food and allowed him to do whatever as long as he stayed in that room.

Kaiden was working in his room instead of the private study. He thought that it would be best to keep Gideon company even when he's working but...

'I CAN'T FOCUS'

He tries his best to not look at Gideon or even think of him. But who would know that Gideon looked very adorable in an oversized t-shirt and pajamas?

'I could have sworn those were already small but why is it still too big on Deon?'

Gideon was playing with his now-charged phone when he noticed Kaiden had been staring at him intensely. He looked around to check if he did something wrong. Assuming that it was because of the messy bed, he immediately started to clean up.

"What are you doing?" Kaiden asks Gideon, still staring at him.

"I'm cleaning up my mess?"

"You can just leave that for now"

"Oh but then why are you staring at me?"

Kaiden coughs and realized that he was staring at Gideon. But he couldn't help it ok!

"It's nothing, I was just wondering why you're so thin. Did the nurses starve you as well?"

"No no! I'm just naturally thin?"

"I don't like it, you should eat more. This is why you're short"

"Excuse me! I eat on time and I eat a lot. And I'm not short, you're just very tall ok"

"Gideon, your height is closer to the average height of the women in the Capital. For a man, you're pretty short"

Gideon was frowning and couldn't make a come back to Kaiden's statement. He was right, even Theodora was taller than him.

'I wasn't this short in my previous life'

Kaiden laughed when he saw the pouty face of Gideon. He wanted to tease him more but he knew the next thing he would receive is a pillow to his face.

"Don't worry, it's just height. A lot of us may be taller but that doesn't make us a better person" Kaiden reassures Gideon and he checks the time on his phone. It was around 3 pm so it was still early to consider dinner. But Kaiden needed to make up for teasing Gideon.

"Do you wanna visit Stephen?"