Chapter 71

71 The Golden Badge

“Marked? I don’t understand.”

Levi wanted to blurt more answers but when his mouth opened, nothing came out of them, as though he just restrained himself from exposing more about the mark and his demeanor slowly faded like a cloud in a horizon, his eyes instinctively narrowed with interest.

‘Wait, if Roshan really marked her, why didn’t he tell her what the mark meant?’

Anna waited for him to say something else but he just remained mute, he appeared to be in another dimension as multiple expressions displayed on his enchanting face, leaving Anna even more agitated and her fingers uncontrollably dug into the skin in her palms.

Why did he stop?

“You wanted to say something.” Her voice broke him out of the trance he unknowingly kept himself in and he indubitably met her eyes.

“Did I?”

He suddenly looked confused as though he had no clue what she was talking about.

“Yes, about the mark on my neck.” She pointed at it, diverting his attention to the two dot marks on her neck.

.....

“Oh.” He let out a laugh but Anna could tell he feigned it, he awkwardly cleared his throat and met her quizzical stare.

“Books about Demon mark, I’ve never come across such in the library but you can always check.”

“Check? But you just said_”

“When did you get bitten exactly?” He asked.

“Yesterday?”

Anna wasn’t understanding why he questioned her when she was the one with the questions, but watching his face as a look of realization dawned on them made her body tense for unknown reasons.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get myself prepared for the day.” He smiled and instantly vanished before Anna could say anything else to him.

A strange silence lingered after he left. What just happened?

She turned her attention to Gemma who shrugged with a, ‘I don’t know what happened’ look on her face.

Seeing as they were both clueless about what happened, Anna decided to brush it aside.

“Nevermind, he’s probably confused, let’s find the book ourselves.”

Gemma nodded and together, they searched the library.

~

Roshan sat at the solar room, playing with the chessboard on the table and his eyes looked distant. He just finished having a boring and uninteresting conversation with Uncle Evan about tonight’s meeting and with nothing else to occupy his mind, the annoying woman immediately invaded his thoughts.

“I haven’t seen her today.” He uttered to himself with a half-serious look. Normally she’d show up in his chambers incase she was needed for anything but she didn’t do that today.

He healed her wrist last night, she was smart enough to know no one else could do have done it except him and yet, she didn’t bother to come see him, or even thank him for it.

He sighed and threw his head back on the chair, closing his eyes to rest his unsettled mind.

Why did it even bother him this much? Not like he needed her for anything important.

He suddenly recalled her mentioning about Sir Mateo being her father and the golden badge turned out to be even more familiar.

“She’s sir Mateo’s daughter.” He couldn’t hold back a light laugh, was fate playing a trick on him?

“Brother.”

Levi showed up at the solar room and quickly walked in. He looked relieved to have spotted Roshan in the solar room.

“I knew you’d be here since I couldn’t find you in your room or underground cave pool.”

Roshan stared at the being who stood at the doorway, looking haggard and his face was hysterically designed with the earth’s soil, but he looked cute regardless.

Tsk! He expected his appearance to be a lot worse.

“Took you long enough.” Was Roshan’s comment on him, but Levi discarded it and hurried to his side.

“Yes I’m alive thank you for asking but you need to answer my questions.”

Roshan folded his arms, his face remained solemn like a mask, “which is?”

“Did you really bite Anna!?” He couldn’t hold back his exclamation, all the while he was searching for Roshan, he couldn’t stop thinking about what Anna told him, to the point he wanted to confirm from the glacier himself.

He noticed Roshan tense a little bit at his question, but the glacier instantly relaxed.

“It was the only option, I needed her blood.”

“But you made her your mate.”

“She’s not my mate.”

“I saw the bite mark, it’s still visible on her neck, if she wasn’t your mate it would have cleared off within a few hours.”

Roshan’s gaze finally shifted to Levi, “the mark isn’t gone?”

“You.... Didn’t know?”

Roshan didn’t respond, he averted his stare instead and Levi couldn’t read the imperturbable look on his face.

“Where is she?”

“At the library, trying to find answers about the mark.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know, maybe because a Demons mating mark tends to do a lot of things and she’s hypothetically facing one of those ‘challenges'”

“Sigh... stupid Bond mark.” He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thinks he has a reason as to why she’s avoiding him now.

“Well, what are you going to do?”

“I discovered something as well.”

“What?”

“She’s the daughter of late sir Mateo.” There was a slight trace of empathy in his tone, but Levi didn’t get it and tilted his head at him.

“Sir who?”

“The golden badge she always carried belongs to sir Mateo, her father.”

It took a while before the name sank into Levi’s head and his eyes dilated, his face pale-stricken. “I hope you aren’t referring to Euphrasia’s greatest warrior. It’s not him, right?”

Levi still remembered what happened during the war, it was clearly vivid in his head and the golden badge, yes! He was the one with the golden badge.

Seeing as Roshan hadn’t said anything in response, his earlier expression collapsed and his shoulder slouched. The air around the solar room tensed a bit, followed by a dreadful feeling as Levi lifted his gaze to stare at the glacier.

“Are you going to tell her?”

“Where’s Azazel? His presence is needed.”