Replacement Bride for the Alpha of the North - Chapter 24

Chapter 24: ATTEMPTED MURDER
Inside the room, Dawn found Zenith sleeping soundly. He looked tired with a few parchments scattered on the table before him. She took a look and noticed those were from different continents, written in different languages.

“How many languages could he speak?” Dawn mumbled to herself and saw Zenith had not yet touched his meal.

Zenith was leaning his back against the backrest of his lavish chair, closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

She contemplated waking him up for a moment, but then she decided against her idea. Maybe he needed this rest more, so she dropped her plate on the table and went to get a blanket for him.

“I hope you get sick, so I don’t need to go through that stupid training, but it will be cruel to wish you bad luck,” Dawn talked to herself, as she draped the blanket on his body. “He really had his guard down…”

Zenith didn’t wake up even after Dawn left the room. The girl even brushed away his curls from his face, yet, he was still deep in sleep.

With that, Dawn left with her plate.

“Are you sure, it’s okay to let her enter the room without notifying the Alpha first?” One of the warriors talked to his fellow friend, as they watched Dawn walk away.

“The Alpha said not to restrict her movements, she is allowed to go anywhere without permission, including his study room, strategy room and his bedroom.” The second warrior recalled what the alpha said.

“That’s insane. No one has such privilege. Even the beta and the gamma were not allowed to enter the Alpha’s bedroom without permission.”

“That’s right, but had the Alpha gotten mad because that woman entered without permission, we would have been summoned, right?”

The first warrior thought for a moment and agreed. “You are right.”

Half an hour after Dawn left, Darius came and the moment he entered the room, the alpha opened his eyes, because he sensed someone was approaching him.

However, he frowned at the blanket that was draped on his body.

“Are you the one, who put this?” Zenith stared at the blanket.

“No. I just came.” Darius tilted his head. “You don’t know who did it? Maybe it was Dawn, she said she was going to come here and dine with you.”

Zenith stared at the blanket for a while and folded it.

“Wait, you didn’t know? You didn’t even wake up when she approached you?” Darius was surprised to learn about this. “How could that be possible?”

Zenith had never put his guard down so low, to the point he was not aware of his surroundings, even in his sleep.

“How comfortable are you with her that you don’t realize it?”

“What do you want to talk about?” Zenith immediately cut off the topic. He didn’t want to discuss this topic. This was his problem. Probably, Dawn was the only person who could actually kill him in his sleep.

“Your word about preparing the ceremony has traveled fast. I am sure the King has learned about it already.” Darius eyed Zenith’s untouched dinner. “We caught the King’s spy close to the untouched land.”

“Be ready, prepare all the warriors.” Zenith stood up and walked toward the door.

“Zenith, I don’t understand, why is the King against you taking her as your mate? You can just choose someone else, so you will not anger him.” Darius couldn’t understand this.

In his eyes, it was a trivial matter. Dawn was not even his destined mate. There was no need for a heartbreaking rejection and the pain of a severing mate bond. More so, even when Dawn was a debt that Zenith had to collect from Alpha Tony, he didn’t need to make her his luna.

“I want her.”

And that was the only answer that Zenith gave to Darius. He wanted her. There was nothing else.

“Sometimes, I don’t understand why these two brothers are very stubborn. They are at each other’s throats, but have not yet really killed each other.”

Most people knew that Zenith and Zander didn’t see eye to eye often.

Late at night, when everyone had fallen asleep, a few beasts emerged from the dark. The look in their eyes would let you know that they held malicious intentions.

There were around fifty beasts, which was an enough number to create a ruckus inside the pack, especially when they managed to get closer toward the pack house.

Thankfully, with their reckless movements, a warrior noticed them first before they could enter the pack house and alarmed the other warriors about these intruders.

“It’s happening…” Axel clicked his tongue, shaking his head. Darius and he had been waiting for this, since the alpha had expected their visit.

“What now?” Darius asked one of the warriors.

“Rogues!” The warrior replied.

Of course, the king would use rogues so it wouldn’t be traced back to him. But, who was the king trying to deceive when his brother knew very well that he was behind it?

However, the rogues were only a distraction, because the real goal was not to invade the pack…

Inside the most comfortable and beautiful room in the north pack house, where you could see various daggers hanging on one wall, a girl was sleeping without knowing that her life was in great danger, as a beast entered the room, a flash of killing intent evident in his eyes.

This would be a quick death. Everything would be over in less than a minute. He could hear the soft sound of her breathing, not realizing the commotion out there.

The beast crept closer, he was only three steps away from the bed when he felt this chill run down his spine, a strong presence came from behind him. Within a second, he became prey to a stronger predator.

He didn’t even have time to fully grasp his situation and think of a way to escape his predicament when the beast suddenly jumped on his back and tore off his neck.

It was a swift and quick death, where he could only let out a small croak before his body fell to the ground. His dead body shifted into his human form.

Hearing the sound and the thick smell of blood in the air, Dawn woke up with a jolt, as she immediately sat down and looked around her, but all of a sudden, someone closed her eyes.

“Argh!” Dawn managed to claw her attacker’s arm, but he immediately caught both of her wrists and pushed her down on the bed. He was so strong, while one hand covered her eyes, his other hand held both of her hands down. “Let go of me!” Dawn was about to shift into her beast when she heard his voice.

“It’s me! It’s me!”

Zenith’s voice echoed in this quiet room, which made Dawn stop struggling. Only then, she noticed his woodsy scent so close to her, amidst this thick smell of blood.

“W- what happened?” Dawn was confused, she was still unable to see.

“Close your eyes, you don’t want to see this. I will take you away from this room.”

The smell of blood and the urgency in his voice let Dawn know it was really not a good idea to see whatever had happened around her.

Zenith saw that she nodded and lowered his hand slowly to see Dawn followed his instruction. He then let go of her hands and carried her away from this bloody room. He pressed her face against his chest, to make sure she wouldn’t sneak a peek.

“What happened?” Dawn asked, as Zenith walked in the corridor.

“Just a nuisance.”

=================================

This man sat on the throne, looked aloof, but playful. His face was covered by a golden mask and his shoulder length hair had these little curls. You couldn’t see what kind of expression he had behind his mask, but you could sense that he was not in a good mood.

Meanwhile, in front of them, there was this bloody box with a head on top of it. It was still bleeding, some magic must have been used to preserve the head even after a week of travel.

The king had a maid serve him a cup of alcohol tea, his favorite drink. The maid looked pale, she was mortified and tried her hardest not to glance at it and left this throne room as soon as possible, while the royal gamma was sitting next to the king, looking bored to his senses.

This throne room was spacious enough and lavished by luxurious things, but there were only the two of them there after the maid left.

“How could he send me that? Don’t you think that he had crossed the line?”

“You are the one, who had crossed the line first, Zander,” his gamma chided the king lightly. “You should have expected this to happen after you targeted his chosen mate.”

“I told him not to go through with his ridiculous idea to have a ceremony.”

“Does he ever listen to you?” The gamma rolled his eyes, looking tired with this unnecessary dispute between the siblings.

“No. But, I am his king, he is my subject. He should listen to me.”

“Yeah, apparently that didn’t work.” The gamma scratched his head and then handed him a letter. “This is the report from the northern border. A horde of monsters managed to go through the northern warrior’s protection and caused great damage to your favorite hot spring in the north.”

“Ridiculous!” Zander cursed, he threw the mask that covered his face and revealed the same exact face as the alpha from the north.

If you didn’t look closely, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.