Replacement Bride for the Alpha of the North - Chapter 255

Chapter 255: THE AGREEMENT
Addie shook his head. “I am exaggerated my king, but it will cause some damage on us.” Addie furrowed his brows. “And what will get from this kingdom aside from their princess?”

That was what Rowan and Zander would discuss in this meeting. After that night, Zander invited him for a drink in his study room. The place where they could keep things formal and without the involvement of sword or any dangerous object around them.

“Five hundred magic users and unlimited supply of magic stone,” Rowan said his demand in exchange of one hundred thousand of his knights.

One hundred thousand of knights was indeed a great number compared to five hundred magic users, but Rowan had witnessed himself of what magic could do. He watched with his own eyes what kind of power a magic user held and the people in his continent had never seen magic before.

It would be a surprise for his enemy to witness it firsthand in battle if they dared to cross him.

“We don’t have five hundred magic users. I believe you know that,” Zander responded calmly. He didn’t know that Zaya had asked such thing from Rowan, but he knew she only did that for their kingdom.

“And I believe you have a strong connection with people in the Andel kingdom.” Rowan leaned his back. “You were the one, who instigated the attack on Holy Kingdom. I believe there are so many magic users under Andel kingdom’s control, since Holy Kingdom is only a history now.”

Rowan read the situation between Ogregon and Andel really well. Yes, Zander didn’t have five hundred magic users, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t make it happened.

The other king was clever and it annoyed Zander. He couldn’t find a way to make things difficult for Rowan, since his demand was fair and Zander would get more than he would ask of him.

Zander couldn’t prevent this because he could see how Zaya slowly fell for this brute king, but then he was not able to find fault on Rowan, since he treated his sister well and even though he didn’t want to admit it, he knew.

This situation irritated him.

“They will be under Zaya’s command.” Zander looked at him calmly. The two of them knew how to keep their façade. “It’s only natural for Zaya to command the magic users, since she is the only person, who knew about magic, more so, those magic users would come from Holy Kingdom. They are the people that she knew, since she lived there for years.”

This would be Zander’s last effort to protect Zaya. He wouldn’t send his only remaining sibling, his only little sister far away without any protection.

This was the least he could do to assure her safety. Zaya was a strong magic user herself, but having a small army on her own would benefit her.

Rowan thought about that for a while. “Fair enough.”

“And no mistress or any other woman aside from my sister.” Zander’s expression turned rigid when he said this.

It was well known that every kingdom had their own tradition and rules. And even though Ogregon kingdom was quite wild and free with women in the past, thing had changed ever since King Cane, Zander’s father, changed the rule.

As a shifter, they should return to their root, as a monogamy creature.

However, Marca El people didn’t follow the same rules. The last Zander heard, Rowan had five other brothers from different official mistress of the previous king, but not to mention about the woman that the previous king had bedded on a whim.

“No mistress. No other woman. Only my sister.”

Zander would agree to have a long discussion about the other demand, but for this one, he wouldn’t budge.

“She will be the queen.”

“That’s not the answer for my demand.” For a moment, they only stared at each other, until Zander stood up and nodded toward the door. “I think this is the end of the discussion.”

Zander didn’t need to hear the answer, if this king was having a doubt to agree to this condition, then there was nothing more for them to talk about.

“She will be the only woman.” Rowan finally opened his mouth, he looked as calm as ever.

“You are having a doubt.”

“No. I am not.” Rowan shook his head. “I believed the princess will be more furious if I was being disloyal to her, more than you, king Zander.” He smiled at him, this time it looked genuine. “I only wondered for a moment what it felt like to have a sibling, who would risk everything to ensure my safety, since all of my siblings will be happy to stab me on the back the moment I looked at the other direction.”

“And you will bring my sister to such situation.”

“I killed my father and brother, remember?” Rowan reminded him.

***

“I am not happy,” Zander said. He crossed his arms in front of his chest when he spoke. He stared at his sister, who was hugging him, but he refused to hug her back. He was sulking.

“Oh, come on, Zan. I did this for our kingdom. I did my duty as the princess of this kingdom. What are you complaining about?” Zaya furrowed her brows, those blue eyes stared back at Zander. Annoyed.

“You look happy to leave. You don’t like someone, who is under the pressure. And now you are blushing.” He pointed his finger at her cheeks.

Zaya swatted his finger from her cheeks. “I am not blushing, okay?” She glared at him, but her aggressiveness lacked of confidence. She knew that he was right, but she would never admit that. “It’s because of the light from the sunset.”

They were currently in the garden, where Zaya was trying to cajole Zander from being irrational. He had agreed with the terms that Rowan gave to him and the other king had also agreed with his term.

However, Zander wanted to back away and plot against Rowan in order to breach the agreement. He had a second thought, if it was not the third or fourth of giving away Zaya to a foreign land.

Thankfully, Zaya knew about that and stopped him before he could really go on with his crazy plan. Pyro was the one, who informed her about this, because the royal beta thought the king was doing this out of impulsiveness and didn’t think straight about the consequences.

Pyro was right. Zander simply didn’t want Zaya to leave the kingdom again. He wanted to keep her within his sight. If he were going to lose her too… he didn’t even want to think about that, but this feeling crept on the back of his mind and plagued his night and day.

He would be doomed if something happened to his little sister.

Zander touched her curls. He played it between his fingers, deep in thought and Zaya could only sigh and rest her head against his chest.

“I will be fine, okay?” She still hugged him, while he refused to reciprocate it. “You know that I will be fine. He will gain no benefit from harming me. He helped us during the battle, remember? The result might be different if he decided to help our enemy.”

“He killed his father and brother.”

“I heard they were not good people.”

“I don’t want you to live a life like that.” Zander touched her cheek and this time he looked at her intensely.

“I am stronger than you think of me, Zan.” She wouldn’t be here, if she was not strong. Just because she was away from the messy court in this kingdom, it didn’t mean her life was a smooth sailing.

After all, she lived in the Holy Kingdom, where they had done everything to keep her. Forced her to be strong to the point they could no longer restraint her.

Zaya had done everything to survive, just like Zander and Zenith. And she had gone through her struggle alone.

“I know you are, I just don’t want to lose you too.” Zander leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose before he finally hugged her.

They stayed like that for a while, talking about idle things of their childhood and for the first time they talked about Zenith.

Zaya was surprised, but it was therapeutic to talk about him. It made her feel relief because she was afraid that Zander would forget about him, which was a silly thing to think of.

Two months later the ships from Marca El came, there were around a hundred ships, which brought the one hundred knights that Zander demanded.

Zander was not really happy to see this, because it meant Zaya was so close to the day she would leave the continent and he didn’t like this nagging feeling that told him to make her stay. He simply didn’t want her to leave.

“What are you doing?!” Zaya hissed when she watched Rowan entered her bedroom through the window. She widened her eyes in surprised and immediately pulled him inside, just in case someone saw him.

“I want to see you, of course.” Rowan’s answer was very blunt. Zander had been pissing him off because he limited his time to meet with Zaya by asking him to do something else or call him to a meeting that lasted for hours, but there was no conclusion in those ‘meetings’, since they didn’t really talk about a real issue.

“Are you crazy?!” Zaya frowned in displeasure, she crossed her arms and faced the king, her blue eyes shone brightly under the moonlight.