Replacement Bride for the Alpha of the North - Chapter 256

Chapter 256: LEAVING THE KINGDOM
“Probably.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You know what I have done to get my position, sneaking into your room could be counted as something sweet.”

Zaya grimaced. “You have a peculiar way of thinking,” she shook her head, while Rowan simply pulled her closer and hugged her.

Zaya’s body was small compared to the woman in his continent. He knew it was ridiculous of him to think that he could break her if he put so much pressure on her, despite knowing this stubborn girl could turn him into a frog with a flick of her finger. She had showed him how fierce she could be when she fought.

But she looked so delicate. His consciousness told him to be careful when he touched her.

“Your brother has been keeping me busy.” He buried his face against the crook of her neck, she had this unique scent. “He has been a pain in the ass.”

“Be careful, he is still my brother.” Zaya chuckled when she heard him groaned in frustration, but she hugged him back to appease him.

“I can’t wait to have you only for myself.” Rowan kissed her neck and Zaya shuddered. “I will show you my kingdom. Our kingdom. You will be a perfect queen for our people.”

***

Finally, the day, where Zaya would leave her kingdom, was here. She stared at herself on the mirror, while Celine helped her with her dress. She looked beautiful in her red dress, which complimented her auburn hair.

“Don’t you think red color is too much?” Zaya frowned at her red dress. Celine was the one, who had chosen this for her.

“No. You will appear in public, that’s why you need to be more presentable than usual.”

“This is not the first time I appear in public.”

“Yes, but this will be an official send of for you, so you will carry your title as the princess of this continent, hence you need to be more glamourous than usual. More so, you are going to marry a king from the other continent.” Celine narrowed her eyes and met Zaya’s gaze in the mirror. “You don’t think the king will let you leave without a proper send of worthy of a princess, right?”

Zaya sighed. “Zan tended to be overreacting.” Zaya pulled her curls, but Celine grabbed her hand.

“Don’t ruin your hair. It took me hours.” Celine reminded her to stop pulling her hair. She tended to do that whenever she was nervous.

“Where is my brother?” Zaya wanted to have a conversation alone with Zander before she left. The entourage to the Moonlight pack was ready and there would be a lot of people to give her a proper send off.

One thing that Zaya felt bad about was the fact that Dawn wouldn’t be there to see her.

But, Zaya understood why she couldn’t. The Moonlight pack held so much memories for her, whether it was about Zenith or her childhood memories. At this moment, she simply couldn’t be near the Moonlight pack.

However, Dawn promised that she would attend the royal wedding in Marca El.

“I think he is having one more meeting with king Rowan right now. I saw Pyro begrudgingly went to find the king.”

Zaya grimaced. Her brother indeed gave Rowan a hard time. She knew if it was not for the fact that they were going to leave, Rowan would have exploded long time ago.

“What they are talking about?”

“I don’t know.” Celine was not privileged to know such detail.

Later on, when Zaya was in the carriage with Zander, she asked her brother about his ‘meeting’ with Rowan and he simply scoffed.

“A simple threat.”

Zaya squinted her eyes. She should expect this much from her brother. “Did you threaten a king?”

“I am also a king,” Zander retorted childishly.

Zaya shook her head. She wouldn’t win this argument if her brother was being like this. She put a beautiful smile on her lips and then waved to the people on the street that had been waiting to see her since morning.

While Zaya was in the same carriage with Zander, Rowan was on the horseback right behind their carriage with the knights from Marca El followed behind. One hundred thousand knights that Rowan ‘gifted’ for this continent were there as well.

“Are you sure this is the right decision to give one hundred thousand knights? We only got five hundred magic users,” Addie said. He had been mildly nagging Rowan for his decision.

More so, there would be one hundred thousand knights, who wouldn’t return to their homeland anymore, it would cause trouble for king Zander if they tried to rebel.

Rowan smirked when he heard Addie’s opinion. “That’s the trouble that he needed to take care of.”

As much as Rowan hated to admit it, he knew that Zander would have anticipated such thing and had a plan in line to make sure those one hundred thousand knights wouldn’t cause trouble in his kingdom.

And with this long entourage, it took them almost a day and half to reach the harbor. This place had been fixed and it looked like a fierce battle had never happened in the first place.

Only the thought that king Zander wouldn’t be able to bother him anymore once they boarded the ship that kept his annoyance in check, because all the way to this pack, he couldn’t even have alone time with Zaya.

Rowan couldn’t even have a proper conversation with her because the other king would hover around like a moth.

“Is this whole thing necessary?” The corner of Rowan’s lips twitched when he was forced to watch the performance of five beautiful girls. They were dancing and singing and all Rowan was thinking he wanted to push them all to the water to end this unnecessary ‘ritual’. “Tell him how stupid and pointless their dance is. I am sure the God of the ocean will be pissed off if they watched this.”

Yes, Zander had the audacity to call this a ritual, a proper thing to do to send off the princess. Only stupid people would believe that. Zander only wanted to buy more time to keep his little sister in this kingdom.

“Tell him that just because he has a horrendous taste, it doesn’t mean everyone does.” Zander was smiling at the performances that had been going on for an hour.

“Tell him that I choose his sister to be my queen. There is no way my taste is horrendous.”

Zaya was speechless and Zander couldn’t find a way to respond to that, aside from his deadly glare that was directed at him.

“If you two wanted to bicker, go and find somewhere else to do that,” Zaya said, tired. Who was the person, gave her a seat between these two?!

They were so close, they literally could hear what the other people said.

Thankfully, two hours later all of the ‘ritual’ was done and it was time for Zaya to leave. No matter how hard Zander tried to prolong it, he couldn’t keep going on with it forever, unless he wanted to breach the agreement and Zaya would give him an earful if he did that.

“Please, be safe. I will go to Marca El, if you didn’t reply my letter.”

“Zan, I will be fine.” Zaya hugged her brother tightly and giggled when he didn’t want to let her go. “Okay, that’s enough. There are so many people watching us. A king shouldn’t act like this.”

“I am not a king now.” He was being clingy right now.

Yes, Zander was not acting as a king, because if he were, he wouldn’t have tried to stop her from leaving, since this marriage benefited the kingdom.

“We will meet again soon,” Zaya said, as she kissed his cheek, but she could feel Rowan’s eyes on her back. His gaze became more intense the more Zander was not willing to let her go. She was afraid that he was going to explode if Zander kept holding her like this.

These two kings were insufferable….

“Write me a letter and let me know if he did something bad to you. Even if he simply raised his voice.”

“Okay.” Zaya wouldn’t argue with him right now, she would agree to anything he said because that’s the only way to give him the assurance that he needed.

However, even when Zaya was so eager to make Zander to let her go, the moment he actually did it, she felt at lost, especially when she boarded the ship and watched her brother from the deck. She felt this hollow in her heart and she already missed him, even though she was still seeing him right now.

Rowan was standing next to her. He put his arm around her shoulder and watched as the long entourage became smaller and smaller, as the ocean loomed over.

Zaya staggered when she was no longer able to see her brother and the land had become one thick line in the horizon.

“Are you, okay?” Rowan asked, he held her body and looked at her with concern in his eyes. She looked pale.

“I am fine. I don’t really like to travel by water,” Zaya replied. “I think I will lay down,” she said in small voice and stumbled to get inside, but Rowan carried her in his arms instead.

“You are seasick,” he stated and Zaya didn’t argue. She simply rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, as she hugged his neck.

There was so much water. She didn’t like it. She was… scared.