Replacement Bride for the Alpha of the North - Chapter 35

Chapter 35: A BAD DREAM, A BAD NIGHT
Dawn didn’t expect Zenith would be very harsh with this woman. And the said woman looked like she just saw a ghost or something, her face fell and she opened her mouth, but there was no word that could be heard.

“Leave this room,” Zenith said sternly when the woman didn’t budge.

Her green eyes filled with tears, she looked pitiful with her lips trembling. She gasped when she heard the harsh words from the alpha. “Why are you being so mad?”

She didn’t know what she had done wrong when she just arrived.

“My room is not a public area, you can’t enter without permission.” Zenith seemed to mindlink someone from outside of the room, as a warrior entered and escorted the woman out.

She was flabbergasted to hear that and in her shock, she let the warrior walk her out, before she snapped and then rushed out of the room, crying.

“Wow, what was that?” Dawn asked, she looked at Zenith, asking for an explanation. “Who is she?”

Somehow, Dawn didn’t feel bad for that woman, because for some odd reason, she reminded her of Emily and her little tricks that she learned from her mother to manipulate her father in order to get what she wanted.

“You don’t need to know her. Don’t associate yourself with her,” Zenith said sternly.

“Why?” Instead, this piqued Dawn’s curiosity.

The alpha sat down and shut down all of Dawn’s attempts to know who that woman was. He simply told her to ignore her.

“She wouldn’t have the courage to barge into your room if you didn’t give her a reason to have that confidence, in other words, she is not someone you can call a ‘nobody’, isn’t that right?”

Zenith directed his angry glare at Dawn, which made her flinch, but seeing that, he shook his head and softened his edge again. “We will not discuss this matter.” He stretched out his hand and caressed her cheek before he stood up and left.

He needed some space to calm himself. He expected to see her here, but to have her in the same room as Dawn made his blood boil with anger that he couldn’t get rid off quickly.

On the other hand, Dawn stared at his back, she was deep in thought. This might be because of what that asshole destined mate of hers had done, but she felt uneasy with the way Zenith reacted in the presence of the other woman.

However, she couldn’t ask Zenith directly, lest he dodged the question, thus Dawn tried to find a way to get the information from a different source.

Later that night, when Zenith finally returned, he looked like usual and they slept together in the same bed.

But in the middle of the night, Dawn was woken up when Zenith mumbled something. She thought he talked to her, but when she opened her eyes, she realized he was talking in his sleep.

“Hey, Zenith…” Dawn remembered about the bad dreams he always had and assumed he was having one right now. “Wake up. Zenith.” Dawn shook his body.

Because Zenith kept repeating the same sentence, Dawn pulled her body up and leaned in close to listen to what he said.

“I am sorry, forgive me… I didn’t know… please, come back. I am sorry…”

Dawn frowned. She had never imagined someone like Zenith would ask for forgiveness to the point, it sounded very gut wrenching. What sins had he committed for his voice to be filled with so much remorse?

“Zenith!” Dawn raised her voice, which finally snapped him out of his cursed nightmare.

He breathed raggedly and his gaze was not focused, until he found her. “Dawn…” he called her name, it was the most helpless sound that Dawn had ever heard. She felt her heart ache for him.

“Nightmare again?” She asked gently, but he kissed her instead.

His kiss was desperate and a little bit demanding, as if he wanted to make sure that she was there with him, that she was real and she was not leaving him like what he had seen in his nightmare.

Dawn reciprocated his kiss, while caressing his back, she was trying to comfort him, reassuring him that everything was alright. His body was slightly trembling, as he kept calling her name every now and then, as if he couldn’t believe that she was there with him.

What actually happened in his dream?

“Zen…?” Dawn was alerted when Zenith lifted her dress and caressed her inner thigh and his kiss became more aggressive and pressing. He wanted to devour her, to make sure she was there and this scared her. “Zenith!”

Dawn was startled when Zenith ripped her undergarment, he became ferocious with her, his grip on her wrist was painful and this made Dawn retaliate against him.

Yes, this was not the first time for Zenith to touch her intimately, but with how rapacious he was right now, the mood was different, his touch was different, Dawn didn’t feel he did it out of affection, he did it because he wanted to own her.

“Zenith! Stop!”

Yet, Zenith lost it, the more Dawn struggled and pushed him away, the more enraged he was, thinking that he was going to lose her again. He pinned her down and his lips traced her jawline, while Dawn screamed at him to get off her, but he didn’t listen.

Right now, his lips traced down the sweet spot on her neck, his canines elongated, he was ready to mark her right there and then.

Marking process was a very dangerous process for a shifter and a forced mark definitely would be tenfold more painful than usual.

On a normal occasion, if you didn’t do it right, it could take your mate’s life. It was the same like when you forced yourself on the other person, forcing the bond between you when that was not how it worked.

Zenith could kill Dawn if he continued.

Dawn was panicking, she cried and screamed his name to stop. The difference in strength between them was daunting. Even with all of that painful training that she had gone through with him, she couldn’t even push him an inch from her.

“No! Stop! Stop! Stop! I don’t want this!” Dawn cried, it hurt her to think that she had trusted him. With the way he treated her so well all this time, she thought he would be the only person who wouldn’t do any harm to her, but here they were… “STOP!”

Thankfully, her last attempt worked and Zenith actually froze. He stopped his attempt to mark Dawn and his body became very tense.

It seemed the murky clouds that engulfed his mind had cleared and now he could see what he was going to do to her. The look in Dawn’s eyes made him back away almost immediately. He jolted away from her, as if her skin was on fire.

Being free from his grip, Dawn immediately curled herself and cried, she hugged herself, trembling. That was very scary. Zenith didn’t even listen to her.

“Dawn…” Zenith felt his throat go dry at the sight of her. It happened again. He hurt her again.

“No! Don’t touch me!” Dawn screamed at him, she was scared of him. “I don’t want to see you! Get away from me!”

For a moment, Zenith sat there, he stared at her without doing anything and then he stood up and left the room, while she was still crying.

Dawn cried until she fell asleep and when she woke up, she had a sore throat and her eyes were swollen. She felt like she just woken up from a nightmare.

What happened last night was nothing different from any bad dream she ever had, but when she noticed how her undergarment had been ripped off, she knew it wasn’t just a dream.

Dawn looked around and realized that Zenith didn’t return after he left last night. She didn’t know whether she should be happy or upset about this, since he granted her wish.

Today, she was supposed to go to the warriors’ quarters in order to find the source of the poison, but she felt restless and only wanted to curl herself on the bed.

Dawn wanted to stay there for as long as she could, she was afraid that she would meet with Zenith. What did she have to do? How should she react?

However, she didn’t need to worry about that, because in the next two days, she didn’t see him at all, but it didn’t put her at ease either.

“Where is… Zenith?” Dawn asked Darius when she was in the warrior’s quarters, walking around listlessly. She had a few pointers about the source of the poison, but her mind was not on it at all.

“I thought you would never ask about him.” Darius had been accompanying Dawn since she started this investigation. “I can see the two of you had a fight, what is this about?”

“Nothing.” Dawn mumbled. There was no way she could tell him about what happened, despite how close they became now. “So, where is Zenith?”

Darius grimaced, he scratched his head. “Well, if you want to know about the Alpha’s whereabouts, you need to ask the King about that, because the Alpha has been seen with him often lately.”

“I thought they were not close?” Dawn tilted her head.

“No. The two of them are actually very close. You know, it’s like a love-hate relationship when it comes to them.”

Dawn then remembered something. “There is this woman with green eyes…” She told Darius about what happened a few days ago. “Do you know who she is?”

“Oh, do you mean Aurel?”