Replacement Bride for the Alpha of the North - Chapter 37

Chapter 37: SHE WAS GOING TO POISON THE KING
Zenith saw this, he could have avoided Dawn’s attempt to expose him, but he didn’t do that. He stood there and let her take off his mask.

Dawn didn’t really look surprised, as if she had expected this, her small lips quivered when she hissed with a thick hint of annoyance. “I know it’s you.”

These previous days, she didn’t pick his scent because they were not close enough for her to notice this.

For some people, they might not be able to tell the difference between Zander and Zenith’s scent, because they almost had the same scent, more so, aside from the royal beta and the royal gamma, the other people would keep their distance from the king.

“What now? Are you playing king?” Dawn didn’t know why, but she could feel how hostile her words were.

A few days ago, she was still thinking as to how she would react when she met with Zenith again, but now he was standing in front of her, she felt nothing, but annoyance. He had fooled her for days!

“How long have you been playing the King?” She pressed her lips and when Zenith refused to answer her question, she didn’t have any reason to stay. “I have business with the King, not you.” She turned around and was about to leave when Zenith caught her hand and stopped her.

“I am sorry.”

Dawn was still holding the golden mask in her hand. “For pretending to be the King?”

“For what I have done the other night,” he said.

And at that time, Dawn could see the flicker of sadness in his eyes again, before it disappeared and he hid his emotion.

“Why did you do that?” Dawn sighed deeply. “Did you mean to hurt me?”

“No.” Zenith’s reply was very curt and it didn’t explain anything, but this was how he was.

“Okay.” Dawn waited for a while, waiting for him to give her some explanation, though she didn’t know what kind of explanation that she was looking for. “I will talk about this with the King once he is here.”

Dawn remembered that Zander had asked Zenith to take his position for a while as he had to go out to take care of something.

This must be the reason why Zenith played the king right now and Dawn was satisfied with her own assumption without feeling the need to confirm this.

Yet, when she was about to leave, Zenith was still holding her hand. “Oh, here.” Dawn thought he wanted the mask back, since she was still holding onto it.

Zenith took the mask, but he still didn’t let go of her.

“I don’t know what you want, Zenith.” Dawn had forgotten about Blake at this point. “If there is nothing you want to say, I will leave.”

“Come here. You can meet with Zander now.” Zenith didn’t let go of her hand when he took her to the king’s bedroom. He put on his mask again when they stepped out of the throne room.

There were no guards, since Zenith had told them to leave.

Only now Dawn realized how similar the two of them were, from their bodies to their voice, down to their scent. If she was not already very familiar with his scent and they weren’t very close with each other, she wouldn’t have known that he was Zenith either.

When Dawn went to the king’s bedroom with Zenith, she saw the royal beta, the royal gamma and Darius were there.

The three of them were surprised to see her there, but Darius had a guilty conscience when he saw Dawn. He felt bad because he couldn’t tell her that the king was Zenith all this time.

Darius was about to speak when Dawn glared at him and turned her head, ignoring him. But, she didn’t have time to hold a grudge against the gamma when Zenith took her to the bed and there, she saw Zander was lying down with a pale face.

He opened his eyes and grinned when he saw Dawn’s shocked expression.

“Wait!” Dawn took a step back and Zenith caught her before she tripped on her own feet. She was too shocked to see Zander’s face for the first time.

The alpha even helped her to process the whole thing when he took off his mask. They had the same face!

No! They were twins!

Dawn thought the fact Zenith had been fooling her by pretending to be the king was the last thing that would surprise her today, but this was even harder to comprehend.

“You are twins!” The word came out like an accusation from her mouth.

Despite how pale Zander was, Dawn could see the eerie similarities between them, it almost felt like they were mirror images of each other.

Dawn looked around and the other three didn’t seem surprised with this. Silly her. Of course, they knew about this from the beginning.

“Long time no see,” Zander said with a grin. It was so weird to see Zenith’s face smiling so carefree like that when she used to see him being gloomy most of the time.

“Why do you look like you are about to die?” The word just came out of her mouth, she didn’t even think about it when she spoke. She was very upset.

“Insolent!” Pyro chided Dawn, but the royal gamma was laughing when he heard that, so did Darius, though he only let out a small chuckle.

Pyro didn’t continue with his complaint when he caught Zenith’s sharp glare, more so, Zander was also laughing with Dawn’s question.

“Well, my luck ran out on my last outing.” He called his last mission an outing.

“I think karma bit your back.” Dawn made a snarky remark. This was indeed a karma for his attempt to kill her. How many times had he tried to do that?

“He was poisoned,” Zenith finally explained. He didn’t tell Dawn in detail about what kind of mission that Zander went to, he only told her about his visit to the harbor.

“Sorry to trouble you,” Zander said with a smile on his lips. “I hope you can cure this one, or else I need Zenith to pretend to be me longer than this. He has been very snappy.”

Dawn was still upset, but she pushed her annoyance down and checked on Zander’s condition.

“You should be the royal healer, you know. I would like to have you in my court if you agree.”

“Can you be quiet? I need to concentrate.” Dawn felt annoyed at the very mention of the royal healer, because she knew who she was.

“Okay,” Zander said obediently, but he was only quiet for a while before he spoke again. “Do you think I will die?”

Dawn ignored him and not long after she asked for Brettel flowers, a pinch of salt and a bowl of warm water.

“What is a Brettel flower?” Lance asked, none of them were familiar with such things.

“You have a royal healer, right? Why don’t you ask her?” Dawn reminded them and Lance immediately left sheepishly.

“My offer still stands,” Zander said.

“I will think about that.”

Hearing her reply, Zenith frowned.

Half an hour later Lance returned, but this time, he didn’t come alone, but with that green- eyed woman that had been glaring at Dawn at every chance she got.

“Who asked for the Brettel flowers?” Aurel asked, her high pitched voice was a bane of their ears. For some reason, she looked very furious.

“I thought I had mentioned all the things I needed. I have never mentioned additional people,” Dawn said sarcastically.

They had never interacted before this, but it was weird to see how Aurel harbored such strong feelings toward Dawn when it was Zenith, who chased her out of the room the other day.

“Why did you bring her here?” Zenith looked at the royal gamma darkly. He hated to have this woman near Dawn.

The alpha stepped forward a little to cover Dawn behind his back, because right now Aurel was glaring daggers at his woman.

However, Dawn was not happy, she poked her head from behind his waist, since she was sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I am the royal healer, I need to know who asked for the Brettel flowers!” Aurel didn’t even lower her voice.

“Me.” Dawn raised her hand, she looked Aurel straight in her eyes. She saw the anger that lit up in her green eyes when she became frantic.

This woman was very loud.

“You have to capture her! She is going to kill the King!” Aurel pointed her finger at Dawn, but not only that, she marched toward her when all of them were still stunned with the accusation.

Dawn stood up as well, she was not going to sit down and take it when someone threw her a false accusation.

But, before Aurel could confront Dawn, Zenith had pushed her away, she stumbled back and thankfully Pyro caught her before she fell.

“Z- Zenith?” Aurel looked shaken with his aggression.

“Don’t you dare lay your hand on my woman,” Zenith growled dangerously, which startled all of them with the animosity that emanated from him.

On the other hand, Dawn was surprised with the way Zenith defended her, but at the same time, she felt this weird warm feeling. It had been a long time since someone stood up for her… and it felt really good for not fighting alone.

“Do you even know that the Brettel flower is a poisonous plant?!” Aurel blurted out. “What is she going to do with that?!”