Replacement Bride for the Alpha of the North - Chapter 43

Chapter 43: EXHAUSTED DAWN
It irritated Dawn when she saw Aurel try to insert herself as she inspected the concoction she made. On a normal occasion, she might not have minded it at all, since she was the royal healer, but she was already annoyed by Lance.

More so, what Aurel was doing was not genuinely out of her duty as the healer, but because she had her own malice intention to prove herself right about Dawn.

Yet, she couldn’t find any fault with the antidote. To be honest, she didn’t even understand anything about it.

“When will he wake up?” Aurel asked. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked like a petulant child, trying to nitpick what Dawn was doing.

“Three days.” Dawn then added. “More or less.” She couldn’t say the exact time, it depended on how his body would react to the antidote.

“You can’t even say that for sure.” Aurel then turned to Lance. “Do you really believe in her ability?”

Dawn shot her a glare. “It’s rich coming from you to question my ability when you were the one who put the King’s life at risk.”

Lance stopped himself from smiling, but Darius chuckled a little because he could see how Aurel’s smug expression changed drastically.

But, Pyro cut them off before this argumentation could escalate. “What should we do now? Is there another concoction that Zander needed to drink?”

Dawn shook her head. “No. You only need to nourish his body. It will help him to absorb the antidote faster.”

Zenith immediately took her hand. “You are done here.” He then took her out of the bedroom. He didn’t even need to ask for permission to take her away and left just like that.

Dawn could feel shivers down her spine when she turned around. She was sure Aurel was staring daggers at her right now, but the healer was too afraid of Zenith to complain.

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

“What do you mean he is in the dungeon?!” Ava clutched her chest, she looked at her mate in disbelief when she learned about her precious son’s situation. “How did he end up in the dungeon? What do you mean he was accused of treason?!”

Treason was not an ordinary accusation, because the only punishment for that was; death.

Ava staggered and thankfully Beta Jason caught her body before she could fall to the ground, while his mate started sobbing.

Beta Jason wanted to tell her that this was all because of her wrongdoings, by allowing Blake to request a meeting with the king, but he didn’t have a heart to do so.

“What to do about our poor son? What should we do to save our baby?” Ava started to cry. Her heart ached to think her child was in that filthy dungeon.

“Don’t cry. We will figure out a way to get him out of there.” Jason hugged his mate. He had been thinking of a way, but to be honest, there was only one way to reverse the claim.

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

“I don’t need to sleep. I am not sleepy,” Dawn said, she insisted that she was fine, but Zenith was having none of it.

“Lay down,” Zenith ordered her sternly. He noticed Dawn’s lack of sleep, because he counted the time, where she had to make those stupid three hour concoctions and now, she had to stay up for ten hours straight.

Out there, the sky had turned dark and the wind rattled the branches on the tree, as they knocked on the window.

“Lie down, Dawn,” Zenith said, his voice softened, as he coaxed her to lie down.

In the end, Dawn obliged and Zenith tucked her in. “I told you that I am not sleepy.” She still protested, but then Zenith covered her eyes with his big, callous palm.

“Close your eyes for thirty seconds.” Zenith asked Dawn to count and despite being reluctant, she did it, because his hand was very comfortable.

“Twenty three… Twenty four…” Dawn kept counting, but with each number, her voice softened and her breathing deepened, her count was lagging. “Fifty one…. Fifty…”

And when Dawn finally stopped counting, Zenith lifted his hand that covered her eyes and found his sweet woman had fallen asleep, her lips were slightly ajar, as she snored softly.

“Goodnight, my Dawn.” Zenith kissed her forehead gently. He didn’t immediately leave, but stayed for a while, staring at her sleeping face.

It was hard to tell what was in his mind. His blue eyes darkened and his lips pressed tightly, as if staring at the woman before his eyes hurt him physically.

Dawn didn’t realize how tired she was until Zenith coaxed her to sleep, because she only woke up the next day. She even skipped her breakfast.

But, when she woke up, she almost got a heart attack, because she found Zenith staring at her.

“Heavens! Zenith!” Dawn almost jumped out of her skin, she clutched her chest. Her heart was beating so fast. “What are you doing staring at me like that?”

“I am wondering whether I should wake you up, or not.”

That was the weirdest answer that Dawn had ever heard. “What?”

“Zander has regained consciousness.” Zenith poured a glass of water and helped her to sit down. He held her hair when she drank. This gesture was rather intimate, but he did it casually.

“Oh, really? We need to go see him.”

“No.” Zenith took the empty glass and put it aside. “You need to eat first. You skipped your breakfast.”

Dawn was about to argue with him, yet she relented quickly, realizing that she was really hungry and the meal that Zenith prepared for her was very appetizing. It was deer meat.

While Dawn was eating, she felt a little bit weird because Zenith kept staring at her, thus she took a piece of the meat and shoved it into his mouth.

“Stop staring at me like that, you will give me indigestion.” Dawn pursed her lips. “I know I am beautiful, no need to make it obvious.”