The Royal Revenge
Chapter 224: Squirrels

Chapter 224: Squirrels

Elys rode her horse like she was being chased by the devil himself. Eventually, she reached a portion of the kingdom which was almost unpassable riding her horse. The clear land turned into a dense forest.

"My queen," Aleksander called her out for the nth time, "slow down! You must not jump immediately -"

Even before the vampire king could even finish his sentence, another explosion erupted just a few meters to their left. He whipped his head at exactly the right time that he saw movement into the trees.

Elys stopped in her tracks as she finally deduced it was already impossible to pass riding her horse. She swung her legs out of her saddle, and swiftly jumped off of the horse in mere seconds.

She stood still and listened in to her surroundings, trying to estimate the exact distance with which the explosion took place, and generally just observing her surroundings.

Aleksander quickly followed his wife down from his horse. He tied the beast near a tree and then walked towards Elys. The dense canopy of the forest was enough to shade the rising sun’s rays that he did not even really need to use his cloak and mask.

Armors clinked as after a minute of interval, the knights that had accompanied Elys and Aleksander from the palace followed them by foot.

"Your majesty, your command," one of the more senior knights spoke to Aleksander.

The young king’s eyes turned into calculating slits as he looked at his surroundings with several glances in different directions. Once he was able to take into heart the terrain, he signaled the knights to go around the perimeter and check for any bomb traps.

"Be mindful not to trigger anything," Aleksander reminded them, "we don’t know what these explosions are or how they were triggered at all. Hell, we don’t even know if they are bombs or just something that made an extremely loud noise and blasting several trees into splinters."

Aleksander turned to the most senior knight with them and added briefly, "Be covert with this, we don’t want whoever it is that is attacking our kingdom to ambush us."

"Well understood, your majesty!" the knight saluted and then turned around to face his colleagues.

With a swift twirl of his finger, the knight instructed several of the junior knights and the rest circle around the perimeter, and search for any traces of a bomb or trap.

The handful knights that faced Aleksander and Elys raised their hands to their chests and quickly gave them a Western Kingdom salute. They went their ways shortly afterwards, careful not to make too much unnecessary noises.

Aleksander turned into Elys’ way and then he walked towards her without skipping a beat.

Soon, the knights were out of sight and contrary to what Elys had previously assumed, there were no explosions that followed the last one. She turned to her husband and Aleksander tried to anticipate what she was about to ask him.

"What do you hear, Aleksander?" she asked her husband the minute he was standing right beside her.

The young king closed his eyes and listened in. He could hear several light footsteps from afar, but as much as he tried, he couldn’t find a mind that he could hear or read.

"Several footsteps thirty meters away. I can’t be too sure as they seriously were light in their feet, but perhaps two to three people," Aleksander said in a low voice.

"Did you hear anything else? Were they talking?" she asked him further, "Are they the enemies?"

Her husband shook his head as a frown pulled the corners of his mouth downwards.

"Whoever those people are, I assure you that they are not your average invaders or whatever they might want to call themselves at all," Aleksander scowled, "They must be powerful enough to block off my powers, that is for sure."

Elys clicked her tongue in disappointment.

"Don’t we don’t have men over there? How about civilians?" Elys asked, her voice worried that a human was dragged into such a mess. "Tell me no one got hurt because of those explosions, Aleksander."

"There is a high chance that those explosions were merely triggered by animals tripping over traps," Aleksander assumed. "As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no one around in these areas."

"I can’t really say that they are aware of our presence too or if this is just a trap to lure us in, but it is much better we approach with caution."

Elys did not even need to utter a single word to convey that she agreed with her husband.

She knew she had acted with impatience and callousness when she had bolted with her horse a few seconds after the first explosion was heard. Elys was quite relieved that Aleksander didn’t even call her out on it.

After a few seconds of silence, Elys held out her hand towards Aleksander and gave him a warm smile – just enough to appease any hints of frustration in his eyes as he looked at her.

"I am sorry, my king," Elys tried to play as the good and submissive wife, "I know you are holding your anger off because I am just as stubborn as you are, but I appreciate everything you do."

Aleksander smiled back at his wife. Feeling that it was absolutely needed, the vampire cupped Elys’ face and then pulled her close to him as his lips came crashing into Elys for a quick kiss.

"Wah!" she yelped in surprise.

When Aleksander and Elys’ kiss had ended, her eyes stared at his cold metallic grey pools. He had not shifted into his golden menacing stares, and somehow Elys was relieved she had not seen them.

She might have been mesmerized to even forget the things she was supposed to do. Elys swore that if she saw those eyes gazing at her with longing in them – most specially after they had kissed passionately – then she would have lost her mind.

The yearnings of the flesh were terribly powerful.

"We need to move in closer," she found herself whispering.

A cocky grin lifted one corner of Aleksander’s mouth. The look on his face reminded Elys of the time she had actually used the right words to form a phrase and sentence, but then misinterpretation happened and quickly followed by an annoying jest.

"I did not mean anything from that except to let you know that we truly need to move in closer on the enemy," she started to blush profusely.

Elys had her arms in between her and Aleksander, and she quickly pulled away from him as she tried to keep herself sane. This was not the time nor the place to be kissing or holding hands.

They were not in a leisure park nor were they on vacation.

Aleksander merely chuckled and then with a swift motion, reached out his right hand towards Elys.

"Come on now, we must make haste as you said," Aleksander said.

Elys nodded and she reached out to say a yes by grabbing Aleksander’s hand. But instead of what the young king expected, his queen only gave him a tight squeeze. It was the sort of thing that even Western children would even notice even with how subtle it was.

His wife noticed the look of disappointment in his eyes and Elys raised a brow as she told him, "We are not holding hands in a forest, with enemies potentially trying to ambush us to death."

With that said, the young queen took her first step towards the direction Aleksander had pointed out earlier. She took extra precaution and tried to walk as quietly as possible.

Elys was already light on her feet, flexible like a ballerina, and a beauty to behold. But now that there was another threat to her plans, Elys wanted to take extra precautions.

They passed large trees with canopies spreading like a giant umbrella, shielding Aleksander and the rest of the knights that followed them into the forest. All of a sudden, there was the sound of shuffling in the bushes in front of them.

Aleksander kept his mouth shut, but he already knew it was just a squirrel made the wrong decision to take a nap underneath the vegetations of the untouched forest.

Elys moved forward with caution, and her husband followed her.

It was supposed to be the other way around, with Aleksander leading her way instead.

But life is a whole lot different now...

Elys touched the hilt of her sword just in case the shuffling leaves of the bush were something she was going to have to fight off. But jumping out of the bushes was – just as Aleksander had thought – a tiny squirrel that got drunk with the abundance of food in the forest.

The young queen almost screamed, but have thought better not to as she knew she had to protect her dignity as a previous warrior princess.

"Fuck squirrels," Elys cursed afterwards.