The Royal Revenge
Chapter 225: Confusion

Chapter 225: Confusion

With the squirrel scurrying off and Elys done cursing, Aleksander sneaked in a tiny scoff. He could tell that his wife had just thought a squirrel was some enemy hiding in the bush, her heartbeat slightly raising for a few seconds there.

Elys didn’t appreciate her husband laughing at her.

Her eyes squinted in displeasure as she slowly opened her mouth and uttered a threat to her husband, "Shut up, vampire."

Aleksander sighed as he knew Elys was truly mad at him when she would begin to call him ’vampire’ with all the loathness she reserved for his kind in general.

The young king raised his hands in mock defeat, waving a tiny leaf as if it was a white flag of surrender. Elys’ scowl slowly vanished, and a tiny laugh escaped her mouth. She and Aleksander shared a moment to appreciate the absurdity of her cursing at a squirrel.

Eventually, the tiny moment of laughter had to end, but instead of a lighthearted mood and a smile after a good laugh, Aleksander saw his wife changed to a serious expression immediately.

"Come on now, husband," Elys said as she waved him to the direction she was headed, "we don’t have all day to let these people make a mess of the kingdom."

"Of our kingdom," Aleksander corrected her, raising an indignant finger paired with a raised brow.

"Our kingdom," Elys repeated, "I like how that sounds."

A smile spread across the couple’s face and Elys turned sharply about. Aleksander followed suit as she took calculated steps towards the original direction of the last explosion.

There was a considerable silence between the two of them as they waded deeper into the forest, the dense foliage growing higher than their waists. A point came that the plants grew as high as Elys’ head, and Aleksander could hardly see her head poke from the sea of greenery.

Luckily, he could hear her body’s every movement. Every single beat of her heart, from the beautiful pumping of her delicious blood to the flowing of every single drop of it to her entire system, carrying important minerals and oxygen to her body.

Leaves were curiously falling down from the trees, almost like a shower. It wasn’t entirely autumn yet, but somehow, this part of the forest had apparently begun early – too early at that.

"Akh, these leaves are so annoying," Aleksander said with a hushed but frustrated voice. "Blagkh! One even got into my mouth!"

"Shut up, Aleksander," Elys hissed at her husband, "you are over reacting."

"Oh, if you get a taste of one of these leaves then I would wage the entire kingdom’s wealth that you would react the same," the young king replied sardonically to his wife.

"Yeah right, King Aleksander Reagan Hazreel Ardorlean," she rolled her eyes at him, sarcasm oozing from her voice as she emphasized his name.

The vampire king kept swatting the leaves that came down his way, and he even lost track of his wife for a second. He almost had a heart attack, but thankfully Elys’ head popped out from the tall grasses right on time that he noticed he was veering offtrack from where she was heading.

He heaved a relieved sigh, and continued on following her footsteps, all together listening in from a hundred meters’ distance for anyone’s thoughts floating in the air.

As they drew nearer the explosion site, Aleksander thought he heard something from several meters away. He immediately grabbed Elys close to him, and then lifted his finger to the middle of his lips to signal her to stay quiet.

He was practically smushing her face into his chest, and Elys had to push him so she could have at least several inches of space between her face and his nipples. Well, at least where his nipple would have been if his armor were not in the way.

’What the hell are you thinking right now, Elysianne Whitecaster?!’ she chastised herself.

Elys shook her head as her mind was suddenly steering away from what was supposed to be important. Her eyes followed Aleksander’s view, and she stared hard at what was ahead.

Although she couldn’t see anything, Elys’ other senses were still working fine. Especially her ability to perceive magic from her surroundings. The stronger the magic one had, the more distinct was the feeling that she would get from them.

However, even those senses didn’t seem to be working the way she hoped they should. She could not feel anything from afar – there was absolutely nothing.

Was it not the enemies they were searching for in the first place?

Aleksander had mentioned earlier that they should be someone strong enough if they were able to block off his ability to read minds. If it was not the enemies that were invading and causing a ruckus in their borders, then who were those that Aleksander was listening in?

Or could the question of what they were was the correct thing to ask?

’What did he hear?’ she asked herself at the back of her mind. ’I can’t hear a damn thing to be worried about.’

The previous warrior princess was frustrated that she was both blinded by the tall grasses and deaf to the unusual and foreign sounds of the forest that meant enemies were nearby.

She folded her arms and pouted in dissatisfaction, but she still stayed calm and quiet as Aleksander had told her to do.

Elys tried to listen in towards the direction Aleksander was leaning his ears into.

She could make out several sounds, but they were all naturally occurring noises. From rustling leaves to the tiny animal cries from the distance. Elys strained herself just so she could tell what Aleksander had been trying to be careful about.

He even pulled her in to his arms! Not to mention squishing her out of air.

"What is there?" Elys whispered softly, her voice barely audible. "Tell me, Aleksander. I can’t tell a thing I am getting confused."

The young queen’s face lifted to look at her husband’s face. His expression was difficult to read, and she had to crane her neck to get a better view other than the fine angled lines of his jaws as he looked over his shoulders.

Elys tugged at his arm and the vampire king jerked his body, as if he totally forgot that Elys was there at all in his arms.

His wife’s brows furrowed in worry, but not as much as the fact that she was confused by his reaction.

"Aleksander?" she called out his name.

Her husband looked down and Elys swore there was a hint of disgust and anger in his eyes. His eyes were menacingly looking at her, golden orbs blazing with hatred – just like the way he used to look at her when they first met.

But as suddenly as the look in his eyes flashed in front of Elys, Aleksander blinked several times. When he looked at Elys again, his golden eyes had reverted back to their silver glows.

"What happened?" he asked out of the blue, "Why do you look so confused, wife?"

Elys was startled by his question, and her mouth hung open from the initial shock.

"What do you mean what happened? You suddenly grabbed me and tried to smushed my face into your chest, signaling with your finger to keep quiet," Elys said in a rush, "you were staring in that direction for quite some time before I tugged hard at you and you looked at me."

Worry was evident with the way Elys was speaking to her husband.

She looked him straight in the eyes and held his hands as she squeezed them hard enough to hurt him slightly, "You tell me what happened, Aleksander."

The young queen was afraid that perhaps Aleksander was somehow under the enemies’ spell.

But it was so confusing for Elys. She should have been able to distinguish a foreign mix of magic from Aleksander if that was the case.

Was there something else she was missing?

Her mind was racing with hundreds of possibilities to explain her husband’s reaction back there.

"I-I don’t know what you mean, Elys," he said as his eyes scanned his surroundings, "I don’t hear anything that could make me do that to you."

Just as Aleksander had finished saying his sentiments about what his wife had asked, explosions started to erupt yet again, but this time around it was already closer to them by just several meters.

"My fucking ears," Aleksander grumbled as he held his sensitive ears shut from the explosion.

It did little to no help, but it at least had been able to give his ears with some makeshift protection.

"What the hell was that?" Elys said as she shielded herself as well from bits and pieces of dirt that came flying towards them.

She raised her head and saw that there was something hiding from one of the tallest trees surrounding them.

Elys’ teeth ground as she bolted out of Aleksander’s confused arms.