Adira’s POV
“Gaia, they are requesting your presence in the court,” Gianni put forth.
I nodded at him in response and got up from the couch. “Say I’ll be there in a minute.” Gianni didn’t answer and what I heard was the door creaking before I could open my eyes and blankly stare at the remaining teal fluid in the bottle.
The remaining potion Edith gave me to conceal the child from Diego. Still didn’t expect him to mature this fast. I started treading a step and stopped, passing by the mirror. My head tilted, seeing the bump very obvious like I’ve swallowed a rock.
It’s just been a week that had passed. And the reinforcement I have requested from Sanguine, Daghum, and Mayari’s platoon had already arrived. But I could’ve led the army earlier if it weren’t because of Diego haltering my every move, and eventually under detain. That, I couldn’t interact with anyone except for Edith.
“What’s the plan?”
“Same old one.”
My hands accepted the bottle on Edith’s hands and gulped the entire content of it. Magically hiding and erasing the bump on my belly.
“Don’t falter this chance. It took me to trade an important thing for this,” she uttered and opened the door.
Right, today can be the only time I could talk to him. To persuade him, or maybe, it’s much more convenient if he’ll really let me go out.
“I got it. The army? Where are they?” I asked.
“On the frontier,” Edith responded. “The Alpha didn’t want to reveal the real reason you called them. Thus, he placed them on the guard.”
“They are not here to guard Abberant.” My hands clenched. “Who does he think he is?”
“Someone with a turmoiled mind, perhaps.”
Dashing steps, it didn’t take long before we finally reached the courtroom. The round table and all the officials of Abberant’s district surrounding it. Two vacant seats made my head tilt. I don’t think one was for me. especially when the third door across where I stand appears the Nishimura.
“Someone said the court requests my presence,” I started, resulting in for their heads to aim at me.
Edith and Miranda sat on two of the vacant seats on the Alpha’s both sides. Tch, my hunch’s right again.
“State why you need my presence before I could spread my conditions,” I again voiced, breaking the silence in the room.
My eyes roamed but there was nothing to grab to even sit on. The window was opened, letting the moonlight intrude. I waved my hand and a clump of branching vines entered, forming a slab enough for my butt to rest.
Ever since the child inside me started to appear larger, I feel like it has taken half of my strength that even a single standing could easily make me want to sit.
“Nothing to talk about?” my lips repeated and crossed my legs as both of my hands was towered behind my back. “Well then, I’ll speak. Firstly, I humbly want to extend my gratitude to the Alpha for approving that my existence here shall be expelled in no time. But I wonder why…” I smirked and darted a wondering stare at Diego. “He seems to have no decisions on letting me go.”
My eyes were glued to him that I no longer regard the presence of other creatures inside this room. His hair was messy and disheveled, around his eyes were bags of dark curses. Damn, he looks horribly stressed!
I smiled and laughed. His face retains the same serious gape and look. But a thing suddenly closed my lips as he stood up in a split of a second, his tight rash grip was on my hand. Dragging me outside the room and to Edith’s quarter.
“Abort the child.”
Those three words emanated out of his mouth blasted the remaining patience in me. “Traitor,” I whispered tensely when my eyes caught Edith on the same side of the round table. This explains the two vacant seats.
My presence was really not requested in here. It was Edith and Gianni who plotted this. I may not know how and when did Diego finds out the thing about this child, but what he’s waiting for was a confirmation.
I looked down and found out the bump was freely displayed. The concealing fluid earlier was only an imitation of the real one. “I don’t care if you have no plans accepting him. Neither will I ask you another ‘why’,” I resisted.
Forcibly removed his hands off mine and again met his eyes full of disgust and hatred, “My child will be out of your reach if that’s what you want. For if you fear the Senate and the Council destroying Abberant just because of your own blood running within my child, I’ll be glad to say you don’t have to worry.” I stepped back away from him and lifted a brow at him. “Because I will have all the consequences bound to his existence.”
“You don’t understand me, I see,” he uttered, shaking his head sideways. “You may have recalled the past, Larina. But not my side.”
“I am not her, Alfarro. Her pathetic weakness and uselessness are out of what I am now.”
The distance between us decreased that his hands were now on my shoulders. “You can never deny who you are. You can never deny that same mistake we’re again committing—”
I gnashed my teeth and grabbed his hand pushing away from me. “Your mistake, Alfarro. It was your mistake.” Not breaking our eye contact, I didn’t stop. Perhaps this will be the last chance I could talk to him. And I want to know a thing I long wanted to say. “You did not fight back. Am I right? And that is the mistake of the past that I see. Yet, that is fine with me even if it feels like it’s half unfair on my side.”
My sight starts to blur. Waters in my eyes verged to leave but I know I have to impede it. Tears were not supposed to roll this time. Not this time that I have the last chance of talking to him. “Now that I am able to fight for what we have. Given that we could now defend ourselves… It seems that you still want to do the same mistake of running away.”
I stretched out my arms to his neck and gently dragged him closer. “If you don’t want to fight for me, then maybe it is the time for you to let me go. I myself will save my life from this repeated fate. And if I survived, do me a favor… do not ever show yourself again.”
“I will,” Diego answered, cupping my face with his hands. “I will let you go. Only if you promised me not to lead an army against them.”
Furrowing my fore, perhaps I have to ask him again the same question. “Why?”
But he responded with his lips claiming mine as he closed his eyes and I heard his voice inside of my head. “Because you are a walking gameplay, Adira. Giving me two choices and now three.”
As his skin departed, his blue eyes that keeps me captivated again locked with mine. “If it’s you, me, or our child. If I will be choosing myself again this time, then the entire history of you being killed will again be written. But if I choose you, then I have to kill our child. I have to erase everything in you that connects the two of us. I have to cut off all ties that bind us. For you to live, and be that someone you want to be. To lead a kingdom and reign forever.”
“But… living forever is not what I want. What if I say it is not what I wish from you?” Tears from my eyes reached the walls that decisively falls down uncontrollably. “That being close to my mate is the thing that I want. But how could I say this to you? Now that you simply don’t want to open your head?”
My hands held his cheeks, gently caressed him as my eyes closed. And with my attention all focused on him, a dagger in his hand swung from nowhere and unhesitatingly slit the bump in my belly.
“I-I,” my mouth dropped open, dazed and dumbfounded.
Regaining all my senses, I quickly step back and moved away from him. I vexedly hurled and covered my bleeding skin. “If cutting our bonds will keep you safe and sound, then feel free to reject me. And so will I, Diego Alfarro.”
“Adira, don’t!”
From the high balcony of the Abberant mansion, I dared to leap down and emanated a signal from the flare I kept with me all the time. There appeared a charcoal-tinged stallion, dashing straight and stopped the second I landed on the grassy ground.
My eyes closed wearily, again stopping my tears from escaping. I have to move straight now, to the route to where the frontier is. No matter how my head wants to turn around and stay and talk to him out of his damned choices, my body doesn’t let me do it.
He’s my mate. And to that, I should trust him. But I really couldn’t. Now that he may have already made up his mind and settled his decision without even thinking of the possibilities and those people around him.