Athan rotated his wheel and grinned as his gaze was drawn to Elisabeta, who was crouching with her head buried between her knees. He motioned with his hands for the man he was fighting with to go and he wheeled himself forward.
Zhane bowed and got to his feet. He strolled away, as if the blade didn't touch his flesh.
"You are awake, Xena?"
Elisabeta was certain she heard the haughty peacock's voice, but why was it as sweet as morning dew? When he was battling, he sounded very dominant.
"Xena," his voice interrupted her thoughts, shocking her.
Elisabeta felt something soft touch her head; at first, she mistook it for a raindrop, but the item soon began massaging her. She jerked her head up and pulled her body behind the curtain.
Athan's brow wrinkled; he was perplexed by how his Xena was behaving. 'isn't she meant to embrace me? Everytime we meet, she does that' his mind wandered.
But why was she acting so terrified of him? Even after he had destroyed thousands of souls, his Xena had never been afraid of him.
"Xena," he shouted out again, reaching out his right hand to touch her, Elisabeta stood up and ran into the room.
Elisabeta considered the man to be insane. She'd just seen him sever someone's arm; wasn't it enough to make her pee on her gown. She looked about, then picked up an iron rod on the window side of the room and pointed it at him. Her chest was moving up and down as her heart struggled to escape.
'If my soul had indeed been transmigrated into another body in the past, and this lunatic is my husband or perhaps my noble royal fiancé, I would be in big danger if someone finds me with a weapon
They will definitely recognize me as an impostor and throw me in the dungeon!' her thoughts shattered as the word "dungeon" echoed in her head. She trembled and dropped the iron rod on the floor.
She'd read hundreds of online fiction novels, and she knew how impostors were punished, and most importantly, she understood how the transmigrated soul always performed, even if his or her ways were diametrically to those of the body's nominal owner.
She cleared her throat and proceeded gently towards the man, who was clearly perplexed by her actions.
'Don't blame me, my prince; this body has been taken over by another soul,' she pleaded him within herself. But wait— he'd said the name "Xena" three times; was the genuine owner of the body named Xena?
She knelt in front of him and placed her hands on his.
Athan lowered his head to looked at her hands on his, then returned his sight to her face. He narrowed his eyes and peered at her, as if he had discovered something weird in the woman in front of him.
Elisabeta caught her breath as her mind calculated all the punishment that would befall her if this guy discovered that his beloved wife or fiancée was not the lady in front of him.
'But why is he so handsome? did his siblings break his legs just because they were so jealous of his beauty?'
The door swung open, breaking the enchantment that had bewitched Elisabeta into staring into his cold blue eyes for a minute.
The woman who opened the door, came to a standstill as her grasp on the door tightened.
"I'm very sorry, Mr. Moore," Zara said, trying to catch a sight of the girl crouching in front of Athan. Zara could only blame her bad luck because the woman had her back turned to her.
'so this is where you are, Athan, with a bitch' Zara sobbed within. She had even fallen asleep outside the door of Athan's room while waiting for him; she had just awoken owing to a sore throat and needed to go to the kitchen to get some water.
She trembled as her gaze met Athan's.
'Does he want me to go?' Zara grieved inside but couldn't shed a single tear.
Zara remained motionless; she was not going to flee like a coward. She'd seen a number of females throw themselves at Athan before; this girl might be one of them, but how did she get in?
Nikolas shoved Zara aside as he bounced into the room, interrupting her anxious thoughts.
"Mr. Moore, that girl is an impostor," Nikolas announced, his chest bouncing up and down.
Elisabeta froze as her heartbeat quickened. Why was she apprehended at the start of her transmigration story? This was unlike any other transmigrated story she had read online; those women were only apprehended at the end of the story or ten thousand chapters later!
As Athan rolled nearer to Nikolas, Elisabeta gently bowed her head to her breast.
"What do you mean, Nikolas? You know how much I loath false information!" Elisabeta overhead the haughty peacock remark.
His voice was no longer kind and soothing, but rather a frigid ice and a raging inferno at the same moment, as if this revelation had just aroused the beast inside him.
Elisabeta placed her hands on the floor and turned around to look at them, particularly the woman standing near the entrance.
"How come she is dressed in a white sport bra and joggers? Wasn't this meant to be the 17th century?" Elisabeta wondered as she mumbled under her breath.
Elisabeta's gaze was drawn to the man in the wheelchair after she examined the woman's clothes. The man also was not dressed like an antique royalty or ruler, but rather in a black Gucci nightgown that covered his bare feet.
"Mr. Moore, that girl is Elisabeta, Mr. Davis Gracia's first daughter." Nikolas continued. "She is the bride who was scorned on her wedding day. Mr. Moore, this is not your Xena; she's a fake. She is not deserving of the title "lady who owns your heart."
"Xena is… what are you saying, Nikolas?"
"Look, Mr. Moore, believe me…" Nikolas knelt in front of Athan, handed him the iPad, and began pointing things out to him as if he were a lecturer telling his student true information.
Elisabeta's pulse rate dropped for a second; indicating that she was not in a transmigration. Her tears ran down her cheeks; but they couldn't undo the past; her mother was still dead.
Zara, on the other hand, bit her lower lip as her heart leaped in excitement. If she had been the only one in the room, she would have danced and leaped to celebrate her good fortune.
——
Mr. Davis took another look at the letter, but all he could do was sigh and sip the coffee on his table.
Frida and her daughter, Mirella, stood behind him, curious about what was in the letter that had captured his attention so much that he had read it up to twelve times.
"Father," Mirella remarked, nodding to her mother as she stepped over to her father's desk. "Father, is everything okay? I hope everything is well?" She cocked her head towards her mother, using her eyes to inquire whether the inquiry was appropriate. Frida nodded.
"Mirella"
"You called, father" Mirella replied, crossing her hands behind her back. Her legs were trembling, as was her heartbeat. She cannot risk having her secrets known.
"Get me my coat from the arm of that chair," her father demanded, pointing to the chair across from him and relaxing his back in the one he was sitting in.
Mirella cast a peek at her mother as sweat beads formed on her brow. She breathed and turned to pick up the coat. She carefully laid her father's coat on his desk and took two steps backwards.
Mr. Davis stood up and put on his coat. He took up his pipe and approached the door.
Mirella reached out her hands to remove the letter from her father's desk. She retrieved her hands as her father turned back and returned to his desk.
"Did you leave anything out, father?" Mirella questioned, grinning, and rubbing her wet hands at the edge of her sweater.
"Call the Gracia's family home line; Naomie is dead" Mr. Davis said, referring the order to Frida.
Frida grabbed her chest, as if a piece of her had been taken away from her body. "All right, Davis" She said quietly in response to her husband's request. She tripped and landed on the sofa.
"As for you, Mirella" Mr. Davis turned to his daughter as he lit his pipe. "Mr. Moore will be honored to have you as a wife"