The Stranger In The Night
Lilith’s POV
I had left our room, not long after he did, for mine.
I didn’t feel comfortable staying there all alone, not after the way I ended our intimate moment.
After I got back to my room, I decided to take a bath. Adam sent Clara to call me down for dinner but I declined and decided to stay in my room instead.
He must probably be wondering what suddenly caused the change of attitude, probably I was angry at him. The truth is I wasn’t angry, I just didn’t feel ready for us to get intimate, at the last minute.
I also didn’t go for dinner because I was avoiding his face.
Lexi had scolded me after, calling me a fool for behaving in such an absurd manner to him. She was enjoying the romantic atmosphere between us earlier and would have loved for it to continue but I just didn’t feel like it was something I wanted yet.
I had noticed the hurtful look in his eyes before I left him to sleep. He definitely had a lot to say but had decided not to say anything.
Clara brought my dinner and I ate in silence while she watched over me like a mother hen, looking out for her chick.
She had tried to start a conversation with me but She ended up keeping to herself when I didn’t give her audience.
A knock came in at the least expected time, when I was about to get some sleep. The window was closed and an energetic fire burned in the hearth. Its bright yellow and amber color distributed a warm orange glow over my room.
I had just settled into my bed as my eyelids were heavy due to the events of the day.
Staring at the wall, I saw that it was just a few minutes past eight pm. So who was it that knocked on the door? Was it Adam? What did he want?
Who’s there?’ I asked, my voice muffled by the blankets. A gentle voice replied, ‘It is I, Dale, your highness.’
“Dale?” I whispered. I didn’t know who that was. A part of me was relieved that it wasn’t Adam, how was I supposed to look into his eyes or even stay comfortable in his presence?
Another part of me was more curious than scared as I wondered who the strange visitor was. “How may I be of help to you Dale? Did the Alpha send you?”
“No one sent me your highness, I came because I wanted to see you.”
My curiosity aroused and I threw off the blanket on my body and rose from the bed. As much as I wanted to know who it was that was at the door, I couldn’t be so sure as to expose myself to some stranger I might have never met before.
So I picked up a wooden bat, which lay in a corner of the room. I took one step after another, walking cautiously towards the door. Immediately I got to it, I peeked through a tiny hole and saw a man dressed in a soldier’s uniform.
I became relaxed at first but grew suspicious after. Why would a soldier come looking for me? And of all the time he could come, he chose to come in the night. Was I safe?
I didn’t feel safe because I didn’t know who could be trusted.
As these thoughts lived rent free in my head, I wanted to tell him to leave and that he should come back the next day but my curiosity got the better of me and I unlocked the door.
I took two steps backwards and raised the wooden bat above my shoulders. “Come in.” I tightened my grip on the bat’s end as I waited for him to open the door, my heart beating slowly.
Suddenly, the door swung open and he came in. He closed the door in such a hurry, I almost bashed the bat into his head.
“My queen, I’m sorry for disturbing you so late but I just wanted to be sure you are okay.” He bowed and got on one knee, waiting for me to speak. He had an helmet on his head which also hid a major part of his face and he was unarmed
There was something oddly familiar about this warrior, like I had seen him before. I dropped my hands but still held tightly onto the bat.
“Take off your helmet.”
He removed it slowly, revealing his neatly cropped black hair. His head remained bowed and I still didn’t see his face, driving me even more curious.
“Let me see your face Dale,” I ordered him with a quivering voice. He slowly began to raise his head up and when it was finally raised, I gasped.
Staring directly at me were the very pair of eyes I saw earlier in the day. It was those same pair of eyes that stared directly into mine when I got to the training ground at first.
“You?”
“Your highness I…”
“You are a woman.”
She looked at me for a while before nodding her head slowly.
I had always known but this changed everything. A woman disguised as a man in a royal army definitely didn’t do it because she felt like or because she was forced to. There was definitely a reason.
“But… why? Why did you have to disguise yourself?”
“I was left with no choice, my queen.” She began to sob and I felt a twist In my heart.
“Get up and sit beside me, tell me what happened.” I held her hands and helped her up before walking towards the bed.
I kept staring at her as we both sat down.
“I once lived with my family in a small village at the southern part of the pack. We didn’t have much but we were happy. My father had a farm he worked on while my mother sold the produce from the farm at the pack’s central market. My brothers, Stev and Austin would assist my father in his farm, plowing the fields and feeding the few livestock we cultivated. I and my elder sister, Janet, assisted at home and would go with our mother whenever she came to the market. I had always dreamed of a normal life where things would get better for my family and I would be happy till a group of rogues came and destroyed my village.”
She paused and I could see tears flowing freely from her eyes now. I stood up and fetched her a cup of water from a half filled jug sitting on a table not too far from where we sat.
She mouthed a thank you before finishing the contents of the water in one gulp.
“My brothers, alongside my father and the men in the village tried to fight the rogues off but the rogues were too strong and armed, they killed everyone of them. The rouges raped the women and killed them after, burning the village thoroughly to the ground. I would have escaped with my mother and sister but they caught up with us just as we were about to. My mother’s words, telling my sister and I to run far away so that we wouldn’t get caught rings daily in my ears. We didn’t want to go- to leave her in the hands of those murderers but she kept on screaming for us to leave her and save ourselves. She tried to fight the rouges off till she was sure we had gone a long way off. We stood on a cliff, watching her kneel on the ground as the rouges stood before her. In a split second, her head was rolling on the floor as her blood spilled all over. I see those scary images everyday of my life since it happened. I screamed my lungs out and would have stayed on the cliff, wailing but my sister dragged me up, urging me to keep running. I wish I listened to her that day”
“Why? What happened to her?” I asked her curiously.
“The rogues caught up with us and would have killed us both but she pushed me into the river which lay beneath the cliff… dying instead.”
The words I heard from her filled me with so much hate and pain, my fingers trembled uncontrollably.
“But… Why didn’t you start a new life somewhere else? Why did you have to disguise yourself as a man in order to join the army?”
“I joined the army because I want to avenge the death of every member of my family and the destruction of my village.”
“But the king doesn’t know about this does he?”
“What if he already does?.” Her eyes darkened and she clenched her fist behind her. “I overheard the commander of the rogues telling one of his henchmen that a member of the royal family paid for the attack.”Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!
“And you think the king is responsible?”
She remained silent for a while before speaking. “That’s why I’m here, to find out.”