Chapter 156: Chapter 156
DAHLIA:
Was I seeing things? Was my mind simply playing a trick on me?
“Tristan!” I touched the man’s face with my free hand by instinct. This must be an illusion! How can I gaze at this lovely face after seeing him die in the collapsed cave?
However, as soon as my fingers came in contact with his tanned skin, I knew it wasn’t a trick! This was a miracle.
“Tristan,” my eyes started to tear up. “It’s you!”
I had almost forgotten he was holding my right wrist until he squeezed on it very tightly.
“Yes… I’m alive, Samalah!”
He was looking at me with hatred. It was only then that I remembered how my face looked like for him.
“N-No, I’m not… I am… not…S-Samalah,” I said in broken sentences as I wept.
I wanted to hug him fiercely. I wanted to kiss him until the end of the world comes.
“You trickster, what do you mean,” Tristan said growling at me. “You’re already caught red-handed, and you’re still trying to deny it? Why are you pretending to be someone else? Are you guilty? Did you have anything to do with what happened to her?!”
My body trembled. Tristan couldn’t recognize me because of this stupid face and body. “No… I’m not Samalah… I mean I am not her inside... Don’t you recognize me,” I said, pleading.
I was sure Samalah had only switched our outward appearances. I was still carrying my child, and I could still sense Eva, my own wolf, inside me. Surely, if I explained it, Tristan would recognize me, right?
“Of course I recognize you! I can smell the stench of your soul even a mile away, Samalah, and yet you dare to deny who you are? Tell me, did you do that to Dahlia? Did you mean to abandon her and let her burn?”
My heart stopped. “Burn?... Dahlia? Y-You mean -”
The shock of seeing Tristan made my mind hazy for a moment. It took me a while to understand what he had meant.
The woman he took in was Dahlia in his eyes. That means it was Samalah, and she got burned!
Samalah exchanged our bodies, but she met an accident. Lord Irvan must have done it to her.
My heart fell in anguish. She suffered because she helped me!
Tristan’s hand tightened around my wrist that I almost could not feel my hand. “You brought that to Dahlia, didn’t you? You brought her to those bastards and left her to die!”
“No, it was a mistake… S-She pushed me to the ledge after playing a trick on me. I-I was thrown to the side of the street… When I came back, she was gone…”
“Liar! You’re still a f*cking liar, Samalah!”
“No, you don’t understand… I-I am not Samalah. I’m Dahlia!”
Just as soon as I said this, a hand descended on my cheeks. My ear rang, and I was almost thrown downwards by force.
I can’t believe it. Tristan has just slapped me!
“What a great liar you are,” Tristan said, his eyes glowing with fire. “How dare you try to trick me again?” He raised his hand to hit me once again. I could only stand there in disbelief.
“Stop it!”
Just then, I turned sideways and saw someone swiftly block Tristan’s raised hand with his arm.
I gasped. It was Kaist.
“Don’t you dare hurt her!”
“And why not?!”
I couldn’t believe what I heard next from Kaist.
“This she-wolf, she is my mate!”
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KAIST:
Tristan ran with Dahlia in his arms in the dead of the night. I tried to cope as fast as I could, but he was swifter.
Then, after a few minutes of running, I heard Tristan’s wolf howl in anguish, asking Dahlia to open her eyes once more.
That’s when I knew it… She was gone.
The moment I heard his screams, my legs gave way. I no longer had the strength to run. I plummeted to the ground and wept until morning came.
Once the sun had risen, I sluggishly pulled myself up and continued walking towards Camdress.
I could still smell the scent of Tristan Abell’s body and feel the traces of desperation in it. By now, he must have already made it well into town, judging by his speed last night…
I did not hurry to get to Camdress. Instead of rushing there, I tried to prepare myself mentally for what I would see in there…
My Dahlia, my best friend, my secret mate – I have lost her now forever!
How can the Moon Goddess be so cruel? She had already taken my father away from me, and now, she was taking Dahlia away too…
No matter how much I tried not to feel bad, I couldn’t help it. I cried as I trudged the path Tristan Abell had taken the night before to see my mate on the day of her funeral.
As my steps took me closer to town, my feet became heavier and heavier. I didn’t want to see Dahlia lying motionlessly on a funeral pyre… I didn’t want to see her lifeless body, never to smile and call my name again.
How could I see her like this when I know I was the one who had caused her to fall into that accident that day?
I stood not far from the village gates. I saw Tristan Abell slumped against the closed gate. I couldn’t bring myself to come and ask him how the funeral arrangements for Dahlia had been going…
I fell asleep from mere exhaustion without meaning to. Just then, a very familiar smell caught my nose, rousing me abruptly.
It was no doubt the smell of cherries, honey, and milk – Dahlia’s unique scent. I weakly stood from where I had crouched down to find the origin of the smell.
Just as I stepped into the edge of the gate, Cruz and Ignis growled in unison that I was taken aback.
“Mate!”
I could only let my jaw drop as I realized whom they were referring to.
Standing there, in front of Tristan Abell, was the she-wolf we met by the cave, the she-wolf who said it would have been better for me and my father to be killed on that spot…
Just when I thought the Moon Goddess was done playing me for a fool, here she goes again!
I was still in a state of confusion that it took me by complete surprise when Tristan Abell slapped the woman in front of him.
I saw him raise his hand against her, and she wasn’t doing anything to evade it. My wolves’ instincts kicked in. I ran towards him and blocked his arms.
It was Cruz and Ignis speaking on behalf of my dazed state. “Don’t you dare hurt her!”
“And why not,” Tristan Abell spat at me.
“This she-wolf, she is my mate!”
Goddess, what the hell did I just announced?