Conquering His Cold Heart

326 Spy Mind

Ruby greatly pitied Lorenzo for the way things turned out for him. Likewise, Lorenzo also felt bad for Ruby for having to stay back in the manor just because she found herself in the middle of the unfortunate events that were happening there.

And after sharing a few things about him and gaining pity from Ruby, Lorenzo decided to ask something that had been itching him for a while.

“I’m sorry if I am crossing my line by asking you this, but I can’t help but get curious. Why did you leave the castle and come here? And when? Didn’t you know that the King had deployed his soldiers to look for you?”

Ruby had already predicted that Lorenzo wouldn’t let her leave the room without asking these questions to her.

And although she didn’t wish to give the answers to him, she didn’t want to rudely get up from there either.

Thus, so as not to come off as rude, she gave a roundabout answer to Lorenzo. “I didn’t want to keep on burdening His Majesty. He has already done enough for me. So, I decided to walk on my own path. But since I didn’t know much about this Kingdom, I took help from a gentleman who was offering it.”

“The late alpha offered a place for you to stay until you found your own?” Lorenzo speculated after putting together the pieces of information that he had heard from Ruby until now.

Ruby gave a subtle smile and nodded. “But I didn’t know then that he was the alpha of the Atkinson clan. I had just assumed that he was an ordinary man.”

Her face turned a little gloomy after she said that; maybe she was thinking about how she got stuck in this place because she took help from a man who most probably had a lot of enemies.

.....

She sighed and looked at Lorenzo with the intention to leave for her room now.

However, Lorenzo wasn’t done questioning her yet. Before she could express her desire to retire for the night, Lorenzo shot her with the next questions.

“When did the late alpha offer his help to you again? Did you meet him during one of his visits to the castle?”

Ruby held her breath and scratched her temple with hesitation. However, since Lorenzo was curiously looking at her, she blurted out the truth.

“I met him after the coronation ball.”

Lorenzo felt a pinch in his heart because that was the exact day when his fate began to change for the worse.

After taking a moment to calm his heart, he gulped and looked at Ruby. “You were present at the coronation ball? I thought you had disappeared way before the coronation.”

Ruby didn’t reveal all the details because she was ashamed to share that she was hiding in the dungeon of the castle itself. Thus, she just gave a short reply to Lorenzo, “Umm… I came back to see how he was doing that night.”

“Oh!” Lorenzo gave a nod and asked again, “But you didn’t meet him, did you? I was also present at the ball but I didn’t see you.”

Ruby looked down and shook her head. Right now, she wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that she was sad.

Since Lorenzo got to know that Ruby was also present at the coronation ball, he was sure that Ruby saw everything that happened at the ballroom that day.

And he couldn’t help but wonder why she decided to leave the castle that very day. When he had spent a few days in Lavinya, he had witnessed how Ruby had started to devote herself to Everard. He had also witnessed how depressed Everard looked after Ruby was nowhere to be found.

So, he wondered what happened between the two of them that led Ruby to leave Everard’s side even after seeing that Everard needed her attention.

“You didn’t see how the King got into a fight with the King of Sorvando? He was pretty beaten up.” Lorenzo asked, just to make sure if Ruby witnessed that fight or not.

A deep frown appeared on Ruby’s face. And she even started to breathe heavily and look around as if she was greatly troubled by that question of his.

‘She did witness it…’ Lorenzo thought to himself, wondering why she didn’t stay back to look after Everard.

And suddenly, something clicked in Lorenzo’s mind. He recalled how Ruby was tortured by the vampire King in the past.

So, he immediately asked, “Did you run away from the ball after seeing that the King of Sorvando was also present there? Were you afraid that he would recognize you and take you back to Sorvando to punish you?”

Ruby breathed loudly upon the mention of Caspian. The fear that Caspian had instilled in her heart was too deep-rooted. Her hands began to tremble and she had to clasp her palms together to make them stop shaking involuntarily.

She gulped and replied, “I was indeed shocked to see that monster King there. And yes, I was afraid that he would see me.”

“But?” Lorenzo raised his brows and kept on waiting for Ruby to speak more. From her tone, he didn’t feel like that was the end of what she wanted to say.

Indeed, Ruby had something more to say. She took a deep breath while still hanging her head low. Her eyes turned glassy when she said in a weak whisper, “But that wasn’t the reason why I decided to leave the castle. I told you before that I didn’t want to keep on burdening His Majesty.”

Lorenzo nodded his head as his mind was busy trying to connect all the dots. ‘Yeah, seeing that vampire King shouldn’t have been the main reason that pushed her to run away. She had run away from the castle a few days before. She just came back to the castle that day to see King Everard on his most important day.’

Lorenzo closed his eyes and held his forehead with his palm as he tried to get to the root of all the things that Ruby said to him.

‘She came back on the coronation day because she still cared about King Everard. But she was nowhere to be found when the soldiers searched for him. Meaning... she didn’t want to be found?’

Although there was no need to get the answers, Lorenzo’s spy mind couldn’t help but be curious. Old habits die hard.

‘She was still willing to take help from a man she didn’t know before, but she was done taking help from her own sire… Something did happen when she was in the castle, didn’t it?’