Chapter 76: The unexpected encounter in the woods!

Selena sprinted across the familiar forests, not once backtracking or loosing her way as she was the that familiar with the lands and terrains of the valiant and beautiful Valyria. She was confident that by some miracle, Dominic finds a way out of the mess she had left him in, still he wouldn’t be able to catch up to her as even by vampire standards she was quite fast, an outcome of having received strict, tough training from the General of Valyria since childhood itself. And no one could catch up to her and match her speed, except for maybe Demetri but he could do that only because he had trained together with her since childhood and could match every move of hers well.

She jumped over a fallen tree bark seamlessly and continued speeding up while her mind was now being worried for Demetri. Did Dominic do something to him? Why the hell hadn’t he come back yet? After all, he was a master tracker, the ability to track being his innate, natural ability as a pure blooded vampire of royal lineage but he should have found Dominic by now. And if so, why hadn’t he showed back at the palace given that the war between the Valyrians and Vanhuesans were no small talk.

As Selena had been fearing, Dominic was not in any sort of danger or anything like that and was merely playing around so Demetri must have easily tracked him out. But the fact that Demetri never made his way back to Valyria was hurting her and causing her to become more and more anxious by the second. She never should have let him go after in search of Dominic in the first place, and now she had lost a true friend who forever had her back for a fake lover who she shouldn’t have been so concerned about and trusted so blindly in the first place.

A part of her still couldn’t believe in Dominic’s actions. Things had happened exactly like she had feared and she had no one else but herself to blame for falling into his rather addictive and dangerous charms.

When they had met face to face, she was longing for some sort of an explanation from him, but he was way too smug and nonchalant about it all, irking her out further and she felt the last piece of her heart break as well. She didn’t trust him at all now and felt like a fool for having been used so seamlessly by a man.

With her mind busy somewhere else, she didn’t even realize an ominous figure looming in front of her and ran right into him full force and due to the immense speed in which she had been sprinting towards the battle grounds, the crash impact was way too much and she flew into the air and landed several feet back and so did her perpetrator.

She groaned out loud in pain as several stones dug into her skin from underneath her and she hastily got back up to her feet and shrugged off the dirt on her clothes and slightly caressed her back in which the mischievous stone had dug themselves in. She winced in pain as she straightened out her back as well as her shoulders and eyed the mysterious figure in front of her warily, wondering whether he was a foe or an ally?

She then narrowed her eyes at the masked intruder who too had fallen quite far too just like her, from having taken the brunt force of the collision.

The masked figure gingerly got back into his feet and a very familiar voice yelled out in displeasure, “Ow! Selena!”

He groaned out in pain as he struggled to regain his balance and footing on the uneven forest ground.

Selena froze on the spot taken aback by surprise that he had known her name and what was more baffling was that the voice seemed eerily familiar.

Before he even took off his mask, she already knew deep inside who it was. It was none other than her own best mate, her most trusted confidant, Demetri…..the man who trained along with her and always had her back since childhood itself.

Her eyes softened at him and she murmured in a low voice sounding relieved all of a sudden, “Demetri”
Without hesitation and heaving a sigh of relief upon realizing that he was indeed alright, she rushed to him and hugged him tightly. He gently hugged her back too, a little bit taken aback by her warm welcome as even though they were friends since childhood she was still his empress now.
After several seconds, she let him go, then the happy grin on her face faded and she hit him playfully while simultaneously scolding him, “Where the hell were you the past few days? It’s been complete madness around here and you literally vanished off the face of the earth. Do you have any idea how worried I was?”

Demetri smiled in return and held up his hands in a mock surrender position, taking in all her anger without any qualms or complaints and just silently and very patiently listened to all her tantrums.
She eyed him warily and repeated firmly, having no intention to let it go, “So, where were you?”

He opened his mouth to answer, however, before he could even get a chance to reply to my question, a voice declared haughtily from behind her, “He was with me all this time.”

Selena turned back in surprise, shocked as she immediately recognized the owner of the voice. Seeing the look of bewilderment and utter shock on her face, he raised an eyebrow at her daringly and said smugly, “Why? Did you think that your little trick with the tree roots could keep me there for long? You deeply underestimate me, my love.”
He had escaped way faster than she had expected him to and this put quite some pressure on her as no matter what she had to unconditionally make her way back to the battle grounds before any sort of deal is made between the General and Mr Vanhuesan. But what put her out was why Dominic was sounding so smug and confident all of a sudden when she had Demetri with her now to beat him? The odds were now switched and, in her favor, as now it was two against one. Also, what did he mean by saying that Demetri had been with him all this time. Why on earth would he do that?
She refused adamantly to blindly believe in Dominic’s treacherous words as his sly brain may be attempting to break their friendship and instill distrust in each other which would make it all the more easier for him.
She scoffed at him in disbelief and shot a look of utter disbelief at Demetri, clearly not believing a word of Dominic’s but to her surprise found that Demetri was avoiding her eye contact guiltily and refusing to even look at her face and was merely staring blankly at the sky, letting Dominic handle this.

Selena stood frozen there in on the very spot and darted a curious look at the both of them, suddenly at an unease and sensing that she was missing something terribly important.