Chapter 196: Getting Rid of Tarian (1)
Standing in the darkness, Tarian pleaded, "Give me one more chance, Kestrel."
He moved away from the shadowy trees, walking a couple of steps towards where Kestrel stood.
Dressed smartly in a suit, with striking golden vertical pupils, he displayed strong emotions. He seemed like a trapped animal with no escape.
"I promise I’ll do better this time, value it, and avoid making the same errors," he uttered, getting closer to Kestrel, his voice filled with a hint of sadness. "You know, all these years, I haven’t had a single good night’s sleep, always feeling sorry."
Kestrel backed away a bit.
Tarian’s feelings were deep and clearly noticeable. Kestrel’s tendrils captured a mix of complicated emotions - nervousness, sorrow, desire, regret... and several other feelings, all mixed up, making it confusing.
"People are always so complicated," Kestrel thought, "so unpredictable and difficult to figure out."
However, she understood that there was a difference this time - it was up to her if she wanted to grasp it or not.
Not much time had passed since a similar scene happened. In a slightly dark place, amidst some background noise, Ren stood facing her, offering a somewhat sad smile. His emotions seemed like a flowing stream of hot, molten feelings, bringing warmth to Kestrel’s heart.
At that time, Kestrel kept his sentiments in her mind, always thinking about them and trying to understand them, until now. She was eager to get it, constantly thinking about it.
But now, the emotions emanating from Tarian were stormy, yet Kestrel’s heart stayed as cool as the nearby lake, unaffected, finding them kind of dull, only wishing to leave as soon as possible.
Tarian looked pretty worked up, his mouth moving non-stop as he talked, but Kestrel, absorbed in her thoughts, only heard bits and pieces.
"I know I messed up, Kestrel."
"You’re in my thoughts every day."
"I feel like I’m losing my mind."
"Please, just give me another opportunity... please."
She realized that Tarian might genuinely mean what he was saying at this moment. Ten years ago, in a garden, the younger Tarian who discovered her had expressed the same true emotions.
Kestrel couldn’t resist reminiscing about her younger self. In those days, she was just a little kid, a small figure standing all alone, feeling out of place in the world she inhabited. Looking ahead, she could only see a limited future – a partner chosen by the authorities, eventually settling into family life, confined to a small home space, a life where the ending seemed predictable, lacking any options or chances to learn through mistakes.
At that time, Kestrel felt nothing but bewilderment. Now, after experiencing the vastness of the real world outside the tower, the thought of going back to that existence made her feel scared.
Tarian continued to speak, his words urgent and heartfelt. "We grew up together; no one understands you the way I do."
"I don’t care anymore if you are classified as an aggressive beta or anything else."
"I won’t utter those awful words that hurt you ever again."
"My dad mentioned that if you’re agreeable, he would seek the monarch’s permission for a marriage allowance right away. You could instantly become a prominent member of the Riker family."
At these words, Kestrel was jolted back to the present, her alarm skyrocketing. She frantically shook her head, saying, "No, no, no, thank you."
She nearly overlooked the fact that betas were essentially owned by the Empire, bound to follow the marriage plans dictated by the government. If the Riker family proposed once more and the Queen approved, her only option would be to escape, becoming a runaway, pursued by the Empire.
She had to ward off this potential scenario at all costs, no matter how slight the risk.
She needed to dismiss Tarian firmly, quashing any lingering hopes he might have.
Being highly skilled at reading people’s thoughts and intentions, Kestrel sprung into action. With brisk efficiency and detachment, she formulated a response.
"Hurry, hurry, find me a suitable reply," Kestrel mentally commanded.
Her tendrils sifted through countless memory snippets in mere seconds, selecting fitting images to display for Kestrel, helping her craft her response.
"I appreciate your affection over the years, but I’m afraid I have to say sorry," Kestrel murmured, her head lowered modestly, her portrayal flawless. "I’m already committed to another alpha."
"That can’t be." Tarian reflexively tried to grasp Kestrel’s arm. However, Kestrel, standing amid the blooms, suddenly fixed him with a chilling, stern gaze, her eyes sharp and icy, reminiscent of ice crystals in a frigid stream.
Her look was exceedingly harsh, stripped of any previous warmth or friendship she might have felt for Tarian.
Tarian’s hand hung in the air, gradually falling under the weight of Kestrel’s cold, formidable presence.
She was the girl he had known for many years, the girl whose hand he held when they were children, the girl he once believed would be his life partner.
He couldn’t fathom how the person before him now displayed merely a civil attitude, warding off any semblance of intimacy with a strong, unyielding stance.
A profound sadness engulfed Tarian, feeling as though a searing blade was twisting in his chest. He came to a sudden realization that perhaps Kestrel had felt similar pain in the past when she saw him with someone else. Worse yet, she might not have cared as deeply as he had imagined.
With tear-brimmed eyes, clinging to a fragment of hope, Tarian pleaded in the softest voice he could manage, "This isn’t true, Kestrel. You’re just still upset with me, aren’t you? There can’t be an alpha who’s better suited for you than I am. Remember, our compatibility was 70%?"
"But he’s really good to me, genuinely likes me. We get along wonderfully and are very happy together," Kestrel replied, her voice steady yet gentle.
Kestrel was getting pretty frustrated, not bothering to pretend anymore, her voice turned kind of uncaring. Then, she added a sentence to make her statement stronger, "All my bad qualities are seen as good things in his eyes, we really get along in the psychic landscape, I am happy with him, he is already my exclusive alpha."
When she said this, Kestrel thought of that guy, and a slight blush appeared on her face. In the night that smelled like flowers, for a second, she looked like a normal girl truly in love.
"Who is it?" Tarian asked, sounding really worried. "Tell me his name, only then can I move on."
To get rid of this problem once and for all quickly, Kestrel thought of all the alphas she knew over the years, picking a name from the many friends she had been through tough times with.
That guy was really close to her, willing to protect each other no matter what, she guessed he wouldn’t mind being used to help her this one time.
"That person is..."
The two of them were standing and chatting under a shelter in the yard, separated by the water flowing inside the building, where, under the brightest light, a lot of people were surrounding Ren.
Ren, who had recently been made the second-in-command of the Royal Guard, was managing the party pretty well. He wasn’t too excited, but also not distant, keeping a nice balance, which made talking with him nice.
He was young and good-looking, with impressive experience in the military and was very respected, wise and understood things deeply, he was clearly someone everyone expected great things from. So, lots of people holding glasses of wine came up to talk to him.
An older guy from the PSD, with a big belly, was eagerly talking about something, while Ren nodded and watched him with a friendly smile.
No one realized that Ren, who seemed happy and well-spoken, was actually really nervous right then, being very alert and focusing entirely on the faraway place by the water where the pavilion was.
From the start, he had noticed Kestrel, seeing that she picked up her skirt, grabbed a glass of wine, and sat by herself under the flower-covered arch near the water. He heard the quiet sound of her skirt moving, heard her give a relieved kind of pat on her chest, heard her sit down by the water.
Where the shadows of the wisteria flowers overlapped, Kestrel’s pale hand was holding a glass that was moving back and forth, the wine inside making a soft sound as it moved with her fingers. This sound traveled a long distance, picked up by the sharp hearing of an alpha, making his heart and thoughts shake.
While he was trying to manage the ongoing chat around him, doing his best not to mess up, Ren found himself constantly trying to notice every small thing about her.
The smell of the wine in her glass reached him even from a distance. It was a kind of fruity wine made from longan, sweet when you first taste it but with a strong effect later, a taste she really liked.
Ren couldn’t stop himself from picturing Kestrel right now, her face partially hidden by flowers, her lips tinged with the color of the drink, her eyes slightly narrowed in a happy way. The bottom of her dress probably carried the gentle smell of plants and roses. Maybe earlier, she ran around in her family’s garden, lifting her dress, picking up the unique fragrance that was there—a place filled with grass, different types of roses, and a bunch of other flowers. Ren had visited that place quite a few times.
Suddenly, when someone walked up to her, Ren’s face turned really stern.
A clueless guy was ruining her quiet time—it was the so-called ex-fiancé who, since their coming back this time, had been bothering Kestrel again and again.
To Ren, that guy was super irritating.
Ren overheard the whole conversation between them. He knew he shouldn’t be spying, according to the rules that alphas are supposed to follow, but he just couldn’t stop himself.
Ren just stood there, listening from a distance to another alpha talking openly and eagerly to Kestrel, asking for her to forgive him and love him, and Ren’s heart started beating faster and faster.
He listened as Kestrel firmly turned him down, and he felt a huge sense of relief inside, then he heard her say that she already liked another alpha, and even heard Tarian ask who it was.
When Kestrel started to respond, Ren felt like someone was reaching into his chest, their cold fingers holding onto his really fast-beating heart tightly, not letting it move or beat at all.
Right then, Ren felt like he couldn’t breathe. The person next to him kept talking slowly, moving his mouth, but Ren couldn’t hear him anymore. All of his attention was focused intensely, ignoring the people walking by, the sounds of steps.
