Chapter 39: Chapter 20.1

Seira ran quickly and looked out the window. In the distance, she saw someone on horseback riding towards the castle.

“It really is Baron!” she exclaimed in disbelief.

Baron? You mean that little boy grew up that big?

Seira looked back at her father. No matter how much she explained about Aven, she couldn’t understand it, but apparently her father remembered Baron Jeff. What was the difference? Was it because he had a noteworthy lineage? Or was it because he looked like the former Duke Jeff?

She had a lot of questions running up her head, but they were questions that couldn’t be answered just by asking.

He followed you around like that. Is he still like that up to this day?

Seira hesitated, unsure of what to say, and she replied blandly, “Uh… I don’t know.”

It was true that he did not seem to give up even though she refused him several times.

‘But things are different now,’ she thought at the back of her mind.

Baron was there the day she faced Calrad, so he should know now. Now there was something else she had to take on aside from the devastated estate. It would be a lot to expect him to show interest in her still knowing that she had to shoulder the fierce enmity of Emperor Calrad.

‘What brought him here anyway?’ Seira found herself thinking.

From the list of families who could shield her, which she had selected since yesterday , Baron was only in the preliminary. The Jeff family was highly unlikely to confront Calrad to get Seira. Baron and Calrad were cousins in the first place.

“I need to go out,” Seira told her father.

What? He is a guest, shouldn’t you invite him inside?

“No.”

Seira had no intention of inviting Baron inside the castle. As much as Nathan recognized Baron, he might also sense Nathan’s spirit. That would become quite a big problem for Seira.

“We are not that much acquainted with each other for me to invite him inside,” Seira gave a flimsy reason.

She could see Nathan’s eyebrows rise up, but Seira pretended not to see and went outside anyway.

By the time she was outside the castle, Baron was already getting off his horse. His face was stiff, perhaps because it was the first time he saw the real state of Askan’s destroyed land.

“Who is it?” Seira pretended to call out as if she didn’t know who came by.

Baron’s expression was softened when he heard Seira’s voice.

“Seira…”

“What’s going on here, commander-in-chief?”

“Stop calling me that now,” he lowered his head in embarrassment.

Seira stopped halfway down the stairs and crossed her arms. It was only at this height that their eyes could see each other at the same level. Baron looked at her as he stood in front of the last step.

“You look fine,” he commented.

“Why, were you worried?”

“Of course.”

Seira’s eyes narrowed into thin slits as she looked at him carefully. The overbearingly large man was showing off his best today as a pure-blooded Alpha. However, the tiredness around his eyes stayed, indicating that he hadn’t slept well over the past few days.

“How can I help you, Baron?”

“Can I come in and talk to you for a minute?”

“No,” Seira flatly declined, but quickly added, “I’m sorry. It’s just so messy that I don’t feel comfortable letting you see it.”

Still, wasn’t he the one who tried to protect her from Calrad? After she left, he must have been in quite a difficult position.

Watching the corners of his eyes droop down, he looked like a puppy the size of an adult bear who was depressed. A corner of Seira’s chest constricted at the sight of him, and she cleverly avoided his gaze.

“Okay, then we’ll just talk about it here,” Baron relented.

He pulled something out of his pocket and handed it over to her. Embarrassment spread across Seira’s face as she turned over the expensive paper envelope to see who the sender was.

“Why is this person…?”

The sender was Domina Jeff, Baron and Calrad’s maternal grandmother, who sent her a letter.

Baron urged her to open the letter right there and read it. After she had finished to the last word, Seira’s question only grew bigger and unresolved.

“She wants to meet me,” Seira stated the obvious intent of the letter as if to summarize.

“So it is.”

For a moment, the two of them stared at each other in utter silence.

Unlike Betas who weakened in many ways as they aged, pure-blooded Alphas with developed powers do not lose them until their last breath. Therefore, Seira had no choice but to worry if she should go and see Domina Jeff, the oldest living pure-blooded Alpha.

“Well…” It was Baron who spoke first, “She’s not that bad. I don’t think she has the intention of harming you.”

“Yes, hopefully that is the case,” Seira mumbled under her voice.

If one would invite and harm the only pure-blooded Omega in their generation, one would surely face a lot of political attacks for a long time. Although no one really wanted to protect Seira Askan, wasn’t it originally what her father and the late Emperor agreed upon?