After a while, shiqi seed to have co to a resolve. With movents so calm that it was almost eerie, Shiqi placed the brooch still tainted with her blood back into the box and closed it with a snap.
Molly, who had been watching in silence, finally spoke. "Miss... are you alright?"
Shiqi did not answer.
She straightened her back and wiped the blood from her palm with the edge of her sleeve and smiled. "I am perfectly alright, Molly. Even my weariness from earlier seems to have disappeared. You should leave now. I’ll be going to bed for the night."
She felt Molly cast a troubled look her way but paid no mind to it.
In her heart, things were already quite clear. It was all a sham. This talk about choosing a mate. They were all in cahoots. Her parents, Aron and Mira. They intended to push her into the arms of the three lords.
She was willing to understand her parents. They might want to do this because they wanted her to be powerful. But what right did Aron and Mira have to interfere with her fate?
As she lay in bed, she stared up at the canopy, a plan taking shape. She was no fool. Even though she had deliberately made herself repulsive to the three lords, she had also seen their instant interest and attraction to Mira. She was the one who was their fated mate. But she dared to defy the fates. Then she would regret it.
As for Aron. Well, if he couldn’t belong to her, then... he would never belong to anyone else.
***
While Shiqi was battling her own heartbreak, Lancelot, Zai, and Kaelyn sat quietly in the sa alcove where they had found Mira the previous night.
The space still seed to carry the faint mory of her presence, and none of them spoke as they settled there, each lost in his own thoughts. Without ever saying it aloud, all three had already co to the sa decision.
They would choose Mira as their fated mate.
From the instant attraction they had felt toward her, to the awkward and slightly flustered way she had tried to manage herself when interacting with them, everything about her had drawn them toward her...
She had not tried to impress them. In fact, she had actively tried to escape them. And that, sohow, made her even more interesting and attractive to them. There was sothing about chasing and conquering her that made her everything even more interesting.
Even when their spies had warned them that Mira’s character was not that virtuous, they had chosen to listen to their own hearts instead. Rumours were easy to twist. Feelings, however, were not. They had believed that whatever bond she shared with another could not compare to what fate itself seed to be offering them.
But tonight, they had seen everything with their own eyes.
It was no longer hearsay. No longer a whisper passed through servants or guards. The way she had thrown herself into the arms of the other man, spoke of an ease and intimacy that could only be shared between lovers.
And her lover was none other than Aron Mast- the Master of the Dark Witch Clan. And Mira was also a dark witch...
The silence in the alcove grew heavier and heavier.
Zai was the first to break it. His jaw tightened and his fingers curled slowly into his palm as his gaze fixed on the floor. There was no humour in his eyes now, no trace of the earlier languidness as he said the words slowly, "So, what do we do now?"
Kaelyn exhaled tiredly at that and answered with steel in his tone. Of course, we proceed. Nothing has changed about the decision itself. All three of us are still on the sa thought. She is our fated mate.
Zai let out a short, humorless laugh. " Unfortunately, you are right about that. It seems fate has indeed decided to play us. I always wondered what would be so difficult in choosing a mate. Well, here is the answer. We’ve ended up in so sort of a love triangle!"
Lancelot lifted his gaze then, studying the shadows on the opposite wall. His expression was calm, but there was a sharpness beneath it, sothing watchful and calculating. "Choosing her is one thing. But making her choose us is another."
No one disagreed to that simple problem.
If Mira had never been with anyone, then making her fall for them would have been easier. But she was not untouched by feeling. She was not a blank slate waiting for fate to be written upon her.
Whatever existed between her and Aron Mast had not been imagined or simply rumoured.
"Even though she seems to be in love with Aron Mast, the attraction she feels to us is not simple. She is curious. We need to use her curiosity and seduce her so that she would choose us."
Zai snorted at that. That was easier said than done. They would have to be fools to not understand Aron Mast and Lord Stav’s intentions in letting them witness the scene. Their ssage to them was clear. Choose Shiqi Stav or get soone whose heart belonged to another.
"If her heart belongs to another so be it. We will use her body. She is yet untouched. Whatever feelings she has for Aron Mast, they are still platonic and have not acted on them. That itself gives us an advantage. We can be ruthless. We will use her body against her so that she would eventually choose us."
As Kaelyn suggested the plan which was not too ethical, Zai wondered if they were doing the right thing. However, Lancelot’s next words, sealed their decision.
"If Mira is the right mate for us, then she will belong to us eventually. Love alone cannot undo fate. As for being defeated by Aron Mast. He needs to be shown that defeating us is not so easy."
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