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But seeing how he was boiling with anger, he answered without weaving any riddles and mockery into his words, “Well, when I first stumbled upon that woman, I thought she was a beggar because she was covered in blood and dirt. She was wearing a ragged gown that was barely doing anything to cover her body. She had no shoes on. But after she took a bath, turns out, she is beautiful and has red hair.”

“Red hair...” Caspian clapped his hands as if he was waiting to hear that. And suddenly, he broke into a laughter that sounded so menacing that even Hamilton felt chills in his bones.

“W-What are you laughing about?” Hamilton sat back on the sofa and asked, “You know her?”

Caspian indignantly slammed his fists on the table, putting a huge crack on it. And he growled at his cousin again, “Do you have any slightest idea about what you did?”

“Er... No?” Hamilton had been feeling uneasy about coming to the castle today. And he had thought of sending the gift through the hands of his servants at his home. But he wanted to deliver the gifts directly to the Queen.

Seeing Caspian’s rage, he was now sure that he shouldn’t have come at all.

Caspian took a leap and landed right in front of Hamilton in the blink of an eye. In the next second, he grabbed Hamilton by his collar and shouted, “That woman was a fugitive! She ran away from Sorvando while she was being taken to the Isolation Center.”

Caspian protruded his fangs and snarled right in front of his cousin’s face, “And guess what?”

.....

Hamilton turned his head away from Caspian’s terrifying face. He was worried that Caspian would dig the fangs on his neck and tear out a chunk of his skin or do something worse.

“What?” Hamilton gritted.

Caspian clutched Hamilton’s cheeks and forcefully turned his head. And he shouted in his bone-chilling voice, “You aided that very fugitive to run away! Do you even know what she is? Do you have any idea what she did to the vampires here?”

Hamilton dared to grab Caspian’s wrists and push him away with great force.

Caspian flung back and his back got slammed on the thick stone wall of the room.

Hamilton was also a proud Heradi. The same blood was coursing through his veins. So he also shouted back at Caspian while matching the pitch of the voice, “I will know if you tell me! And I have sharp ears just like you! You don’t have to shout in my ears, dammit!”

Their quarrel was disturbed when a royal guard flung the door open and asked the King, “Is everything alright, Your Majesty?”

“It’s alright.” Caspian looked at Hamilton, who was glaring back at him and panting, and said to the guard, “Just a friendly chat with my cousin.”

When the royal guard bowed and closed the door again, Caspian took a few deep breaths and tried to speak a bit calmly, “Do you know about the werewolves?”

Hamilton gaped his mouth and stared at Caspian without uttering a word. In his mind, everything was making much more sense now.

“She’s a werewolf too?” he finally asked after sitting on the sofa and crossing his legs.

“Yes!” Caspian coldly replied. “She escaped after biting two of our guards. They would have been dead if the lads hadn’t found the medicine in time.”

Hamilton closed his eyes to contain the anger that was building up inside of him. And he mumbled while loathing himself for having helped the one who had caused harm to his kind, “But she didn’t smell like one... Else I would have never let her stand anywhere near me, let alone offer her a ride!”

Caspian sighed and looked at Hamilton. And he sympathized with his cousin, “Yeah, she hadn’t fully turned into one. So, I can’t really blame you for not recognizing what she truly is.”

Hamilton slammed his head on the backrest of the sofa and then asked, “Do you want me to go and get her? If she’s still there in the capital then I know where to find her.”

Before answering that question, Caspian questioned his cousin, just to confirm what he already knew, “You met Everard, didn’t you?”

Hamilton gave a surprised look to Caspian upon hearing that name. “You know him?”

Caspian sighed and went to sit down beside Hamilton. His brows were already twitching just by the thought of that person. “Unfortunately, he is also a friend of Anna, not just of Alexander. So, I do know who he is. And I also happened to find out what he is.”

“Ah!” Hamilton curled his upper lip in disdain and said, “I’m sorry that they are friends with him. He’s a complete arsehole. He started to show off his attitude the moment our eyes met.”

Caspian closed his eyes and grumbled, “I knew it!” He then ran his fingers through his hair and spoke what was in his mind for a while now, “I had also felt it in my bones that it was him... that black wolf... I knew that was him.”

Hamilton knitted his brows together and leaned forward. And he asked with curiosity, “What black wolf? What did he do?”

Caspian clenched his fists and said, “That woman said that she was bitten by a wolf here in Sorvando. That’s how she is turning into a werewolf. We were questioning her about that other wolf but she never opened her mouth. I had my suspicion that the intruder was him. And voila! Turns out it’s him! Else why would she go running to him after fleeing from here?”

“Uh-huh...” Hamilton was not even surprised anymore. He heaved a sigh and shrugged, “Then maybe you should thank me for giving a ride to that red wolf. Now, at least you know who had breached our walls.”

Caspian suddenly recalled what Zenon had said earlier. He had suspected that the intruder was still hiding inside Sorvando and that intruder was the one to murder those three humans.

“When was the last time you saw Everard? Was he there in Lavinya when you first reached there with that woman?”

Hamilton nodded and replied, “He was the first person to come running as soon as I stepped into the capital of Lavinya. And yes, he was still there when I left.”

Caspian darted his eyes up and down at Hamilton. His overcoat looked a little dusty so Caspian asked, “You came here without stopping at home?”

“Yes.” Hamilton rolled his eyes at Caspian and openly threw a satire, “I wanted to deliver the gifts myself. But thanks to someone, now I am regretting that decision.”

Caspian pretended to straighten the collar of Hamilton’s clothes and then asked with a slight smile on his lips, “You sure that Everard wasn’t closely following behind you? Or Ruby?”

“What? No!” Hamilton wrinkled his nose and replied, “Everard knows what I am. What we are. So he wouldn’t dare to openly follow me. And Ruby is always following him around like a little puppy.”

Caspian wasn’t surprised that Everard knew about their secret. ‘He knew about us, huh... He is a Crown Prince after all. He can easily dig out information just like how I dug out information about him. But I bet we are not a secret to them anyway. Also, now, he has Ruby!’

He pinched his chin and further thought, ‘If they are still there in Lavinya, then... they weren’t the ones behind those murders. Unless that Prince gave out an order to other wolves.’

“Why do you ask though?” Hamilton suddenly broke Caspian’s concentration. “You’re afraid he will come back again? Oh!” He slapped his forehead and said, “I forgot to ask. Why did he come here in the first place? Unlike them, we haven’t done anything to their kind. So, why the hide and seek?”

Caspian gave a mirthless smile and gritted from between his teeth, “I bet the reason for his intrusion was something a bit more personal to him.”

“Personal how?” Hamilton asked curiously.

Caspian contemplated whether or not to say it to Hamilton.

Hamilton wasn’t someone to gossip around; he didn’t have many friends, to begin with.

So, Caspian revealed, “Apparently, he fancied my wife. And that black wolf appeared in the woods soon after Anastasia’s arrival in Sorvando. I guess that wasn’t a coincidence.”

Hamilton instantly pressed his lips together in an attempt to stop himself from laughing.

“Don’t! Don’t you dare!” Caspian raised his finger and warned Hamilton.

But Hamilton burst into laughter anyway. And he mumbled while covering his mouth and laughing hard, “I’m sorry! I don’t want to laugh but I can’t help it...”

He laughed for some more and exclaimed, “Bloody hell! So our mortal enemy is after your wife?”