The Duke's Daughter Is A Villainess (27)

"Restrain her." Lucas barked to the other knights that had followed him.

The two other knights that came after they also heard Dahlia scream scrambled to pin Anna to the ground, making sure she couldn't escape or make a fuss.

Lucas slowly approached Dahlia. Though she seemed a bit out of it and flinched when she initially saw him getting closer, once she realised who he was she threw herself into his arms and began to sob uncontrollably into his chest.

Stiffening for a moment at first in surprise, eventually he relaxed and gently stroked her back, trying his best to comfort her though he had no idea what to say. What could he say? He only caught the last part of what Anna was saying, but he heard enough for his blood to run cold. Everything he thought about the Edwin family was clearly nothing but a lie. It turned out that the mother and daughter pair were really insidious.

Eventually Dahlia passed out from exhaustion and went limp in Lucas' arms. He sighed as he picked her up, and then brought her back to the room she usually stayed in before he called for the prince.

As soon as the prince heard what had happened he sent an urgent message to the duke and then called for a doctor. Lucas then informed him that he had Anna locked in a small room with a couple knights and Noah quickly made his way there.

He tried to question Anna on her motives and what happened, but it seemed as if she went mad. She just kept saying "It's all that girl's fault!!! If it wasn't for Dahlia then the prince would be Alice's!!!! We would be royalty!!! But that stupid girl had to get in the way!!!!" and didn't react to anything that the prince said to her.

Hearing what happened and what Anna kept saying over and over, Noah began to believe that from the beginning Alice had approached him with ulterior motives. Listening to what Anna thought of him and Alice, he thought it would make sense that she would teach those things to her daughter, and then Noah thought himself an idiot for falling for such a trick.

In both Lucas' and Noah's eyes Alice was now a despicable and ruinous woman.

In the mean time, the duke had hurried over and was nervously sitting by Dahlia's side. She had just been involved in a fire and now this? More and more he seemed to entertain the idea of simply locking Dahlia inside permanently so that no harm could come to his daughter.

Thinking that, he harshly called for Zeke to come out.

"What were you doing while my daughter was suffering?" The duke asked, his voice low and his eyes dark.

Even under this kind of gaze, Zeke did not show a sign of fear or intimidation. "You ordered me to only show myself if it was an emergency, Sir."

"Is this not an emergency??? My daughter almost died at the hands of a madwoman!!!!"

"I could see that the knights were going to arrive in time to save her, so I didn't bother showing myself. I knew she would be fine."

The duke wanted to complain some more, and wanted to blame Zeke further, but he knew he couldn't. Zeke was right. To begin with, the definition of a shadow guard was a guard that worked in secret. Unless the straits were extremely dire, a shadow guard would not usually show itself. The duke had even ordered specifically for Zeke to be extra careful of this, as he didn't want Dahlia to be angry if she knew that he'd had someone following her secretly all this time.

Now, though? Now he thought it was foolish of him to have been worried about it, not when the price was... this.

"I'm changing my orders." The duke stated gravely. "You're to be her personal knight from now on. Everywhere she goes, you go. Never let her out of your sight."

Zeke frowned. "Sir..."

"I'll explain it to Dahlia so just... do your job. Remember who you're working for."

For a moment Zeke looked as if he wanted to argue, but then seemed to think better of it and simply said "Yes, Sir." before disappearing back into the shadows.