Queen of Mean

CHAPTER 9

"THEY ARE knights. You're making the honorable knights do the construction." Tori's deadpan voice snapped Zeno who was following her silently ever since they left the Rozenreff estate.

The moonlight was helping the knights with the construction but the torches around them aided them as well. Clad in her infamous baggy coat with her hood on, Tori was watching the construction site from the sideline with Zeno in tow.

"You are using the knights. What are you hiding?"

Tori turned to Zeno, her red eyes were taunting him. You brought me here carelessly. It only means one thing; the reason behind the plague is not here in the construction site. But what is it? Where is it?

"You can't come closer. Only authorized personnel can come here. I am breaking the rules when I brought you here." Zeno gently grasped my elbow to lead me away from the site and hid behind the Willow tree.

Tori manipulated the sway of her body to pin 'accidentally' Zeno to the tree with her body pressed to him. "Then tell me, smart sir. Why are you breaking them?" Tori looked up at his flustered face.

Are you breaking them for me? If you are indeed doing this for me, what do you expect from me?

Zeno gently let go of her which shocked Tori. She was so used to teasing Cory that she expected Zeno to act as the second prince. She expected him to be aroused like Prince Corean. But looking at him right now with his sharp cheekbones blushing like a teenager, Tori could not help but smile for real this time.

You're such a genuine person, Zeno McMillian. What pushed you to betray the House of Larat?

"I will not betray the noble faction but I will not condemn the innocent."

"So you are saying that only one must die and I'm assuming that it will be the one person that the noble faction hates." Shrugging like nothing at all, Tori linked her arms to his.

"Since I can't explore the site, why don't we explore the river that will overflow to the dried streams?"

"Wha-what? But it's late-night already, Lady Victoria!"

Smiling at him as if she did not hear him at all, Tori practically dragged the poor Zeno McMillian. Without torches to guide their way, the shrubs made it difficult for them to walk faster especially with Tori's outdoor dress. Zeno, on the other hand, was busy making way for Tori which the latter did not mind at all. She was busy observing the riverside with the little help of the moonlight.

"I don't know what I'm doing here," Zeno grumbled. His sweats covered his face while his smooth hands were pricked by thorns from removing the shrubs using his bare hands.

Tori gave him a sugary smile that was accentuated by the moonlight's glow giving her an ethereal look that stunned Zeno McMillian. "You're here because you're curious about what I'll do."

"Yes. You're right. I am curious why you're doing this when you can ask me instead to stop this."

Tori dropped her smile. "But you won't give me an answer that will satisfy me. And I'm tired of playing mind games with people right now."

The plot is rolling as we speak and even if I secured the second prince right now – I must stop that from happening again. I have hundreds of thousands of lives on my shoulder. Like me and the second prince, they existed to die in this plague for the female lead and the male lead. They're people with no names for the viewers who watched the Netflix series, but I know that they're real people with real lives and with families.