"What do you mean heal you in person?"

"Do I need to explain the meaning of every single word? To heal, meaning—"

"I fucking understand what every word means, Leon. I’m asking, what do you mean by that?"

Leon’s eyes narrow with interest. When he sought out the Princess, he didn’t expect her to react to his request with so much emotion. At first, it was a joke. He hadn’t used up all her bottled spores, that would simply be wasteful and backfire against him.

Edging her on. That was the word for it.

He wanted to see how far he could push till she snapped and did something.

Seeing the anger sparking in her lovely dark eyes, Leon knew it wouldn’t be long.

"Oh?"

Her spores were still pink.

By now, they would have flared to purple. She wasn’t pissed enough? Or she was controlling herself? Leon didn’t know the answer and he couldn’t wait to find out.

His eyes moved to her mouth again, unable to stop himself from staring. Her lips were so soft, and pink. Then he thought of Kai kissing those lips first and anger flared inside him.

"Well?" She hissed, her brows furrowed tightly. "Can’t speak anymore?"

Leon cleared his throat and looked away. He knew if he kept staring he’d do something drastic, something entirely not within his nature.

Never has he felt any attraction to Princess Orchid. His love was the Princess Lotus, not her evil, scheming younger sister.

"Consider it." He said and turned to leave.

His fists clenched so tightly he cut his palms. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

He told himself that he wasn’t feeling attraction. He would never feel attraction for that woman.

Never.

Meanwhile, Anna watched Leon leave, shocked beyond words.

"That little...he wants me to heal him? As what?"

The last time she tried, he chased her out of the cell. Mere thinking about it made her shudder.

"I should just forget about him. That’s right. He doesn’t exist to me anymore."

Huffing, she turned and waddled back to her desk. Then she realized she needed to see Tristan about getting more stones.

With another loud huff, she got up and stormed out of the office.

She found Tristan and Bella in the garage. This was the first time she’d seen the armored cars, and she wasn’t prepared for the sight that met her eyes.

Damn. Those cars look sick!

Tristan was showing Bella one of the cars when he looked up and met Anna’s eyes. Anna waved, guilt cooking in her heart. She was about to cut Bella’s trip short. But deep down she vowed to set them up again, maybe on a more romantic date.

She made her way up to them and smiled at Bella. "Hey there. You two having fun?"

Bella ducked her head, cheeks warm and flushed pink. "Yes we are, your highness."

Maybe I can become a matchmaker in this world after I’m done being a villainess.

"General," she turned to Tristan. "There’s an urgent matter we need to discuss."

Tristan quietly excused himself from Bella and followed Anna out.

"We need a new shipment of stones. The detectors and everything else in that room is damaged. All their energy sources are missing."

"Missing?" Tristan’s brow furrowed. "How so?"

"You’re the general. You tell me."

"This will require an investigation. All our outposts and garrisons suddenly sent the same reports, their devices malfunctioned. We had to recall every single one of them."

Unease settled in Anna’s stomach. "This doesn’t sound good. Those devices aren’t built to malfunction so easily. And this is...hold on, was the investigation about my assassin ever concluded?"

Tristan shook his head. "We’re still looking into it. The problem is that the detectors at that time gave the reading of an Empath."

"An Empath?" Anna asked, her heart skipping out of her chest and into her throat. "There was an Empath in the palace and no one thought to tell me?!" Her voice rose steadily, panicked, with each word.

"I’m sure General Leon didn’t want you to worry about it. He hoped to handle it himself."

"Bullshit! Did he end up handling it himself?"

"Your highness please. Even if it was possible and by some sort of dumb luck an Empath made its way into the palace, it would be dead by now."

Anna stared blankly at him.

"It shouldn’t be possible," he went on. "The barriers around the pala—"

"I know about the fucking barriers, Tristan. I built them."

"My apologies, your highness."

Anna rubbed her forehead and sighed. If there was anything her past life had taught her, it was that there always was a plot twist waiting around to happen.

Hearing that an Empath reading was found inside the palace, and directly relating to her botched assasination? She didn’t like how it sounded one bit.

"If it is possible that somehow this Empath is still in the palace," Anna turned to Tristan. "Could they have damaged all our devices to escape further detection?"

Tristan nodded. "That is highly possible. Even though Empaths can assume the form of their prey and understand them at an emotional level, they are still AI Beasts. Their frequency can be detected."

Anna groaned, rubbing her hands over her face. "This is dangerous. We’re blind right now and anything can happen."

A warm hand settled on her shoulder. She looked up to see Tristan smiling warmly at her. "There’s no need to worry yourself, your highness. What do you need for the devices?"

She scowled before slapping his hand off. "It’s not a matter of what I need. It’s just—"

"General Tristan. Your highness." A voice cut in.

Anna’s scowl deepened till it formed deep crease lines on her cheeks. She turned to Leon. "What do you want?"

Leon bowed, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "I want to have a word with the General."

"Before that, you knew an Empath got in and you didn’t tell me?"

"That has been taken care of already."

"Has it?!" Anna exploded. "And now all our devices are fried and we’re all in the dark. How is that taken care of?!"

"Calm down, your highness. There hasn’t been another attack on your life, has there?"

Anna grit her teeth till they almost shattered. "That is obviously beside the point."

"Should I give you two a minute?" Tristan asked.

"No!" Anna yelled.

"Yes." Leon replied.

Anna glared at him, wishing she could shoot a bullet out of her eye. "The empire might as well be in danger right now."

Leon grabbed his chest, his face filled with mock concern. "Oh no. That’s horrible. But alas, what am I supposed to do from the comfort of my luxury cell?"

This little...

Anna sucked her teeth and nodded slowly. "Fine. Fine. You want to come back as general? Over my dead body."

Leon grinned, flashing pointy fangs. "Don’t tempt me now, Princess."

Tristan cleared his throat loudly, making both of them turn to him.

Anna was the first to speak. "You and I need to make a trip. We need as many stones as we can get."

Tristan bowed. "As you wish, Princess."

"Stones? What happened to the ones we have?"

Anna whirled around and faced Leon. "You’d know if you were still General. Have a good day." And she stormed off, not bothering to listen any further.

Anna returned to the office, agitated and close to combusting. At this rate, it will take weeks for the devices to be back online and functioning. The stones had to be sourced, then she had to program them all over again, before putting them back into the devices.

"What am I saying weeks? Months if I’m lucky."

This matter needed to be brought before the council.

As Anna’s thoughts raced far and wide, a memory hidden deep in her mind uncovered itself.

Anna sprang to her feet and called the system. "Princess Orchid created a new kind of technology. It was supposed to be anti-AI Beasts, kill them all once and for all. Where is it?"

[I’m not allowed to say, hostie.]

"What do you mean?! We need to find it. Immediately. That could be our one final clue to—"

[I’m not allowed to say, hostie. And it isn’t your job to worry about that equipment. Focus on your task, you still haven’t broken up a councilor’s marriage.]

"That can be done in seconds. But this is far more important. Just tell me where it is. What is it?"

[I’m not allowed to say.]

Anna groaned, stomping her feet in resignation.

Princess Orchid created something huge, something that could change the course of this world forever. And then it vanished. And without a doubt, Anna knew the system knew about it.

But where could it be?

It wasn’t in the lab, Anna had checked and catalogued everything inside there.

So where is it?

Looking at the pile of work waiting for her, Anna thought that maybe she shouldn’t be worrying about that right now.

"I need to complete my task first."