Language

Hugo closed the headgear on Thea's hoodie, spontaneously grabbed Thea's tiny hand, and looked back intently into Thea's blue iris with his flaming wolf eyes. 

"Come with me, or stay and let yourself be caught by Benedikt Braun's surrogates?"

"Close your eyes as if you are fainting." Hugo continued decisively.

Hugo carried two bodies on both his shoulders. He placed them in the back seat of his car after successfully avoiding the press and the bodyguards he suspected to be Benedikt Braun's surrogates.

"What are you planning, Hugo?"

Hugo almost jumped up and even hit the door while fastening a seatbelt on Marc's body on Thea's right side.

Hugo let out a long groan. "I'll take you home and then take this man to our elder's house."

Thea frowned. "For what?" She asked curiously.

Exhaling his heavy breath, Hugo again replied, "To secure the alpha; the prince who lost the war, which you have freed from the curse."

"The alpha? The prince? You mean— he—?" Thea looked at Hugo and Marc, unconscious on her right side in shock.

Hugo gave Thea a nod. "He… Is… Marc Sterling Gray."

"Gosh!" 

Hugo pressed the accelerator, bringing himself along with Thea as well as Marc through the streets of Freibruck City. Now and then, he noticed the cars behind him through the outer mirror on his left side and the inner mirror while watching Marc and Thea, who were busy observing. Marc had to stare too flatly—it couldn't be read, let alone guess what she was thinking when looking at the unconscious alpha on her right side.

"By the way, I'm curious about something," Hugo again struck up the conversation, melting a bit of long silence between them during the trip. "I just learned you can speak the Traditional Xaera Language, which has been almost forgotten by almost the entire population of this country."

Thea turned her gaze on Hugo. Returned Hugo's gaze through his reflection in the inner rearview mirror. With a frowning forehead, Thea asked, "Me? Speak the Traditional Xaera Language?"

Hugo took the time to return Thea's gaze through his reflection, then nodded. "You talk to the alpha with that language,"

"Didn't you also reply to the alpha's remarks with that language?"

"Oh? When I threatened him to let you go?"

Thea's right eyebrows were raised. Amazed. "Did you say such a thing?"

"Of course," he retorted spontaneously. "Although I'm a jerk. I still care about you. As long as you know. And by the way, you heard it wrong, Thea. "

"So...?" Thea nodded as she looked away, staring at the blackness of the Blue Brock River stretched along the bridge they were on.

"By the way, don't you intend to answer my question, Ilaria?"

Thea clucked in annoyance. She didn't like Hugo calling her by a middle name. To her, the name sounds special. For the name was a gift from her late father, and she said that name he took from the name of the late Queen Xaera who died in the war 1122 years ago. Queen Ilaria Isobel Xaera Gray. Thea had already made a rule for herself. She only allows people she thinks are extraordinary to call her by middle name.

Thea took the time to turn her head, cast her cynical gaze at the reflection of Hugo's right eye in the deep rearview mirror, then again gave all her attention to the end of the river they had just left, as they were again driving over the bridge.

"I could never say anything in that language," Thea explained. "Esme often taught me. But I've always ignored it. I don't like the pronunciation of every sentence of it."

"Because it sounds like hanging sentences?"

Thea just nodded. The atmosphere in the car was silent for quite a while until they arrived in front of the two twin buildings of the Glass Stone Chateau; where Thea lived.

"We're here," Hugo ended the long silence between them.

Hugo twisted his body 45 degrees back, looking at Thea who was still glued to where she was sitting. "You can go down by yourself without me needing to open the door, right? I have to rush to take the alpha to the house of the elders before the alpha awakens."

Resolutely Thea shook her head. Ignoring all of Hugo's remarks. Thea's blue iris looked so deep when it came to Hugo.

"Please just take him to my apartment," Thea commanded. "I want to hear the alpha tell me everything. Esme can translate what he said for me. For all of us."

"I have to bring him—"

"To the home of those elders of yours? For what? To hear the alpha's story too, right? Then, afterward? What are you going to do to him? Hm?"

"Thea—"

"Let him stay with us. At least until I know everything I want to know."

Hugo let out a long breath. Without saying anything, he moved from the front, then again lifted the alpha's body and carried it into Thea's apartment according to her request earlier.

There was no one in Thea's apartment. almost the entire room was dark, except for the living room that was left on. Julien and Esme left a note that they deliberately posted on the living room table.

Don't sleep late. The top line on the note is Julien's writing. Her uncle affixed an angry emoticon at the end of the sentence. Thea held back a laugh reading every syllable Julien made with his ugly writing.

There is food in the refrigerator. Warm it up and eat the soup after taking a shower. Thea smiled reading the rows of sentences in the second and third lines, which she recognized as Esme's writing. It is written so neatly.

"Dumm femme! Vous actes brengen plagen fur entier mensheid!" Marc suddenly jumped off Hugo's shoulder—grabbing Thea's tiny body, then cornering her on the couch while strangling her neck.

Marc curses Thea in Xaera Traditional Language. Stupid girl! Your deeds bring havoc to all mankind.

No one understood Marc's words. Hugo could only pull Marc away and returned the punch after punch that Marc had first thrown. Chaos is inevitable. Tables and ornate shelves even collapsed as the two men hit each other and cornered each other.

Thea, who had been just sitting still and catching her breath, ventured to grab the baseball bat she had placed in the corner of the room, just at the end of the sofa she had been sitting on since just now. Slowly Thea got up and hit the two men until both of them fell. Soon Thea grabbed the cell phone from inside her trouser pocket, called Julien, and asked him to come over.

While waiting for Julien to arrive, Thea brought two chairs from the dining table in the kitchen, seated Marc and Hugo, and then tied them up firmly. Thea spontaneously cried at Marc's side. Thea hugged her knees, buried her head between the two thighs, and let her sobs unceremoniously.

"Thea? What happened?"

Julien, who had just arrived, immediately walked up to his niece. Julien helped Thea get up, sat the girl on the couch while circulating his gaze to every corner of the room, then gave all his attention to Marc who seemed so unfamiliar to him.

"Hugo and this strange man hurt you?" asked Julien again, looking at Marc fixedly.

With her eyes wet, Thea looked up. Staring at Julien with a residual sob that she never once showed in front of anyone.

"Are there any injuries on your body?" Julien continued with another question.

Thea shook her head, and she said, "This... It hurts a lot more than a wound, Julien."

"What was that?"

Thea's cries broke out. She raised her legs on the sofa, buried her face again, and cried silently. Only her shoulders seemed to be ups and downs and sobs that she couldn't hide in the slightest.

"Thea? Tell me, what made you cry like this?" Julien asked again. He sweeps his face with a rough sweep. Frustrating. 

For Julien, this was the first time he witnessed Thea cry like that after so long. After so many years. He and Esme saw Thea cry for the first and last time when both her parents—their brother died in an accident.

"Should I finish off these two men for you, Thea?" Julien didn't give up on getting answers.

The spontaneous raise the gaze. Staring at Julien while wiping away the remaining tears that moistened her face. "Don't!" said Thea loudly. "Even if you beat them, things won't be able to go back to the way they were."

"What do you mean, Thea?"

"This is... look at it..." Thea replied with a gasp. "They destroyed it."

Julien began to lose his temper. He scratched the back of his head, which didn't feel itchy at all. Throwing away his heavy breath and sweeping his gaze across every corner of the room, Julien retorted, "What are they— gosh! So, that's what made you cry, Thea?"