CHAPTER 53: TELL ME (1)

Suzie caught up with Gabriel just as he rounded the final corner to the rooms of both Ian and Shelby. The boy was too fast for his short legs.

Suzie was panting as if she had just completed a marathon. She grabbed him to a standstill.

"Ah! Let me go!" His little voice echoed in the quiet corridor.

"Gabriel!"

With the shout, he stood still, his eyes lowered.

"I didn’t do anything wrong! I just wanted to go see Mama Shelby."

"I know that, but your Mama Shelby is busy this morning, so you will have to play by yourself."

"She is busy too?"

"Who else is busy, Gabriel?" Suzie narrowed her eyes at him, getting on her knees so that she was at an eye-level with him.

Gabriel belatedly realized that he had said what he should not have.

"No one!" Then he quickly added, "Can I not really see her? Is she upset with Gabriel?"

"Of course not! She just needs some time to finish up a few details regarding your younger brother."

"I have a younger brother? Yay! Where is he?" The excitement in his voice was infectious. Suzie laughed and said, "He will be here soon enough, so you have to let Mama Shelby work on bringing him here early!"

"How would she do that?"

Suzie blushed red. "Errmmm.... Th-at, I mean, that is her secret!"

Gabriel nodded his head and turned, dragging his feet back towards his room, and Suzie slammed down, emotionally drained!

****

Back in the room, when Ian frowned as he was speaking, Shelby mentally slapped herself,

’He is supposed to have a fever. There is no need to be upset about what he is saying; these are all the truth and nothing I am unaware of. Even if my feelings are hurt, I know I have no right to be like this. I only came here for a contract and nothing else. What is even wrong with me? I should not be making a sick person go through a conversation like this!’ She thought, removing the covers from her with one thought only,

’I need to feel his temperature. Maybe the bath also helped.’

But just as she reached out to feel his forehead, she saw Ian lean back and out of her reach. He had flinched instinctively, and that caught her off-guard. She moved from her crawling position and onto her knees right in front of him, determined to complete her task.

However, when she stretched out her hand again, Ian grabbed her hand painfully and brought it up to his face; specifically, he was studying her ring intently. She squeezed her face at the flash of pain and let out an "Ah-!"

Her voice got caught in her throat, pain all forgotten at the astonishment on his face.

"How did this happen?" He whisper-shouted in apparent shock,

"I-Ian, you are hurting me!"

She knew something was off when he loosened his hands but still did not let her go. He stared so intently at the ring on her finger that she was perplexed.

"You already know that I am your wife, so why are you surprised at the ring I am wearing as if you have never seen a ring before?"

She snapped as she tried to retrieve her hand, but he would still not let go.

"Y-ou don’t see it?"

"See what? The ring?"

Ian studied her face and noticed that she really did not see what he did see.

"This!" He said, moving the ring up a bit to show the tattoo nestled underneath it.

"The tattoo?"

"What tattoo?" He asked,

"Isn’t that what is on my hand?"

Ian moved their held hands a little into the shadow cast by the drape in the room.

"You still don’t see it?"

Shelby was starting to get upset. He was acting hot and cold. One minute, he said that he did not want her, he kissed her another minute, and then he was now talking about her ring and tattoos as if she had a ghost wound around her fingers.

But then she looked closely and saw the faint marks on his ring finger, and then it dawned on her.

"Oh, you also had a tattoo on your finger? Did you do that with Aliya? But why are you surprised at mine to react this way? To be frank, I don’t remember when I got it. It just appeared after our encounter in the park after that day..."

Ian’s head started buzzing.

’After that day! What happened? This was not supposed to happen at all. I don’t think so. How could it!’

He looked at Shelby’s ring finger and his, which had matching glowing, pulsing rings. It looked like she could not see them yet. He noted her puzzled look and the questions she had asked.

The conversation he had with his shadow in the bathroom now all made sense, but as to how this had happened, he had no idea.

[Your majesty, you know that we do not have any control over anything around you. The girl was chosen here by your mother. For that to have happened, it required your explicit permission. We could not have had a hand in this at all. It was all you.

Ian had narrowed his eyes at the man, and the man nervously shifted his feet. "You are the only one who can find the answer to that because you are the one who brought her here."]

Then, Ian had been very angry that he had not had the answer he sought. Also, he felt that his legs were being pulled because he had barely stepped foot out; how could he have invited an unknown girl into his home when he was hung up on another, but looking at the glaring evidence before him, he could not refute the thoughts.

"You see a tattoo?"

"Of course! What else is there?"

"That means that you have not been enlightened yet. You still have normal sight." He blurted out.

"Huh? What does that mean?"

He ignored her question and sought to get to the bottom and find out how he ended up bound to a girl he did not know.

"Can you tell me about what you remember from that day we met?" Ian asked as he could not seem to match what was in his mind to the ’evidence’ on their fingers.

*********

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