Chapter 231 - Nickname
Evie fought for calm as she stood resolutely before him, her eyes flashing, and her fists clenched tightly at her sides. It was such a rare sight to see Zanya actually cowered before anyone like this. She could feel Zanya's extreme fear that she could not even utter a word anymore nor even make a single move.
Thankfully, the rage and danger shining in his eyes softened the moment Evie walked in front and blocked Zanya. Evie remembered that Gavriel was always like this. Whenever he was raging, he would immediately mellow down whenever she steps in. This was definitely Gavriel as his responses were even the same, and therefore the confusion within Evie kept growing.
Tiredness also suddenly swept over her. She was tired of keeping up the pretences of being all tough and strong. Now that she had found him, she thought that she could finally lower her guard and confide in him and stop acting all tough even just for a while. But with him being this way, it seems as though she had to keep holding on and maintain her façade. But for how much longer? She did not know. All she knew now was that she did not have the time to relax yet. Because she had another important thing to do now and that is to find out what was going on with her husband and what had happened for him to be behaving this way. And those electric blue eyes of his, too.
Taking a deep breath, Evie set aside all the emotions threatening to burst out from inside of her.
"Why…" Evie tried her best to swallow the tears. She had to even clench her fists as hard as she could to stop herself from jumping on him and hugging him. "Why are you doing this?" she asked, unsure if that was the right thing for her to ask at this moment. She was not prepared for this. Even if he was indeed possessed, this person's body still belonged to her husband. She could not let her guard down just because she was afraid that she might lose herself and go to him before she even realised it.
"Why? Because they are trying to stop me from getting to you." he uttered in a low voice, now taking a step closer. But Evie took a step back in response. However, what she did made him halt in his steps. His icy gaze became even colder if possible and Evie shuddered slightly within as she locked eyes with him.
That one step back was all Evie could do to put distance between them. She must not let him touch her nor get close to her, not until he returned to his normal self. She must stop listening to her heart for now because no matter how much she reasoned out all the things she felt and observed, his actions right now, especially towards his men were solid evidence unto themselves. Her Gavriel would never, ever, harm these men he had spent so much time with. So, there was no way that he would ever threaten to kill them just because he thought they were useless.
"W-what do you want?" she asked again. Evie wished she could gather her wits or better still, able to just go a little way off to have a moment for herself, to think first on what she should do or say to him.
"You." He answered without any hesitation, causing her heart to skip a beat. The worse thing was that she could not see even a tinge of malice or evil intention in his eyes.
"So…" Evie clenched her fists even harder and bit down on her lips to keep her calm. "You want me… so you could use me?" she decided to test him.
But his eyes immediately sharpened and became cold again, he even looked furious now. "Who was it that told you that? Why would you think that I'm going to use you?" he asked in a still voice yet anyone listening could tell it was as hard as flint.
"No one." Evie answered and his face became a few shades darker.
His prominent jaws clenched and unclenched in quiet rage that confused Evie even more. Then he smirked. "So, was this how you had thought of me all these time Evie… and that's why you…" he trailed off as vampire soldiers began to appear in the scene.
Evie was once again dumbfounded at what she heard. He called her 'Evie'. That has got to be Gavirel as only he would address her with that shortened name. Did she hear it right? And what? What does he even mean by what he just said?
Questions filled her eyes but before she could open her mouth to ask, Gavriel already turned his back from her and looked down at the vampires who were still laying on the ground. His dark cloak gracefully swayed with the cold breeze. And as Evie looked at his back, she did not know why but she suddenly felt like a needle was piercing her heart.
"Take all of them back to the castle." He commanded the soldiers who were surrounding them below and they all bowed as one. They began to pick Leon and Samuel up from the ground and some other soldiers also came up to the wall and slowly approached Elias and Zanya. "Put them all into the cage." He added and Evie snapped at the slightly weird Gavriel again.
"Wait!" she yelled at him and threw out her arms and hands. Before she knew it, she had grabbed onto his arm so she could make him look at her.
The soldiers were all shocked at her brave actions and the man was as well. He then slowly turned to look back at Evie before taking the few steps and loomed over her. But Evie was too focused on her comrades' safety to notice the shock in his eyes at the apparently simple thing that Evie did like grabbing at his arm. It was as if he could not believe she had reached out her hands and touched him so willingly and casually.