NovelEnglish
Chapter 41 Plan B It Is!
Frustrated with the entire situation with Warren and
Sophia, and with my stomach aching from eating so much. cake, I headed out into the hallway, thinking
I would have to come up with another plan. I should have known that simply baking a cake wouldn’t be
enough to get to the man‘ s heart. After all, as a king, he had a ton of chefs to do that.
Almost the second I walked out into the hallway, Theo was there waiting for me, an expectant look on
his face. “Well?” he asked me in a low whisper. “How did it go?”
“Great,” I told him. “The king and I are getting married right this very moment.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Your face said something else.”
“Okay, I failed,” I admitted, but I must have looked very upset.
That was why Theo gave me a somewhat sympathetic look. He led me around the corner where we’d
be less likely to be overheard. “What happened?”
“First of all, your brother is the king.”
“Okay, then?”
“Sophia is the one he is planning to marry.”
“Oh, right.” Prince Theo nodded like it didn’t surprise him at all.
My eyes bulged slightly as I considered that response. “You‘ re not surprised that the king would rather
marry Sophia than me? What? Do you think she’s prettier than me? Smarter? Sweeter?”
“I didn’t say any of that, Ciana,” he said, huffing a little. “Focus.”
I shook my head to clear it. “Fine, so we are going to have to come up with something else because he
seems pretty set on the fact that she is the woman for him.”
“What did you do exactly to change his mind?” Theo asked.
“What could I do? He didn’t even want to talk to me other than telling me he was going to marry
Sophia.”
“And the cake didn’t help?”
“Yes, it did,” I said, watching Theo raise an eyebrow while I completed my sentence angrily, “It helped
to fill my stomach!”
“You ate the cake?”
I thought Theo would be upset, but after only a quick. pause, he chuckled lightly. For some reason, I
felt he’d been in a fairly good mood lately. “All right, Ciana, what’s going on? You seem way more upset
than you should.”
“Do I?”
He nodded. As his intense dark gaze fell on me, all of a sudden, I just felt so aggrieved that I needed to
vent. “She even talked him into giving her a special bracelet!”
Theo arched an eyebrow in confusion. “What bracelet?”
I was in no mood to explain to him my childhood encounter with Warren, but at that moment, I saw that
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtSophia had turned the corner, walking toward us.
“Look at you. How pathetic!” Of course she would humiliate me whenever she got a chance to. She
raised her slender arm and on her wrist was my special bracelet.
“It fits my skin tone really well, don’t you think?”
“No need to rub it in my face,” I snapped back. “And I won’t give up yet. We shall see who laughs until
the end.”
Sophia sneered, “Indeed, we shall see.”
After she walked away, I turned around and shrugged.
“Well, you asked about the bracelet, and she just showed you.”
“You said Warren gave it to her?” Theo asked, seeking clarification, and I nodded.
I couldn’t quite read Theo’s expression, he seemed really shocked. But why?
He mumbled, “How did he even get it…”
“What did you say?” I asked him, confused.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” He focused back on me. “Based on what you said, it sounds to me we
should move on to plan B.”
It wasn’t my preferred way of handling this situation, but at this point, I needed to be open–minded.
“What do you have in mind?” I asked, folding my arms.
“He’s in love with Sophia in this illusional world?”
I nodded. “It definitely appears to.”
“Very well. Then we’ll make him trade her life for marrying you.” He made the statement like it was not
a big deal.
“How do we do that?”
“It’s simple. We’ll find a way to take her prisoner, hold her for ransom, and before we release her, he’ll
be forced to marry you. If the king refuses to marry you, we will kill her.”
“You and your killing people,” I said, shaking my head.
“Do you have a better idea?”
I did not. I couldn’t think of anything better, so after a few moments, I said, “No. Fine. Okay. We’ll do it
your way.”
I almost thought he was smiling, but whatever that expression was, it faded away quickly enough.
“So… when do we do this?” I asked him, hoping he had already worked the plan out. He seemed to be
very set on this plan, after all, so surely he had some ideas.
“The day of the wedding.”
“Won’t there be a lot of guards around them both at that time?” I asked him, slightly confused.
Theo shook his head. “No, there will be at the venue most likely, but we will get her here at the palace
before she is on her way to the wedding venue, which is likely going to be the royal chapel. Any royal
palaces would have tunnels and secret passages. That should make it easier for us to find her and take
her hostage without anyone detecting what we are up to.”
He did have a plan in mind alright. “How do you know that?” We hadn’t been here that long.
“I hear things.”
“All right,” I agreed. “That sounds good. But we will need to take some time to figure out the map of the
place and the terrain. We will need to make sure we have everything under control before we attempt
to take her prisoner.”
He nodded in agreement with me, and I smiled slightly, satisfied that I had come up with something that
actually contributed to the plan.
“We should have some time,” he said, thinking again. “Although I’m not exactly sure how time works
here in this realm.”
“Me neither,” I admitted. I hoped we could get all of it done and still get out in time to use the crystal to
help with the berry.
“All right. Let’s go to your chambers for some more planning.”
My chambers?
Immediately, I felt my cheeks heat up and had to look away from him. I was certain all he wanted to do
was speak about the plans we had for Sophia, but just the thought of being in my bedroom alone with
him again had my head spinning slightly. I was so out of sorts that I didn’t realize a guard was
approaching us until I heard his voice.
“Miss?” he called, and I thought that might have been the first time anyone had addressed me so
casually since I got there.
“Yes?” I said, turning to face him. “How can I help you?”
“I am to escort you to Miss Sophia’s palace right away,” he explained to me.
Confused, I turned to look at Theo. He shrugged at me.
Turning back to the guard, I asked, “Uhm… why is that?”
“You are being summoned to be the new maid for Miss Sophia, and you must report there at once,” he
said in a gruff voice.
I frowned. Sophia was not married to the king yet and she didn’t hold any more of a royal title than I did.
How could she treat me like a servant?
Then I caught Theo’s eyes, and he nodded.
He was right. We needed to figure out all of the secret tunnels and map out the palace. That would be
a great opportunity to do so.
I kept my face in a scowl so that the guard wouldn’t think I was happy about it, but it was actually going
to work in our favor. To prevent the guard from feeling suspicious, I sighed in an unwilling tone. “Fine. I
will go.”
The guard shook his head. “Like you had a choice.” He turned, snapping his heels together, and I
followed him, with Theo tagging along behind me.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmAs we walked, I hung back slightly so that the two of us could talk. The guard looked annoyed to have
been given this job, so I doubted he would care if I dragged my feet, so long as I was coming without
giving him too much trouble.
“Exactly what we needed,” Theo whispered.
He was right, of course. And if I could get Sophia to trust me, that would make it even easier for us to
take her hostage.
While we were making our way through the palace to a much smaller, beautiful little house set off in the
distance, Theo took careful note of everything that was around us. I did, too, including where the
guards were positioned, how many there were, and how attentive they seemed to be.
After a few minutes, the guard escorted us inside Sophia’s palace. I was surprised that she was
already there. I figured she’d be back in the king’s quarters…
“There you are, girl!” she barked at me. I tipped my head to her, hard as it was, trying to be respectful.
“Now that you are no longer favored by the king, I will teach you some humility! It will be your job from
now on to wait on me- hand and foot!”
I did my best to look upset by this information. As much as I didn’t want to serve the brat, if she sent me
on errands, it
would actually help me get the palace mapped out sooner. But I was too optimistic.
“Now, the first thing I will need for you to do is to go out to the garden!” Sophia swung her arm around
dramatically and pointed out at the garden, which was visible through the window.
It was gorgeous, full of beautiful red rose bushes and other flowers.
“What would you like for me to do in the garden?”
“Silence!” she shouted her nose in the air. “You will not speak to me unless I speak to you first!”
“Yes, miss,” I said.
“I just said not to speak to me!”
“Unless you speak to me first,” I reminded her. “Which you have.”
She narrowed her gaze at me, and I thought I heard Theo snicker, but he was standing far behind me,
trying to remain unnoticeable.
“You will pick the roses for the wedding ceremony,” she instructed me. “And you will not come back in
until we have enough for all of the bouquets, table decorations, and the arrangements on the stage.”
“Yes, miss,” I said. “How many do you need? Two, three dozen?”
“Thirty–three,” she replied, and I nodded in understanding. That seemed easy enough. “Dozen.”
My mouth dropped open. “Thirty–three dozen?”
Her grin widened into a snarl, showing off her pointy canines. “Yes. Three hundred ninety–six roses to
be exact. De–thorned.”
“Great,” I murmured, swallowing the lump in my throat.
I wasn’t going to have time to investigate how to pull off our plan–I was going to be picking roses for the
rest of my life.
I turned to look at Theo, but I couldn’t tell if he was angry… or amused.
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