The Masked Alpha leaped out of the garden of thorns easily and landed right in front of Zircon who had been standing on guard at the entrance.
Zircon quickly kneeled in front of his Alpha, and nervously said, "Your Majesty, m-my apology for carrying Her Grace like that—"
"No need to apologize," the Masked Alpha interrupted. "She's not her anyway."
Zircon lifted his head out of surprise. He saw the indifference in his Alpha's eyes, but still couldn't believe what he said just now.
"Your Majesty, Her Grace has—"
"And you don't need to refer to her as Her Grace anymore. Just call her Odette or Lady Odette, or whatever you want," the Masked Alpha added. "She has my mate's original face, eyes, and voice. But she has a far different personality."
"But—"
"I've checked her in private. She is not my mate," the Masked Alpha repeated his sentence, which turned into an irrefutable statement.
Since His Majesty said so, then that would be the truth.
"Then, does that mean we shouldn't treat her honorably anymore, Your Majesty?" Zircon asked solemnly. He felt a burden in his heart. He didn't want to harm Odette, but eventually, they were all tied to His Majesty. So, his order was absolute and irrefutable.
Since His Majesty has 'rejected' this fake incarnation of their beloved queen, then so be it.
…
"Treat her as an honorable lady. Give her the best treatment and protection we can give. Let her learn magic, medicine, and the military at her wish. I'm still responsible for bringing her here after all," the Masked Alpha ordered before he leaped again and disappeared.
"Understood, Your Majesty…" Zircon replied after His Majesty had left. He got up and turned towards the entrance of the garden of thorns. "Your Grace—no, Lady Odette, I'm so sorry…"
Zircon decided to wait for a while before escorting Lady Odette back to her room since she must've been shocked after being 'rejected'.
*
There was a knot in the Masked Alpha's heart that made him itch and frustrated.
Like the rest of his subjects, he also had a hollow heart. But he could still feel unease, though very rarely.
The absence of a heart only made him and the rest of his subjects immortal, but they were still beastmen with emotions.
Even so, he had always been fearless and cold—being an omnipotent power for thousands of years made you eventually numb and less prone to be controlled by emotion.
Yet, the knot in his heart felt very uncomfortable, especially when he told Odette that she was not her.
No, even before that, he was already uneasy seeing Odette's face and somehow got irritated seeing her getting carried by Zircon on his back. It was so intimate that it made him angry.
No doubt, his irritation was caused by Odette's likeness to his original fated mate from thousands of years ago. Odette had her face, her scent, her voice.
Over thousands of years, there had been countless attempts of women being sent to the castle in an attempt to fool him.
Those women acted just like his mate, dressed up like her, and somehow were able to imitate the scent of his beloved on their nape, probably with magic.
But none of them knew about the crescent mark on the back, which would be hard proof of their bond, and he always used that mark to identify his fated mate's incarnation over thousands of years.
Unfortunately, Odette didn't have that birthmark, and her personality was also far different.
All of his fated mate's incarnations in the past, ninety-nine of them, never had any affinity with medicine or magic, but was great with the military despite being female. They weren't soft despite their soft facial features.
They were all stubborn, and could be condescending at times, unlike Odette who had affinity with medicine and sincerely wanted to help her fellow pack members even if she had to work tirelessly to cure them all.
'She is not my mate. So, how come I felt uncomfortable when I rejected her last night, and just now?'
That question lingered inside his mind. The more he thought about it, the tighter the knot in his heart became, suffocating him.
Thus, he decided to set those ridiculous thoughts aside and focus on searching for the 100th incarnation of his fated mate.
'Where are you, my beloved? Why are you avoiding me?' the Masked Alpha lamented. 'Please come home soon. It's getting difficult when there's a fake woman with your scent, your voice, and your face in our kingdom.'
**
The knot in Odette's heart was getting uncomfortable. There was zero reason for her to feel down when His Majesty showed his indifference since they had zero connection other than him being her benefactor.
Yet, she couldn't deny the sadness in her heart. Her eyes began to glaze with tears again as she felt like crying.
'Why should I cry anyway? I don't understand myself,' Odette questioned herself, but couldn't win against the torrent of emotion inside her. She decided to sit on a bench and started sobbing softly.
Odette wiped her tears from time to time, continuously blaming herself for crying for no good reason.
As she started to calm down, her gaze cleared up, and she finally took a good look around the center of the garden as a way to distract herself.
Unlike the dangerous maze, the center of the garden was safe because there were no jutting thorns on the ground.
There were many black roses around the shrubs in the center, but what took her attention the most was a statue in the middle.
It was a statue of a wolf and a swan. The swan was sitting on the wolf's back, spreading its wings majestically.
The statue was made out of marble, and it was covered with dangerous ivy with thorns and black roses.
Yet, despite the scary thorns, Odette still found the statue of swan and wolf to be pleasant to look at.
"Beautiful," Odette murmured.
'I know, right? Ah, what a beautiful statue. It's a shame he didn't take care of it,' someone said next to Odette on the bench.
Odette's body stiffened instantly.
She turned around slowly and saw nobody sitting next to her.
Odette thought that she must've been hearing ghosts or spirits. She had heard a few scary stories about them until a small, yellow duckling suddenly appeared out of thin air and sat next to her on the bench.
'And you, sweetheart, don't cry, okay? He's so mean. Ugh, I should've taught him better!' the duckling spoke with the voice of a motherly woman.