The Crown's Entrapment

To her surprise, Xenia managed to counter the King without so much as a stutter. In fact, it went so much better than she expected that she actually wanted to congratulate herself, seeing how the King seemed to cower embarrassingly at her words.

Suddenly, she felt grateful for all the time she spent hanging out with her brother, the knights, and the soldiers. It was because of them that she was able to pull off such an answer, something that sounded good enough to be seen as common to the usual manly banters after practice in the training grounds.

On the other hand, Darius's face turned flaming red at the feeling of indignation. He had never felt this embarrassed in his entire life! Pursing his lips, he silently cursed his luck as Zeus laughed hard at Xen's direct challenge to the King.

"Enough of this."

Having had enough, he abruptly grabbed his clothes from Xen, who looked wholly unaffected by his naked body unlike before. With a wave of his arms, he quickly covered his lower body to hide his erection.

Surely, his manhood wouldn't react in such a way for no valid reason! Logically, his wolf must be correct, seeing as the only explanation for why his manhood would be erect like this whenever he was with Xen, would be that Xen was actually a woman.

Darius was about to put on his clothes when he noticed how Xen's gaze constantly darted towards one particular spot. Frowning, he let out a short breath as an idea suddenly sprang up for him to test the lad a bit more.

"It looks like you've healed faster from your disorder upon seeing a naked body, Xen. You're probably getting used to me, and like I assumed, I could be your way of healing completely," Darius bluntly called out.

"If that's the case, come and help me get dressed already. And by the way, my manhood rarely stands at full mast like this, so I do wonder why it's even reacting this way…"

Seeing Xen's face turn red, he smirked at the small victory he earned for himself. Pressing his advantage, he lifted an eyebrow as he called for him again, "I said come here and help me get dressed, Xen."

As if in a trance, Xenia snapped back to reality at the sound of Darius's persistent voice.

Filling her lungs full of air, she prepared herself for another round of probing and subtle jabs. She shouldn't lose to this arrogant king, so she puffed up her chest and walked towards him, making sure that her eyes would no longer gaze at his massive… manhood as she leveled her gaze.

However, even in her thoughts, she was getting rather uncomfortable from mentioning his huge… thing… She wondered if that was the normal size for men, but a part of her could tell that Darius's manhood seemed far too much.

Gulping, the incognito princess quickly shook her head to erase the perverted thoughts from her mind as she walked towards him. Staring at him, she unceremoniously grabbed his clothes and began assisting him in clothing himself.

With each movement, it became increasingly obvious that it was a struggle for Xenia. Every time their skin brushed against each other, a part of her burned in ways she couldn't describe, and it was utterly confusing since she was familiar with the company of men in her kingdom. Why hadn't she experienced something like this from any one of them?

'Maybe because the men in our Kingdom are properly dressed, unlike this brute?' Xenia inwardly reasoned out her feelings as she quickly put on Darius's cape.

With a motion of her arms, she almost hugged him by his back as she tried her best not to meet his intense gaze with her eyes. Yes, she could still see his flaming eyes from the corner of her own vision, and it was getting so bothersome that she was having a hard time acting normally. Her stomach also started feeling weird, and…

'Snap out of it!' With a frown, Xenia quickly finished what she was doing and immediately stepped back.

Mentally shaking her head, she turned around and said, "We should start moving, Your Majesty. I believe we are still in danger, right? Seeing as you hastily shifted just now."

"Yes, we are," King Darius, who was now walking beside her, replied. "Still, we have a bit of time."

Half-heartedly listening to the King, Xenia just now finally managed to calm her weird body, the King cooperating with her as they talked about more pressing matters.

"The wolf saw an army from the Kingdom of Helion approaching. I believe that a particular army inside the forest intends to camp near the border of the Kingdom of Ebodia," King Darius explained.

"With this, I can only assume that Helion's next target is eventually Ebodia. They'll attack just before the wedding to prevent the alliance, while also taking advantage of the general lack of security. I've already relayed this information to my knights traveling with us, and have also assigned Gideon and Bartos to shapeshift and travel ahead of us to pass on this information to the King of Ebodia."

Xenia's body froze. An attack on their kingdom?

"We must hurry," she unconsciously uttered as she walked faster… No, she practically ran through the vast forest, not even knowing whether or not she was on the right track. This was bad. This was what her father feared the most; being attacked while being horribly unprepared.

In the distance, another howl echoed from the wolves, making Darius's face darken as he looked beyond the horizon. Moving quickly, he shifted into his wolf-man form as he ran after Xen. Without warning, he then scooped Xen up, lifting him into his arms like a sack of grain as he kept on running.

"Eep!"

Xenia yelped as she was caught off-guard by the action. However, she recognized that it was His Majesty who carried her in his arms

"We're in danger, Xen," he growled out. "They've managed to track us."