Don't Come to Wendy's Flower House

She noticed a tiny bee hanging around the bursting buds between the rose vines. Melissa was warily watching the bee’s movements tapping its lips over the buds.

Wendy held back her laughter at that.

The grass, full of the vitality of spring, was growing soft, so they stepped on it lightly.

They were about to turn a corner that meandered like a maze.

Wendy was as excited as a child dancing with the spring breeze. Some sort of vague anxiety turned into a small heartbeat and swept through her body, but she quickly forgot it like the passing wind.

At least she felt like that until she noticed several knights walking from the opposite side.

She stopped breathing. Something crumbled from her heart. A buzzing bee hovered all over her ears.

She could immediately recognize him among the five or six Imperial knights. As if he found her first, he was watching her with a hardened face.

Soon his expression was distorted, “Olivia.”

He called the name feebly, as if he let out the breathing that he had been holding. The other knights standing beside him did not hear his subdued voice, but Wendy could hear it clearly.

He called her name.

Dylan Lennox called her name.

Her heart was pounding violently. She felt dizzy. She felt like the earth, the sky, the rose bush were all shaking. Wendy turned her back, gasping for breath.

“Wendy? …Ah, Wendy! ”

Surprised by Wendy’s strange behavior, Melissa called her, but there was no chance Wendy heard it. Wendy turned and began to run. Trying to pull herself together, she tried to run as fast as she could, with her heart pounding hard.

She now realized she was foolish. She was paying the price for her sentimental musical experience at Jerus Hall. She should have left the place the moment she saw Dylan at Jerus Hall. She should not have come to this place without the veiled hat to protect herself. She thought how foolish she was, assuming she erased her past self completely and forgetting she had been walking on a tightrope without expecting to meet Dylan Lennox again.

“Oh my God!”

At that moment, Dylan grabbed her by her arms with a strong force. Stopped by that power, she was roughly turned back. Her disheveled hair ran down her earlobes.

He was looking at her face with his blue, cool eyes. His wild breathing passed over her face like the wind.

“Olivia…”

He called her old name desperately. Her whole body began to shiver as if that were a spell.

“…You stopped the wrong person… Let me go, ” she said softly, holding her messy dress.

Although she spat it out with all her might, there was no chance that he would believe it.

“You don’t know how desperately I’ve been looking for you… ”

Dylan couldn’t bear to speak and distorted his expression. His wounded heart was reflected in his gaze, but she got enraged at that.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

“Please let me go.” Wendy said with a suppressed voice.

Her eyes were sore.She couldn’t do anything as if her legs were stuck in mud up to her knees.

“Why did you disappear without saying anything or without hearing my explanation? Why… ”

He spoke as if he was letting out the breathing he was holding back. His eyebrows wiggled suddenly. He looked into her eyes as if he was distressed.

Wendy couldn’t respond. All the emotions that had been firmly frozen deep down for the past two years were thawed and brought to the surface, which then turned into a sharp dagger to pierce her throat.

She felt like she tasted blood in her mouth. She felt like throwing up.

“Olivia…”

He called that name again. Wendy shook her head.

‘Don’t call me by that name!’

Her bright yellow hair was scattered like crushed petals.

At that moment, Dylan flinched and looked behind her.

Someone with a cool aura touched her shoulders with a strong hand. He pulled away his arm and held her in his arms. Her forehead touched his strong chest. His strong voice was heard over her head.

“I clearly warned you not to show rudeness before me again…It seems like you ignored it when I said it was my last warning to you.”

It was a familiar voice. Wendy closed her eyes, resigned to the situation.

Everything was a mess.

She felt the anger in Lard’s cold hands holding her. But she felt as if that coldness was so hot as to get burned, so she hunched her shoulders.

Dylan’s eyes turned to Lard’s face. As if he lost his judgment momentarily, Dylan was looking at her held in another man’s arms with a stiff expression. There was a tremendous sense of loss in his eyes.

‘I barely found you at last. But why are you…Olivia ?!’

Dylan soon clenched his fists tightly.

“Please release her hand…”

His sense of loss soon turned into his passion.

He protested with an angry voice, “It is you who are rude now, captain! This is not a problem you can interfere with. So, please step aside.”

His fellow knights were moaning at his indignant voice while watching him at a distance.

Dylan Lennox was always polite to the senior knights. Surprised by his excessive behavior, his fellows were watching their confrontation silently.

“I have no idea how etiquette and law are defined in your mind,” Lard said with displeasure.

“This is a matter involving her and me. Don’t talk to me recklessly without knowing anything,”

Dylan spoke, barely suppressing his anger.

Dylan wanted to remove her slim shoulders from his arms right away. His mind was disturbed.

“Did you say I don’t know anything? At least I know you are a nuisance to my companion,” Lard said, after looking at the woman trembling in his arms.

“She is not the type of woman you can stop recklessly, and I’m not generous enough to overlook your rudeness.”

A strong wind blew around them, drifting away several rose leaves mixed with grains of dirt.

Tightening his grip on her, Lard said, “Do you want me to teach you each of the manners like I would teach a child? Or should I draw a sword to correct your fault? ”

It was Dylan’s fellows who were stunned by Lard’s warning.

One of them, who was familiar to Lard, quickly came forward and tried to calm down Lard by saying, “Sir Schroder, please calm down, I apologize for his rudeness to you. I’m going to discipline him hard, so he can never show this kind of rudeness again. So, please calm down.”

He was Badge Enos, the head of the 2nd Knights Division.

He bowed to Lard Schroder. He lowered his head with a serious expression.

“It looks like the lady has been surprised. Why don’t you move to a different place?” Badge said carefully.

Lard again looked down at Wendy in his arms, as if to check her condition.

As if she was nervous, she was holding his shirt.

After casting a cold glance at Dylan, Lard led her to turn back.

Melissa, standing near them and stomping her feet, soon followed the two.

As Wendy stepped out, Dylan hysterically shouted her old name, “Olivia!”

Badge held him roughly and stopped him.

Overwhelmed by fear that he would lose her forever if he let her go like this, Dylan ripped his hands off. However, he couldn’t outdo Badge, the head of the 2nd Knights Division. He quickly overpowered him.

“Stop here!” Badge shouted. “Control your mind, man! What are you going to do right now? There’s nothing good to come even if you follow her! ”

“I can’t let her go away like this!”

“If this is the woman you’re looking for, you will find her anyway. Because she is Sir Schroder’s companion, you’ll find her by all means. So, calm down first. ”

Badge told him nicely, trying to soothe him. Dylan stared at his face with trembling eyes before looking down.

After they heard a loud noise, there was whispering here and there among the participants in the ceremony in the rose garden. As if to confirm the source of the disturbance, several nobles walked toward them. Badge glanced at the knights standing with a perplexed look and told them to take Dylan somewhere else.

Leading Wendy out of the rose garden, Lard sat her on a secluded bench to escape notice. Her shoulders trembled like the bare branches swayed in the harsh wind during winter.

He hurriedly took off his jacket and covered her, but her trembling did not stop. Crouching under her loose jacket, her figure looked smaller and more slender. He felt heartbroken.

“Oh, let me go over there and check who is coming this way,” Melissa said suddenly, as if she sensed the unusual moods of the two. Looking back at Melissa’s running away, Lard couldn’t understand why she volunteered to keep watch, but he turned her eyes to Wendy.