Chapter 317: The Truth Beneath

Orion nodded. He hated that Holly did something like this.

"She feels like we are not to be speaking with her and that we are below her. I know I was wrong for pointing a sword at her, but she was giving off this intent that if I hadn’t stepped in, she would have hurt my sister," Laia told him.

Joren nodded. "I saw it too. She hated that you left, and maybe that’s why she took it out on us."

Orion’s fingers curled slowly against the desk.

"Did any of you report this?" he asked.

Laia hesitated. "No."

"Why?"

"Because we really didn’t see the point. No one was hurt, so there was no point in reporting the issue," Nia told him.

Before Orion could speak up, the door opened and Holly walked in.

Orion took her in. Her brown eyes were expressive and she had a smile on her face. She scented different, like she had used something to make her smell sweet and attractive, but the smell made Orion almost throw up. He gestured at Garrett to open the windows wider, and Garrett did so.

"Orion," she said as she walked into the room.

Orion observed her. She was dressed differently, not like the trainee she was. She was wearing a gown, and a generous amount of cleavage was exposed.

It was like she hadn’t taken note of the other people in the room. She sashayed towards Orion, but then Garron’s voice made her pause.

"What are you doing?" he asked her.

Her eyes narrowed at him immediately. "What are you doing here?" she asked him.

"I called him here," Orion replied calmly. "And you were summoned about twenty minutes ago, but you are just walking in, without even knocking at that," he told her.

Holly smiled at him. Orion, at that point, wondered how his teenage self had thought Holly was pretty. She didn’t even hold a candle to Sophia’s beauty, even with the hair that looked like it didn’t quite suit her.

"Well, I had to look good for you, which is why I took more time. I wouldn’t want to look like a slave when you summoned me," she told him.

Orion closed his eyes briefly. The fact that she was telling the truth irritated him more than he cared to admit.

"I would not care if you looked like a slave, Holly. If I summon you, telling you that you need to stop whatever it is you are doing, then you listen to my summons. That’s it, no fucking excuses," he told her firmly.

"But I..."

"I don’t need your excuses, Holly. Stand where the others are," he told her, pointing towards Nia and the others.

Holly turned, and her gaze took on that of irritation when she saw the other people in the office with her. She hated that they were here with her.

"I should stand with them?" she asked him, disgusted.

"Did I stutter?" Orion asked her.

Holly huffed, then stood at the exact point where Orion had pointed.

Nia smirked at that. Joren coughed to cover his laugh, while Laia had a smug smile on her face. Holly, who had once thought she was above them, was now on the same level with them. She wasn’t special, and she was going to get the same treatment as they did.

"Now that you finally agreed to grace me with your presence, tell me what exactly happened at the training grounds the day you decided to join the shortswords group," Orion told her.

Holly gave the other three a look. "What did they tell you?" she asked Orion. "The only thing we did that day was train, and I’m still mad that you refused to train me," she said with a huff.

It was supposed to be cute, but it made Orion feel disgusted instead.

"I refused to train you because you don’t know boundaries. But that’s not what I’m asking. There was a disagreement that day, and I want to know what happened. I want to hear your version of the story," he told her.

"Come on, Orion. It was already resolved. You don’t need to know anything; we settled the issue already," she told him.

The ringing in Orion’s ears was immediate. It was sharp and sudden, the unmistakable feeling he had whenever someone was lying.

His gaze snapped to her, and Holly flinched a bit from how cold it was, but she quickly masked the movement, pretending like nothing happened at all.

"You of all people should know how much I hate lies, Holly," he told her.

Holly stiffened.

"I asked you a simple question," Orion continued. "I didn’t ask whether the issue was resolved or not. I asked what happened. And you avoided answering, choosing instead to lie to me about you guys resolving the issue."

Her fingers curled at her sides. She knew he hated lies. She knew that, she was his first girlfriend after all. She knew everything about him...or so she thought.

"Tell me again," Orion said, voice colder now. "What happened?"

Holly swallowed.

"There was a small disagreement between me and Nia. She wasn’t listening to me, and then things got a bit heated and..."

Orion slammed his hands on the table, and Holly went quiet immediately. He hated having the feeling when someone lied, and she was lying again.

"Stop with the lies, Holly," he gritted out, then exhaled deeply.

"That day after I left, did Nia try to teach you the basics of using a shortsword?" he asked her.

Holly swallowed.

"Answer me," Orion said calmly. The man who had slammed his hands on the table seemed to have disappeared, and he was back to his calm self.

"Yes."

"Did she also try to show you something or correct you on something, and instead of taking the correction, you told her not to get close to you?" he asked her.

Holly glared at Nia. "Yes."

"Did you belittle her, thinking she wasn’t on par with you or in any position to train you?" Orion asked her.

Holly shifted uncomfortably. "I didn’t say..."

"I’m not asking if you said so. I’m asking if you did it. Actions speak better than words, after all," he told her.