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She was so disappointed.  The beautiful boy was a bully.  He was just like the vast majority of the men surrounding her.  She felt like weeping.

It was one thing to know he’d never look her way.  Never love her.  But, at least, before her encounter with him in the hallway, she could still dream.  She could be confident that a good man did exist.  And she could believe that maybe somewhere there was a plain boy dreaming of meeting a plain girl.  

Who was she kidding?  Men didn’t want plain girls.  They wanted a ravishing beauty.  And, apparently, a silent, demure one too.  

But that wasn’t her.  She was too much of a fighter.  At least, when her heart was involved.  She would have allowed herself to be hurt.  If she could have saved him from harm.  

She hadn’t even thought of herself when she’d rushed to his aid.  Her heart had jumped into her throat when she’d seen him surrounded by those two menacing strangers.  Not one thought of self-preservation had entered her plain head.  She’d just wanted to rescue the beautiful boy.  

Who had turned out to be such a disappointment.

She couldn’t believe he’d held that broomstick against her throat, like she needed a demonstration that men were stronger than women.  Did he think she was a complete idiot as well as a frump?

Jina headed back to her room to try to sleep.  So much for watching out for him when he was on duty.  She’d stop sacrificing her sleep to protect him.  

As she laid her head on her pillow, a single tear escaped her eye to trail down her temple on its way to her ear.  Why couldn’t she just have one beautiful hero?  One sweet boy who would turn his lovely smile on her and woo her with his magnificent eyes?

—

Jungkook returned to his post outside the king’s door.  The mess had been cleaned up.  The prisoner taken away.  The dead body disposed of.  But, still, there was a loose end as far as Jungkook was concerned.  That silly girl who had put herself in harm’s way to protect him.  And who was still convinced that he had needed her help.  

An absurd notion!

No girl had ever before helped him.  Except Mari.  But that didn’t count.  That wasn’t in battle.  She’d just bandaged his knee.

He had never had a girl’s help to defeat an opponent.  And he wasn’t about to start needing her help, either!  So what if he’d been facing two men?  If the odds had been set against him?  

He’d fought valiantly in the war as an adolescent.  Now that he was nearly seventeen, he’d become an even more impressive warrior.  Not that he thought of himself that way.  He knew that men who thought too much of their fighting prowess usually went on to lose a battle.  But he didn’t need assistance from a girl.  Especially not from a tiny scrap of a girl.  

And plain, to boot!  

He wouldn’t have even noticed her if she hadn’t inserted herself into the middle of his drama tonight.

A better question was: why had she been roaming the hallway outside the king’s chambers after three in the morning?  Shouldn’t she have been in the women’s quarters, asleep?  The girl seemed to have been looking for trouble.  Jungkook wondered what she’d been hoping to find.  Clearly, she’d gotten more than she’d bargained for.