Chapter 128

How provocative. “How much longer are you planning to drive me mad like this?” Rezette pressed, his teeth clenched. “When did you start plotting with it?”

“T-that’s…” Elise stammered.

“How long has it been, Elise? From the beginning?” Rezette demanded.

“Plotting? I never did anything like that. It only sought me out on its own…” Elise shook her head, regaining her composure. How humiliating it was for her intentions to be exposed before she could even summon the dragon. That he knew not only that she had drawn upon the dragon’s power but also that it had remained with her was deeply unsettling.

It was only natural for her to wonder, considering her ignorance of the complex relationship between Rezette and the dragon. Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Rezette’s brow furrowed sharply.

“It came to you, and then what? What did you do with it?” he asked, his voice laced with suspicion.

Sameshita was a dragon long lost to its mind, utterly bound to a ghost from seven hundred years ago, indiscriminately wreaking havoc and killing humans.

“Did that creature… did it…?” Rezette closed his eyes briefly, unable to bear the thought. “Touch you? In any way?”

The mere contemplation of the possibility made the nape of his neck tense with discomfort.

“Did you do with him any of the things you’ve done with me, Elizabeth?” His heart pounded as he awaited her response. 

Elise shook her head vigorously. “Never! What do you take me for?” 

Rezette erupted in a harsh laugh, a sudden, unsettling break in his composure. “Then you must be lying, and so brazenly, to torment me.” 

Surely, that had to be the explanation. This woman had a talent for not only maddening him but also corroding his very soul. 

It wasn’t just about Sameshita. Rezette yearned to know every detail of her past three weeks, from Koseratie to Norella. He wanted to know if she’d spoken to the mercenaries, smiled at them, or let anyone get too close. 

Elise showed no interest in how he’d spent those same weeks, searching for her without rest, but he couldn’t feign indifference.

He needed proof—reassurance—that he was still the only man in her life.

Yet here he was, reduced to hearing, ‘It’s not your child’?

So the contract was over, and he had no claim on her? Of all her falsehoods, this was the most painful. It would have been less cruel had she simply denied the child’s existence.

“If not Sameshita, then who?” Rezette sneered, his voice low and menacing.

“W-what are you…?” Elise stammered.

“You’ve turned your perfectly healthy husband into a shadow of himself, and now you’re telling me the child you carry isn’t mine?”

It had been so long since he’d felt rage this blinding.

All caution slipped from Rezette’s control as he grasped her chin, forcing her to face him. “You deceived me from start to finish, and now I’m asking who you gave your heart to. Every single word you said came from your own lips—don’t pretend you don’t understand.”

Rezette fought to rein in the storm of emotions crashing through him. He’d thought that once he found his wife, once he had her right in front of him, the anger and jealousy would fade away.

In truth, when he first laid eyes on her again, that’s exactly what happened. The tension coiling his muscles to the breaking point dissolved the moment he saw Elise alive and moving, her voice filling the room.

Far from anger, what washed over him first was relief, crashing over him like an unstoppable tide. Instinctively, he’d pulled her from the corner of the closet and held her in his arms.

Now that he’d found her, everything would be all right. Any misunderstandings could be cleared up. If she feared some hidden threat, he would reassure her. No harm could reach her, not even in Rotiara.

The contract—just a meaningless scrap of paper, ready to be reduced to ashes—was irrelevant. Because she loved him.

Rezette already knew how Elise felt about him. Her feelings, though shaded by a trace of bitterness, unmistakably held an affection close to love. That belief had been his anchor. He’d replayed his memories of her countless times over the past twenty days, searching for any hint that her tender, wistful gazes had been a lie. But it seemed impossible. Elise was not the sort of person who could deceive so deeply, not others and certainly not herself.

So he’d thought that, once he found her, everything would fall into place.

Yet the moment she finally faced him, Elise struck him down—not once, but twice, in the span of a few words, before he could even say all he wanted.

But Rezette Kyrstan was not a man to be felled by a few shallow cuts, whether from an enemy or his own wife. All it did was fan the flames of his fury, a rage that grew hotter with each passing second.

And as that twisted emotion surged beyond his control, his anger began to resemble madness—a dark fire edging closer to the ferocity he so despised in that hated dragon.

Sensing the threat, Elise flinched.

This man… that look in his eyes…

She’d been about to tell him that her feelings weren’t what mattered, but the storm in Rezette’s gaze silenced her. In an instant, the rage drained from his piercing blue eyes, leaving only her reflection in their depths. A chill washed over her, as if she were facing a wild beast, incapable of reason or restraint.

“Refusing to answer again, I see,” muttered Rezette. His voice dripped with ice as he swept aside the cloth draped over her chest.

“Then I’ll have to find out myself.”

Only a beat later did Elise realize her front tie had come undone. Her face paled as his hand moved forward, unhindered by even her protective ward. The binding spell’s chain, which should have held him at bay, shattered under his sheer strength, and the air seemed to quiver with the intensity radiating from him.

In one swift motion, the cloth slipped from her, leaving her exposed. With only a single garment between them, it took him no effort to strip it away. Elise, gripped by the impending threat, shook her head frantically.

“Not now, Rezette. I don’t want this… I can’t—!” 

“You say it’s not my child. So why should I hold back?”

Her hands struck his shoulders and pushed against his chest, but he was unfazed, reaching instead for a candle holder on the side table. If there was any trace of another man—any foreign scent or mark—he would find it and erase it completely. Then he would mark her all over again, more thoroughly than before, to ensure she couldn’t escape.

To prove that every part of her still belonged to him.

A flicker of lightning sparked at the candle’s tip, casting a deep amber glow over the room and illuminating Elise’s bare figure in stark relief. Exhausted, she closed her eyes in quiet despair.

Rezette’s gaze traveled coolly over his wife’s body, reclaimed after twenty days of relentless searching.

And then, he fell silent.

For what felt like an eternity.

Marks marred her skin—left by someone else. Bruises and scratches, hidden until now beneath heavy nightclothes, were exposed in the flickering light, revealing the hardships she had endured in her three-week flight.

Rezette’s gaze traced the rough abrasions from coarse fabric and the bruises left by harsh grips, trailing down her neck. Below the recent marks he had left, faint red traces persisted—marks he recognized as his own, from weeks prior. His eyes narrowed, catching the oddity.

Those marks were from when he had last held her, nearly three weeks ago. By now, they should have healed and faded, or at the very least become indistinct. Yet—

Why are they still…

Why were they still there?

A heavy weight settled in his chest, a cold realization sinking in. Rezette steadied himself and, with sudden urgency, lifted Elise into his arms. The candlelight danced down her chest, along her waist, and between her thighs.

Those reddish-purple traces remained, in countless places, precisely as he had left them, untouched and undisturbed.

But something was wrong.

The marks he had left—imprints from his own bites and kisses—were shallow wounds at best, nothing that should have lingered longer than a week. But these hadn’t healed at all.

A chill crept over him.

“Damn it,” Rezette muttered under his breath, lifting her wrist. He couldn’t detect the steady pulse he expected from a healthy, living person.

Unhealed wounds, bruises that lingered for weeks, a faint, sluggish pulse. He had seen these symptoms before—months ago, when he had first taken her captive, before they’d even reached Rotiara. Is she slipping back into that fragile state I found her in back then?

A past conversation echoed in his mind, striking him like lightning.

“The bruises aren’t there anymore.”

“Really? They’ve never healed this quickly before. To think they’d fade in just a week… How is this possible?”

If her body was indeed reverting to its previous condition, there was one likely explanation: pregnancy.

As if to confirm his suspicions, a faint metallic scent wafted to his sensitive nose. Blood. The subtle tang of blood lingered around Elise.

Is that why she’s bleeding? Rezette knew little about pregnancy, but even he could guess that bleeding in such a state was anything but a good sign.

The realization hit him like a blow to the back of his head. Elise, who had managed to sit up weakly, was now using the last of her strength to push him away.

“So… this was the only reason you came for me?”

The fire in the hearth had nearly died out, leaving the room cloaked in a chill. Exposed to the cold, Elise’s bare skin prickled with goosebumps, though she barely felt the temperature’s bite. She pulled the blanket up to cover her chest, her voice trembling as she spoke.

“If this is all you wanted from me… then that’s all I am to you, isn’t it?”