Chapter 170

When she paused now and then to gently rub her belly, the rounded swell of it was perfectly etched in shadow. Rezette stood rooted in place, his gaze fixed on her.

Without question, it was the most endearing silhouette in the world.

It wasn’t long before Elise noticed his return. At first, she seemed startled by the broad shadow that loomed over the tent, but the moment she recognized him, her expression softened and she hurried toward him in quick, tentative steps.

The cloth flap at the entrance lifted just a crack.

“Rezette?” she called softly.

In that instant, all the effort he had spent cooling his body after the long trek was rendered meaningless.

Rezette summoned a patience forged like tempered steel—something he had not needed in a long while. Elise pressed her face against his chest, clinging as though she feared that letting go would cause him to vanish like a dream.

In that closeness, she could hear the wild, pounding beat of his heart without him speaking a word.

He made no move to push her away. It had been so long since she had come into his arms first. No matter how bravely she tried to act, the crisis she had endured must have shaken her more than she could hide. Even Rezette still felt a chill in his chest when he recalled the moment he had first spotted her. How much more deeply must she feel it?

At another time, he would have wrapped her tightly in his arms and pulled her close without hesitation. Now, however, his strength faltered; his hands hovered uncertainly. In less than two months, her belly had grown noticeably, and holding her made the change all the more tangible.

With a faint, almost hesitant touch, Rezette let his palm glide over the curve of her belly. It felt strange that such a small body, carrying such a small life, could have transformed so greatly.

There was a world of difference between knowing in his mind that something was growing inside her, and witnessing it with his own eyes. He wasn’t sure where or how he ought to touch her now.

A woman carrying his child. At times, the sight of her catching her breath made him ache with pity; at others, he felt proud, or helplessly full of love—and then endlessly guilty. Whenever her lashes trembled, his worry sharpened into something almost frantic.

For a while, Elise drifted in and out of shallow sleep. While she ate warm oatmeal to fill her empty stomach and rested, Rezette focused on refining his magic into the gentlest form he could manage.

The effort bore fruit. Gradually, his dulled, blunted magic seeped into her, and by the next day, Elise had regained enough strength to walk on her own.

“Does it hurt? Here?” Elise asked softly, her gaze lingering on his left shoulder.

Rezette released a slow sigh that served as his answer. “I told you, it’s fine. Truly.”

From his childhood as a gladiator’s slave, he knew such an injury would heal within days without special treatment. Still, because Elise’s eyes always seemed to stray to his shoulder the moment she woke, he had wrapped it in a makeshift bandage purely for show.

“So stop worrying about it. And don’t touch it,” he added.

Startled, Elise quickly withdrew her fingers from where they had been idly tracing over the bandage. “I wasn’t,” she murmured. “I was just practicing. I didn’t want to forget the spell.”

Rezette didn’t scold her this time. Instead, his lips descended without warning, brushing from the tip of her nose down to her mouth in a crushing kiss.

At first, it was only to silence that flimsy excuse, but the moment his tongue slid between her lips, the air between them thickened, heavy with heat.

“Mmh…”

As his tongue tangled and pressed against the sensitive lining of her mouth, Elise’s gaze went hazy.

It was a kiss that carried no words—only raw, unshaped emotion. Every place she touched him burned hot enough to melt. Compared to the two months she had spent hiding her pregnancy and exhausting herself, she felt infinitely more at ease now.

It felt, finally, as though she had come back to a place where she belonged. This was nothing like the worst reunion they had endured in Norella. So long as she remained in these arms, no one could harm her. Right now, he was the only one in the world on her side.

But then Rezette broke the kiss, turning his head away.

She blinked in confusion, having been about to press herself closer. 

“Wait…”

A fleeting shadow of conflict passed through his eyes. His position, he realized, was… far from ideal.

Elise gasped as she suddenly felt herself lifted.

In an instant, she was seated sideways on his lap, facing the tent’s entrance. His arm wrapped lightly around her chest, leaving her just enough room to breathe.

“My apologies,” he murmured.

“For… what?” she asked warily.

“For being this sort of man.”

His lips found the line of her throat, followed by the sharp nip of his teeth and a deep, possessive pull. Between ragged breaths, curses and mutters spilled out against her skin.

“I told myself I’d take care of it first… but damn it, I can’t control it.”

The pressure of him against her, from her hips to her spine, was impossible to ignore—so heavy and unyielding it made her flinch.

“You… took care of it? What do you mean?” she asked, her voice trembling.

An image flickered through her mind—Dragonborn writhing in frustrated desire beyond the barrier. Fear seized her, and she clutched his arm.

“With who? How? Did you—did you sleep with someone else?” Elise’s voice wavered, the question breaking from her before she could stop it.

Rezette said nothing.

She jerked her head back to meet his gaze. “No way…!”

His expression was both startled and maddeningly unreadable.

“And if I did?” he asked evenly.

“What?”

“If I told you I held another woman, what would you do?”

She stared at him in disbelief, praying it was only a cruel jest. But he offered no further explanation.

Another woman… besides me.

An image rose unbidden, vivid and unbearable: him embracing someone unfamiliar, desire written in every line of his face. Elise knew exactly how sensual and magnetic his expression became when his need was laid bare. He was never careless in appearance; his bare body, the sweat sliding along the cut of his muscles, the narrowing of his eyes, the roughening of his breath, that strange, inevitable moment of release—these were hers alone. A private side of him she could never bear to share.

“…You’re… awful…” she whispered, her eyes reddening. “I kept such a close watch on you, and you—”

Seeing the flash of hurt and betrayal in her golden eyes, Rezette gave a low, humorless laugh. “I’m teasing. I’m not that sordid, Elise. Truly.”

But when the sheen of moisture deepened in her glare, he realized—too late—that he had misjudged. He had expected a light scolding, nothing more. Yet in that small, stubborn mind of hers, he had already become the kind of man who would seek out another woman while his wife carried his child.

He caught her cheek lightly between his teeth in a playful nip. 

“Do you really trust me so little? I only asked to see if the thought alone would turn your stomach.”

“Jokes that make the listener miserable aren’t jokes,” she said sharply. “And you’re not like other men.”

“That doesn’t mean I’ll take just anything. I’m sorry. No more of that kind of joke.”

Even as he spoke, his hand wandered toward her chest. Through the thin fabric, her warmth was faint but tantalizing. He undid the first few buttons of her blouse with casual ease, leaving Elise with a flicker of uneasy dissatisfaction.

“So… by yourself?” she asked suddenly.

“…Pardon?” His brows rose, but then comprehension dawned, and a short laugh escaped him. “Yes. By myself.”

He had relieved himself alone more times than he could count—only yesterday, in fact. Elise lowered her eyes, not in pity but in apparent relief. Cute… and cruel.

The thought had barely formed when she blindsided him again.

“How?”

Rezette let out a disbelieving huff. “You can’t be asking because you don’t know. You’ve helped me before yourself.”

“I mean… did you think of me when you did it, or…”

“Or?” he prompted, his tone dipping low.

“…Never mind. Forget it.” She trailed off, realizing how childish it sounded aloud.

Beneath her cheek, she felt his chest rise and fall sharply—then his hand closed suddenly over her bre*st.

“Do you really want to know what’s been filling my head lately?”

Only then did she realize her blouse had fallen completely open to her arms, leaving her bre*sts—fuller than before—partially bare.

“Ah…!”

Her breath hitched. The sight of her flesh, molded and squeezed in his palm like pale dough, was indecent beyond words.

“If you stepped into my head, you’d run screaming,” he murmured.

“What—what are you imagining? Hhh…”

“Oh… a little of this, a little of that.”