Chapter 72

“L-Lady Bianca, we must get you away at once.”

The maid, trembling with fear, shook from head to toe. She tried to lift Bianca, whose body had gone limp and was slumped on the floor.

“Huek. P-please, you must stand.”

Tears welled in the maid’s eyes as she stamped her feet in panic, unable to tear her gaze from the door.

Bianca also fixed her eyes at the door.

Would the person who opened that door and entered be an Esper, driven mad and ensnared by her pheromones and lunging at her? Or would it be the Crown Prince?

“Op-open the door!”

The desperate voice of the man pounding outside was thick with thirst.

“Damn it! It won’t open. Move aside!”

“You’re the one who should move!”

Even the sounds of them fighting reached her ears. If they forced that door open, Bianca knew she would be defiled at once.

‘…Would His Highness really allow that to happen?’

Perhaps he wouldn’t intervene, deciding he had no need for a doll that didn’t move according to his will.

And now, with her brother’s fate still unknown, what use was her own survival? Even if she were defiled, she could cast herself from the window the very next moment, and not even the imperial family would be able to find fault. If they claimed she had taken her own life out of shame, fearing disgrace upon her house, that would be the end of it.

Even though she worried about her parents being left behind, she knew she wouldn’t truly die. Before Bianca could ever fall into mortal danger, he would appear. It was an instinctive certainty, though she couldn’t say where it came from, only that he was a man whose possessiveness burned fiercely.

Bang!

The door burst open, and the maid seized Bianca in a desperate embrace. Yet even then, Bianca didn’t so much as blink, her gaze fixed unerringly upon the doorway.

“L-Lady Bianca!”

It was unexpected, the way the trembling maid still tried to shield her. Slowly, Bianca lifted her head to see who had entered the room.

A faint smile curved across her lips.

“Kyaaahk!”

The maid who had been clutching Bianca was hurled violently across the room.

As that warmth vanished, a chilling energy wrapped itself around her in its place. Behind him, she could see bodies strewn across the floor. Even at a glance, the fury radiating from him was enough to make her skin prickle. He bent closer, seizing her chin and forcing her face upward.

“Lady Astri. You anticipated this outcome as well, didn’t you?”

“So, you had returned after all.”

“Yes. I had.”

He answered without averting his gaze. Without him saying a word, the maid who had been lying on the floor got up and walked toward the door.

Once she had closed it behind her and left, a powerful force pressed down on Bianca.

︵‿୨ ₊‧꒰ა ཐི༏ཋྀ ໒꒱ ˚₊ ୧‿︵

“I never thought you would go to such lengths to seek me out. Part of me almost feels happy.”

“…Did you find any trace of my brother? You couldn’t, so you were hiding like a coward, weren’t you?”

“Coward? That’s you, not me.”

He knew she had expected him to come, and so she couldn’t have been blind to the recklessness of her actions. Had he not arrived, and had others laid hands upon her, she would surely have chosen to end her own life.

“To the very end, you selfishly think only of yourself.”

“Your Highness, what happened to my brother? Please, tell me the truth so that I can face my parents and say… something, at least.”

See? She spoke of it as though it were nothing at all.

Moments ago, she had tempted him as if she had abandoned everything, yet now, meeting his gaze, her eyes shone with piercing clarity.

“To think someone who claims to care so deeply for her parents would act like this. You’re still the same as ever.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Even knowing I would come, you carried this out with death in mind. And now, with Lord Asilian dead, you’re trying to push the responsibility onto me because you’re afraid to face your parents.”

Dexter pressed her down, pinning both her wrists above her head. By now, she should have stopped, yet whether from surprise or by deliberate will, her scent twined fiercely with his own pheromones.

The fragrance was so overpowering it made his head swim, and he let out a ragged breath.

“Why can’t you answer? Did I strike too close to the truth? You act as though your own death means nothing, yet pretend to care so terribly for your family.”

He despised this contradictory behavior of hers. Since when had she ever thought of others that way?

“You should have thought like this back then.”

He released her wrists, his gaze lingering on Bianca’s disheveled form. For a moment, her image overlapped with the memory of her dying, and his throat constricted. She had left him with wounds so deep they had never healed, but here she was, living on as though nothing had ever happened.

To her, he must have been nothing. Nothing at all, otherwise, she could never have been so cruel to him.

“Lord Asilian was caught in Lianna’s rampage and died there on the spot.”

So, it was Bianca who made him cruel.