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Episode 1
[Prologue]
“…Wife. Please don’t abandon me.”
Between his messy black hair, beautiful golden eyes spilled tears that slid down one after another.
His perfectly sculpted nose and pale cheeks were damp with tears, making him look painfully pitiful.
But the hand gripping his wife’s arm was tight.
Like he had no intention of ever letting go.
Rayleigh panicked when her husband suddenly started crying.
“Um, Serge. I’m not planning to leave you.”
“You secretly made a fake identity without telling me or my father. And you’ve been moving money under that name too…”
“H How did you find out?!”
“One of the people you were dealing with told me.”
She barely stopped herself from smacking her own forehead.
She had been so careful with security. How did she still get stabbed in the back like this?
While vowing to track down the traitor who leaked her information, Rayleigh gently tried to soothe Serge.
“You know my birth family had problems, right? Because of that, I didn’t want to leave assets under my own name… so I used a proxy.”
“It wasn’t because I was planning to abandon you and run away!”
Of course, it was true that she had planned to run away at first.
Because…
“Even though my father and I are fox beastfolk?”
“You weren’t running away because we scared you, were you?”
That was right.
This world was the setting of a novel Rayleigh had read in her past life.
And beastfolk were demon hybrids.
They were feared, hated, and rejected by society.
According to the temple, they were heretics.
The Elestine ducal family, who secretly carried fox beastfolk blood in their direct line, were destined in the original story to be exposed and completely wiped out.
“Yeah. At first, I just didn’t want to get dragged into that and die with them.”
But after spending time together, she grew attached to her husband and her father-in-law.
Now, she had absolutely no intention of abandoning them and running away.
Instead, she was thinking about how to avoid the original story’s tragedy and survive.
“I didn’t expect my husband’s identity to be revealed this soon…”
The Elestine family had a tradition of bringing in a daughter in law while she was still young.
However, to protect the family secret, they hid the truth about being fox beastfolk from the child bride.
They would observe her for a long time, and only after deciding she was trustworthy would they officially register her into the family and reveal the secret once she became an adult.
But Rayleigh hadn’t even come of age yet, and somehow she had already discovered that her husband, Serge, was a fox beastfolk.
“I slept with Serge last night while he was in fox form, and then he turned human in the morning and we ran into each other like this. I couldn’t exactly pretend I didn’t notice.”
Rayleigh already knew the truth about her husband and father-in-law because she had read the original novel, but she had been pretending not to know.
A daughter-in-law who already knew the family’s biggest secret would obviously look suspicious.
So she planned to follow the original flow and only officially learn the truth after becoming an adult.
The plan fell apart due to this unexpected situation, but her conclusion was clear.
“I have no intention of leaving the Elestine family.”
“Even if you and Father are fox beastfolk.”
Still holding her wrist, Serge suddenly stepped closer to Rayleigh. Their faces were so close she could feel his breath.
“Wife.”
“Yes, Serge.”
“You’ve known for a long time that we’re fox beastfolk, haven’t you?”
“That’s why you’ve been secretly preparing to run away all this time… and now that you’ve been caught, you’re panicking, right?”
“N No…”
“You’ll calm me down with sweet words for now, then look for a chance to escape.”
Caught completely off guard, Rayleigh’s mouth fell open.
Not only did he know she was gathering escape money, he had also figured out that she already knew their true identity.
As her mind went completely blank, Serge muttered sadly.
“But I don’t care what your true feelings are.”
“S Serge…”
“You’ll never be able to leave the ducal family anyway…”
Serge’s pupils narrowed into thin vertical slits.
It was the mark that appeared when a fox beastfolk used their power.
Before she could even react to the terrifying aura her husband was showing for the first time, Rayleigh felt all the strength drain from her body.
“…Pheromones?”
As her consciousness slowly blurred, confusion and questions swirled through her mind.
“My husband isn’t supposed to be like this…”
As if following a faint trace, Rayleigh recalled a memory.
The very first day she entered the Elestine family as a child bride.
Back when both she and Serge were still just little kids.
