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chapter 26
The moment I opened the door and stepped into the room, a piercingly cold pheromone hit me.
Her usually refreshing scent had turned damp, as if it were soaked in the early morning mist.
Somehow, the blanket had been dragged from the bed to the floor, hanging limply.
The blanket in the room was stained bright red and trembled slightly.
I could faintly hear sniffles coming from within the blanket.
“Ariel.”
Ian called out in a coaxing voice.
But she didn’t answer.
Instead, I covered the blanket completely, leaving not a single strand of her visible.
“Why are you crying?”
He trudged toward Ariel and sat down on the floor.
Leaning against the bed, Ian quietly watched the trembling blanket right in front of him.
It was clear that she had locked the door to her heart so tightly that even speaking made her retreat deeper into the blanket.
The blanket gradually darkened red, as if soaked in spilled paint.
“You told me to take you somewhere scary.”
“Why not go to the infirmary?”
‘I don’t want to. I’d rather be in pain than go there.’
I kept shaking my head and panting under the blanket. As I moved, the blanket shifted slightly from side to side.
The tears I couldn’t shed earlier now poured freely, as if all my pent-up emotions had overflowed.
Ariel didn’t even think to wipe them, staring blankly at the blanket she had pulled over her head.
Her legs were swollen, blood overflowing, but she felt no pain. It was as if the sensation of pain had been erased from her head.
And so, I sat there, crying blankly for a long time.
Ian grew anxious.
Every action of hers radiated distrust and fear toward him.
It felt as if the door to the heart of the cat she barely opened had clicked shut forever.
“Give me your foot. You’re hurting.”
‘I don’t want to. How could I trust you? How do I know you won’t take me to that scary place?’
‘What if you treat me like those people? How would I know?’
Hearing that, the erased pain in my head seemed to come alive again. The spots where glass shards had lodged throbbed painfully. I couldn’t tell if it was the sudden memory fragments or the real shards causing it.
The pain came all at once, but I could endure it.
Compared to what I had endured before, this was nothing—barely a scratch.
“Then I’ll wait in front. Come out when you’ve calmed down.”
Following the advice from Getting Close to Our Sensitive Cat, Ian perched on the bed and closed his eyes.
Now, not a single sound broke the silence in the room.
‘…A spy.’
He recalled the report he had just received.
Of course, there was a spy.
He roughly knew who it was. He hadn’t cleaned it up yet, just observed. He only planned to deal with those closely connected to him first, leaving the rest for later.
Even if he did clean them up, they would only recover temporarily, and soon, more spies would slip in.
It was better to leave the spy alone than go through the hassle of finding out who it was again.
Watching them struggle under his watchful eyes was a perverse pleasure.
It was quite a cruel hobby, but they couldn’t even dare to do anything within the Cadellion estate.
Or rather, they couldn’t do anything.
With a family this large, it was strange that there was no spy.
‘It’d be troublesome if that spy went wild.’
It seemed the time for a full cleanup was approaching.
After a while, Ariel gently lowered the blanket.
The little cat lifted her head slightly, just her face peeking out. She kept her eyes closed, motionless, while watching him.
‘…Can I trust him?’
Having calmed a little, I stared quietly at him.
Thinking back, he had never truly intended to harm me. Except for our first meeting.
If anything, he had been more on the caring side.
‘…But he could still be the same.’
Don’t trust anyone, Ariel.
They, too, could turn hostile toward you like those people.
‘But he hasn’t so far.’
Memories from the past clashed fiercely with those accumulated in the Cadellion estate in my mind.
She stepped out from under the blanket.
One step.
Just a single step forward.
Ian flinched, forcing his eyes closed, struggling to remain still as he envisioned her movement.
I stayed frozen on the floor, watching him silently, unmoving. Unlike usual, where he was always neat and fully buttoned, his clothes now were somewhat disheveled from rushing here.
“Ariel, a piece of advice: abandon that disgusting hope in your heart. You won’t be loved. The servants who seek you will just use you, like our father did.”
“I don’t know where you’re useful, but…”
I recalled Celestine’s angelic voice whispering once.
‘That day was the last time she treated me well.’
Why had she called me Ariel back then? Thinking back, it seemed that she only ever called me that that one day.
‘Did she mock me to tell me I would never be loved?’
Since then, the kind Celestine disappeared, leaving only the malicious version of her.
The memories of the past held me back.
I couldn’t move forward easily.
Ian patiently waited.
Until that cat approached him.
Until that little fluff opened her heart.
One step.
Ariel came closer to him.
She was now within reach.
It seemed she could touch him with just one more step. Ian felt the anticipation but patiently waited.
Finally.
Tap. Tap.
The small fluff touched him.
I gently tapped Ian’s hand again.
He didn’t move, still resting his head on the bed with eyes closed.
I pressed my nose to Ian’s hand to smell it.
He always wore gloves in front of others, so I hadn’t seen his hands properly.
‘By the time he took off the gloves, I was usually too drowsy to notice.’
As expected, his hands were long, straight, and pale.
When I lightly tapped his hand a few times, my blood from earlier stained the otherwise pristine white skin.
‘…Why does he always wear gloves outside?’
I shifted around his hand, pressing my cold feet gently against it.
‘…Maybe I can trust him. If he wanted to force me, he would have done it already.’
Yes. I won’t experiment anymore.
After lingering near him for a while, I climbed onto his thigh and lay down, cozy.
A faint light seeped through a crack in the dark cave of Ariel’s heart.
She followed that light, pushing aside the stones embedded within her cave.
Finally, Ariel emerged fully onto his palm from her dark inner cave.
The part of her that seemed never to come out in a lifetime walked toward Ian and me.
Even if it was just one step.
Ariel’s refreshing pheromones spread from where she had emerged, enveloping his entire body. The suffocating, fog-like headache vanished.
Her usual sharp, defensive aura was gone.
The pheromone that wasn’t edged was sweet.
He felt clearly that she had unlocked the latch to her heart for him.
A girl who didn’t guard herself.
His stomach churned strangely.
Unlike his calm exterior, a violent heat surged from deep within him, covering his body.
The fruit tasted after a long wait was sweet and intoxicating.
I wanted to hold the little fluff tight so she wouldn’t escape, but I couldn’t grip too hard for fear of crushing her.
‘Even a flattened Ariel would be fine.’
I felt her pressing down firmly on his palm.
It sent shivers of intense, exhilarating sensation from head to toe.
At the same time, I felt an urge to consume her entirely.
The pheromones I had suppressed now reacted to his emotions and began to stir freely.
The faint, clear, and refreshing pheromone she released calmed him.
It was as if her pheromone gently caressed his spine, telling him to relax.
Her calming pheromone gave him an indescribable feeling.
A mysterious feline sensation I couldn’t trace took over his body.
The usual burning he felt vanished, replaced by a deep longing for her.
His chest tightened.
From deep satisfaction, he swallowed a sweet sigh that seemed like it would escape from his throat.
‘Happy…?’
No. Happiness alone couldn’t define this complex feeling.
No word could describe this mix of tenderness and fierce desire—wanting to swallow her whole while cherishing her delicately.
It was like finally catching a beautiful butterfly that had fluttered out of reach for so long.
Wanting to release it to admire its beauty but not letting it go, keeping it in a glass box just for oneself.
One thing was certain: he could not let her go.
He had no intention of losing what had finally entered his hand.
‘No one can take her.’
Lying down, Ian slightly tilted one corner of his mouth.
I lay quietly on his thigh.
‘What is he doing…? Is he sleeping?’
Ian didn’t even move a finger, so I pressed and nudged his arm gently.
‘Hey. You told me to come. I came.’
‘What’s with not moving after asking me to come?’
A little dissatisfied from my nudge, Ian’s eyelids slowly lifted.
