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Chapter 34
“If it’s too difficult for you, we could adjust that clause a little.”
“I’m not really overexerting myself.”
“You don’t need to pretend to be okay.”
“I really am okay. I’m satisfied, really.”
Cassian’s usually smooth forehead furrowed deeply.
“Don’t lie. Today, I was watching you so intently while you mingled with the other young ladies.”
“Excuse me? Me?”
“No need to make excuses. You couldn’t resist your jealousy and left the party early.”
“Oh… I suppose it might have looked that way.”
Damia nodded belatedly, clearly surprised and unprepared for such an observation.
“That’s not really it… But why are you paying so much attention to me today?”
“…I haven’t. It’s exactly the same as usual.”
“Hm… Did a young lady catch your eye today, perhaps?”
“What?”
“You don’t need to feel guilty toward me. I’m on your side, Young Viscount. I can even give you dating advice if you want.”
She had him completely speechless. Cassian let out a dry laugh.
“Dating advice, you say? Are you serious?”
“Um… yes!”
“…Really?”
“Yes, really. No need to change the contract. Let’s keep it as it is.”
He had been prepared to amend the clause to make things easier for her, but she had refused so decisively, as if she hadn’t cared about his private life at all.
Once again, it twisted his insides.
“…Since this engagement was your own doing, don’t interfere with me until I die.”
Perhaps because of that, the words he had only been turning over in his mind burst out in anger.
“Can you really do that?”
The moment he spoke, regret washed over him, but it was too late to take it back.
He glanced at Damia from the corner of his eye.
He was anxious, having said something too harsh. But he felt that saying this much was necessary to make Damia honest.
“How many times do you need to ask? Fine, I can do it.”
What? Was she serious?
“Just… don’t die early, Young Viscount. I already understand everything.”
“You…”
“Ugh, I really don’t understand why you’re acting like this today.”
Damia, shaking her head, paused.
It seemed she had finally noticed Cassian’s stern expression.
“Um, Young Viscount, I’m asking just in case…”
“Yes?”
“Since you really won’t interfere… are you a little upset?”
“Don’t say such ridiculous things.”
Cassian’s crimson eyes flickered. It felt like she had struck the very nerve.
“I… actually, my heart really aches, but I’ve been holding back to avoid making you uncomfortable.”
At that moment, a heavy weight seemed to lift from his chest.
“…Really?”
“Yes. Do you really need confirmation?”
Damia’s voice trembled slightly, as if wronged. To Cassian, it sounded genuinely heartfelt.
“Young Viscount?”
Cassian turned his head sharply instead of answering.
He had to bite his lips to hold back the laugh threatening to burst out. He didn’t want Damia to see him smiling.
They returned to the garden, where the tea party was in full swing.
“Young Viscount!”
Cassian was immediately surrounded by peers and young ladies.
Yet, pretending indifference, he stole glances at Damia.
‘You said not to interfere, but why are you so concerned about me?’
Damia’s grip on her juice glass tightened as she stood a step away.
“You’ve been gone a while. Are you feeling less dizzy now, Miss Damia?”
Cassian nodded, and the young ladies around them brightened their eyes.
Unlike the petty scolding he had given Damia earlier, he appeared calm and collected now.
“I’ve heard rumors about the friendship between the late Countess Ponti and the Duchess Sarkis.”
“It’s so beautiful that the engagement was arranged through such a connection!”
The topic had shifted to the engagement between the two of them.
“But… I didn’t expect it to be an engagement decided without the Young Viscount’s consent.”
Perhaps aware of Damia, one girl lowered her voice and whispered.
‘They can all hear. Every word.’
Being close, even her whispers carried clearly.
It wasn’t unpleasant. She already knew such rumors circulated, and she didn’t feel the need to correct them.
She had no intention of monopolizing Cassian forever, and she wanted to respect the privacy he valued so much.
“Who says it was an engagement made without my consent?”
Cassian’s voice, which she expected to dismiss lightly, was sharper than she anticipated.
“Oh? Is that just what the young lady hoped for?”
He smiled crookedly. His voice was pleasant, but there was an edge to it.
‘Why is he acting like this? Has he grown attached to me already?’
Damia shook her head slightly, unable to make sense of him.
Meanwhile, at the Marquis Soro estate.
Drury knelt in the Marquis’s office, bowing so low that his forehead nearly touched the cold marble floor.
His whole body trembled with humiliation.
“I swear, I truly swear I didn’t know!”
The Marquis, kneeling beside him, shouted desperately.
Even his father seemed terrified. Drury’s pride was further wounded by this.
“Lift your head.”
Drury slowly raised his eyes. A young man sat in his father’s place.
Pupils slit vertically, eyes blood-red.
An intimidating presence he had never experienced before, pressing down even on the Soro family, who bore the strongest dragon blood.
The one man his father alone feared.
The strongest, craftiest dragon alive. A man who ruled over them all.
“I suffered humiliation trying to abduct a single human girl.”
“I am sorry, Master. I never imagined that insignificant girl could hide such power.”
The man had tried and failed spectacularly to abduct Damia Ponti alone.
What had been a trivial amusement left his body scarred by just one human girl.
“Haha, you’re not even embarrassed to report your incompetence?”
“It’s all my fault. I should have investigated that girl more thoroughly…”
“And the treatment was botched as well.”
The man irritably ran a hand over his face. Objectively, he had handsome features, but his skin was blotchy.
Scarred and uneven new flesh grew between the reddish marks.
‘All that from Damia Ponti?’
Even a dragon struggles to leave a single wound with a blade.
That fragile girl had left scars on the strongest of their kind.
Drury still couldn’t believe it. No, he didn’t want to.
“We should have returned to the capital long ago, but now it’s impossible in this state.”
“I will punish the doctor. If you wish, I will prepare so you may personally administer torture.”
“All this over attempting to abduct a single human girl.”
“I am sorry, Master. I failed to prepare adequately.”
Drury squeezed his eyes shut at his father’s groveling.
“That’s why!”
The man slammed the desk, and the whole room trembled.
Even the snakes within, and the one he caressed, writhed in response. Drury curled his shoulders in fear.
It seemed the rumor was true: he carried the blood of the golden dragon most strongly among living dragons, and he was extremely hot-tempered.
“If I had known earlier, that girl would already be buried beneath my nest!”
He leapt to his feet. The chair slid back, hitting the wall.
“I should have tortured her to learn the truth of her accomplices!”
The man strode toward them, pointing a finger, his hand glowing red.
“What are you doing not catching her immediately?”
“She… she’s being protected at the Sarkis estate, Master. The defenses are too strict… it’s impossible to move unnoticed.”
“Haha.”
“Furthermore, as you said… capturing her alive in one piece is even harder. It would be easier to kill her.”
The man raised his head from rubbing his eyes.
“I will not allow anyone else to touch her.”
“Master…”
“Are you sane? If I claim her, she could become a weapon. You would kill her instead?”
“Th-then I will create a reason for her to leave the estate.”
The snake hissed, fearful, curling around his arm as if begging for mercy.
“Good. That impudent girl must also learn fear.”
He slowly stroked the snake’s head.
“You said she has a father. It won’t matter if something happens to the last parent she has left.”
In the darkness, a shadowed smile spread across the man’s face.
