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Chapter – 06
Part – 01 Hell
Chapter – 01 Return (5)
The best option was to escape far away before Liners discovered who I really was. This mansion had countless eyes meant to monitor and “protect” me.
Maids like Helen, as well as the soldiers guarding the estate. Even if I ran barefoot, I would be caught quickly. I had planned to wait until morning, but now that Liners had already found me, there was no way out.
I should never have revealed myself with my own mouth…
But I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“…!”
The moment I turned around to grab the doorknob, a large hand covered my mouth and shoved me backward almost simultaneously. My head slammed against the wall with a loud thud. I couldn’t even scream as I stopped breathing.
A shadow appeared under the faint moonlight. It was Liners.
His dark eyes, devoid of light, looked down at me.
“Mmph… mmph!”
“Shh, Florence…”
“Mmph!”
I couldn’t breathe. The man pressed my entire body down so I couldn’t struggle. Then, suddenly, he smiled gently. Trembling, I looked up at him. There was no warmth in his black eyes.
“I’ve been thinking, Florence.”
I couldn’t turn my head at all. He leisurely watched my face twist in pain as he spoke casually.
“Ah, you’ll die quickly. I’m sorry, Florence.”
Damn it. If I could use magic… if I could use spirit arts… I wouldn’t be so helplessly trapped. I might have even escaped long ago.
“You’re not the same as Hyeonji.”
Don’t compare me to her. Don’t act like I’m inferior to that woman… that thief…
“Promise me you won’t scream, and I’ll let you go. Blink twice if you understand.”
“….”
“Still stupid, I see. Do you not understand you have no other choice?”
As much as it hurt, he was right. That was also why I couldn’t escape immediately. I bit the inside of my cheek. Tears almost came out from frustration. I blinked twice, and he removed his hand.
“Haah… haah… cough… haaah…”
“If it were Hyeonji, she would’ve tried to burn me alive by now. You really are different from her.”
“Don’t… compare me… to her…”
“But this body belongs to the woman I loved.”
“…What…?”
“This is the body I embraced. Countless times.”
“You’re insane…”
“This body—my wife—is still mine, isn’t she?”
The nausea I had forced down surged back up my throat. He was looking at my body as if it were something precious. And disgustingly, he probably knew this body better than I did. As he said, he had held it every day—everywhere, not just in bed—like an animal in heat.
“Ugh!”
I couldn’t hold back the retching. The meaning of “being embraced” became painfully real with him right in front of me. Right now, I could be violated like a helpless animal, without my consent.
I should have run even if I got caught and died. It would have been better to die pierced by a spear.
The reason I hadn’t run was because I still wanted to live. I wanted a way out. I couldn’t lose what I had just reclaimed.
I was afraid of this man. A man who could kill me at any moment terrified me beyond endurance. I curled up, trembling.
I knew he would kill me the moment he regained his senses. He had just recovered from shock faster than I expected. I should have struck the carriage driver— that was my last chance.
The bedroom air was warm, but I felt freezing cold.
Should I beg for my life?
Why should I? I did nothing wrong. The ones who stole my life were the guilty ones. Why should I—
But I still wanted to live. I didn’t want to die.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
Liners spoke in a trembling voice.
“Don’t look at me with those eyes… like I’m a stranger… It feels like my heart is being torn apart…”
“What—mmph!”
He grabbed my chin harshly. It hurt so much I almost screamed, but before I could, his rough lips pressed against mine.
It felt like insects crawling all over my body.
Disgusting!
“Hyeonji…”
“No, let go!”
His heavy breathing poured into my mouth. No, no! A large hand slid up from my thigh. I realized then—this man was not sane.
I had thought he had come to kill me after recovering from shock, but that wasn’t it.
“Let go! Stop!”
“Hyeonji, don’t do this…”
“Let go, Liners!”
His body stiffened. He couldn’t disobey that voice. The weight of his body on top of mine felt unbearably filthy because I knew it was not unfamiliar to my body.
I gritted my teeth. I could taste blood.
Liners was unstable. He had not yet recovered from losing the woman he was obsessed with. I wanted to throw up. Maybe dying would be better.
But…
I wanted to live.
“I’m just tired right now, Liners… my love.”
“…Hyeonji…”
His voice softened, soaked in emotion. I wanted to curse. I swallowed the words rising in my throat and mimicked that woman’s tone, just as I had done with Helen.
“Let’s sleep first, okay? Think about it after you sleep… You haven’t been able to rest for a long time, have you?”
“…Because you weren’t here.”
“I’ll stay by your side. Sleep well. Don’t even dream…”
As if under hypnosis from my voice, Liners blinked slowly. Like a child, he exhaled deeply and leaned onto my shoulder. I patted his back until his breathing stabilized.
He had reportedly not slept properly for ten days while taking care of Hyeonji. Once he fell asleep, he wouldn’t wake easily. In his memories, he only felt safe sleeping beside Hyeonji. So once asleep, he would not wake until he had fully recovered his lack of rest.
With trembling hands, I carefully pushed him away. Wrapping myself in a thin blanket, I crouched in the corner of the room.
Pathetic.
I want to die.
I don’t want to die.
I didn’t want to lose what I had taken back.
Liners Shane Lindquist.
In the novel, Liners was the male protagonist who ends up with the heroine, Lila Green. Even though Jang Hyeonji had possessed the heroine’s body and taken her place, even now Liners still held the position of the male lead. He had defeated all the men who pursued her and claimed her as his.
Liners was a man anyone would desire.
The second son of the Baldwin Marquis family and the prestigious Lindquist Ducal House, captain of the imperial knight order “Blue Dawn,” and the youngest Sword Master on the continent. Every title attached to him was brilliant and overwhelming. Any ordinary person would spend their entire life just to earn even one of them.
He was far too much for the youngest daughter of the Seymour Marquis House.
Our engagement had been the final gift from my grandmother, the only person who ever truly loved me. Perhaps she thought that if I married the promising second son of a ducal house, even her pitiful granddaughter would be safe. She pitied me, who lost my mother at birth, and gave me a name herself, worrying about me until her final moment.
Whatever the process, I became his fiancée. The word “fiancée” made my young heart race.
A person promised for marriage.
Someone who would stay with me.
Someone who would become family.
Perhaps it was like imprinting in a newborn bird. I dreamed of building a new life with my fiancé. I believed I could be happy once I married him. Maybe I even believed that, because he was chosen by my grandmother, he would love me in her place. Even if not now, I thought things would change once we became family.
Even while knowing full well that not all families love each other.
