For My Birthday, I Was Gifted Five Husbands - Chapter 70

…It felt as though her eyelids were sewn shut, the weight of them impossible to lift. Yet, after a struggle, Eugenie managed to force them open. Even then, her surroundings remained pitch black.

She should still be in the hotel suite after her first night with her young husband.

But as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized she wasn’t in the suite anymore. Dim torchlight flickered weakly on damp stone walls. She was in a cave.

‘Huh? Where am I?’

She’d been on numerous field excursions with her professor, but never had she ventured into a place so gloomy.

‘This isn’t a dream. My movements feel so sluggish.’

The sensations were clear but her body felt heavy, as though submerged in water. It was as if she wasn’t entirely in control of herself.

‘Oh. This isn’t my body!’

Eugenie almost stepped back as she looked down at her hands—small, grimy, stained with blackened blood and grime.

‘These are a boy’s hands?’

She barely had time to process the thought before pain shot through her foot, sharp and biting, like stepping on shards of ice.

‘Ah—!’

The reason became clear a little too late: the owner of this body was standing on the sharp, white bone fragments. Among the countless scattered pieces of bone, the unmistakable outline of a skull jutted out.

‘This is definitely a human skull.’

What in the world had happened here….Why were there so many bodies abandoned like trash? The boy whose body Eugenie resided in was all alone in a place like this….

But then, she noticed a woman with brown hair standing in front of her, realizing she wasn’t alone.

“I’m sorry. You were the only one I could save from your family.”

The woman was none other than Theodora Norton.

‘Mom…?’

That face, that voice—it looked almost exactly like hers. Judging by the fine lines on her face, she seemed to resemble the way Theodora had looked in the year she died.

Theodora reached out and held the boy gently. Seeing her so tired, Eugenie felt bitter.

“Boy, what’s your name?”

“…Cassius.”

“Ah, I see. Cassius from the Sabnac family… It’s dangerous to use that surname now, so it’s best to change it to something else.”

Theodora seemed to be struggling more with each breath, her voice becoming raspy.

After a few quiet coughs, she whispered softly.

“I saved you, but my strength was insufficient. So, as payment, I’ll keep today’s events ‘secret.’”

“…”

“And remember the contract we made when I saved you.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

The boy, the sole survivor among many, responded with defiance in his voice.

Eugenie, so distracted by seeing her mother’s face after so long, whistled quietly. It seemed this younger husband, who had always been a bit detached since childhood, had a sharper side than she had realized.

‘He has no fear in front of the one who saved him.’

Perhaps Theodora had thought the same, as she let out a brief, incredulous laugh.

“Is that so? You don’t like the contract we made when I saved you?”

“Would you have preferred I become a pimp husband for some girl I don’t know, old lady?”

“If you didn’t like it, you shouldn’t have agreed to be saved.”

“Did I even have a choice?! No! Get out of this place!”

Young Cassius was fearless and full of temper. He yanked his hand away from Theodora with all his might and shouted in a high-pitched, angry voice.

“Your daughter? I don’t care about her! Why should I live for some random girl?!”

“…”

“If I ever meet her, I won’t let her be! I’ll kill her!”

“…Hah. Is that so?”

Theodora’s expression changed at that moment.

She had remained unshaken even when the boy, barely half her age, threw insults and deliberately called her ‘old lady’ to provoke her. The gentle woman who had often been distraught or teary because of her husband, Peregrine Norton, was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, her face was as chillingly blank as the white bones scattered at her feet.

Eugenie swore she had never seen her mother with such an expression before.

Nor could she have imagined that Theodora, who had never once raised a hand against her, would roughly grab young Cassius by the front of his shirt and threaten him.

“Go ahead and try, Sabnac brat.”

“Ugh…!”

“Lay even a finger on my daughter, and I swear, even after my death, I will come back to kill you.”