My Former Disciple Wants Me as His Bride

【 Prologue 】

The soft glow of the streetlamps illuminated the lakeshore.

Two hazy shadows overlapped and wavered across the gentle ripples, while the deep blue sky above was almost excessively crowded with stars.

It was an absurdly peaceful, beautiful place.

Eris gazed down at the scenery reflected in the lake and quietly drew in a breath.

The cool night air, mingled with the faint scent of water, filled her lungs and gradually eased the tension from her body.

‘Now I can finally breathe.’

Even as she thought that, however, a corner of her heart remained strangely unsettled.

“Miss Eris.”

And it was probably because of this man.

At the gentle voice calling her name, Eris turned her head with all the stiffness of a malfunctioning machine.

The refreshing features of a blue-eyed man immediately caught her eye.

Tousled silver hair, wrinkled and dirtied clothes, and streaks of red blood that had yet to dry completely against his pale skin.

By any reasonable standard, he looked a complete mess. Yet, in all honesty, none of it did the slightest damage to that ridiculously handsome face of his.

There was no question about it. Ciel von Silverion, the young duke, was the most beautiful man Eris had ever encountered in her life.

He was almost too beautiful to simply look at once and move on from. Enough to make her want to scrape together whatever artistic sensibility she didn’t possess, paint his portrait, and keep it somewhere just so she could admire it again.

Most women who saw him seemed to feel much the same way, their eyes inevitably drawn to him. As a result, wherever Ciel went, an endless trail of gossip followed in his wake.

“What’s with that expression?”

Still, his brilliant looks alone couldn’t possibly explain why Ciel repeatedly found himself embroiled in situations where his life was at stake.

Just what sort of life had he lived that even a trip supposedly meant to be a reward vacation ended with someone trying to kill him?

Whether then or now, this man remained the root cause of Eris’s inner turmoil.

“What’s wrong with my expression?”

Ciel tilted his head as he studied her face, then reached out. His fingers gently brushed the corner of her eye, making Eris catch her breath.

His hands looked as though the only water they had ever touched should have been holy water from a temple. Yet, unexpectedly, his palms and fingers were rough, dotted with hard calluses.

“You look like you want to cause some real trouble with me for once. Not something we can brush off as a mistake.”

The blatant remark shattered the composure she had barely managed to maintain, while a strange heat rushed through her at the same time.

“Don’t joke about things like that.”

Eris instinctively stepped back and hurriedly lowered her eyes.

His thumb had barely grazed her skin, yet her flesh seemed to tremble at the touch, her heart suddenly burning hot in her chest.

‘I’ve lost my mind.’

Afraid he might notice the heat rising through her, she was just about to make a quick escape when Ciel closed the distance she had so deliberately created.

His scent washed over her from far too close, fresh and clean, reminiscent of the sea.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Ciel von Silverion.

She didn’t even know what he was truly thinking, yet the fact that a single teasing remark from him could stir such confusing emotions inside her was humiliating enough.

“Lord Ciel, is that really all you have to say in a situation like this?”

Like someone who had been chased by a predator until there was nowhere left to run, Eris raised her voice in one last desperate roar.

“And what kind of situation is this?”

His shameless question left her momentarily speechless.

“Lord Ciel, do you realize there’s blood on your face right now?”

And yet even that couldn’t hide his absurdly handsome features, which was exactly why her heart was wavering.

That was the problem.

Apparently madness was contagious, because she was beginning to feel as though she were developing some bizarre tastes herself. The thought filled her with dismay.

Eris finally forced her eyes wide and pulled herself together.

“Ah. Is it because my face doesn’t look pretty right now?”

The sight of him seriously trying to figure out the reason behind her scolding was so ridiculous that a breath of disbelief escaped her.

“That’s not the problem!”

“Then what is? Miss Eris, we nearly died. Why don’t we try being a little more honest?”

Ciel roughly rubbed a hand over his gaunt face and grinned. Eris clenched her fist and raised her voice.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes, all right? You almost died just now, Lord Ciel. Aren’t you even scared?”

Ciel stared directly at her. Eris widened her eyes in return, determined not to lose their silent battle of wills.

But the longer she stared into Ciel’s blue eyes, the more it felt as though she were being drawn into a whirlpool she could never escape. In the end, Eris surrendered first and averted her gaze.

“Miss Eris.”

Then came the man’s voice, low and subdued. None of his earlier brazen confidence remained in it.

“What? What are you going to say this time…?”

“Come with me.”

“…What?”

She certainly hadn’t expected anything normal to come out of that pretty mouth of his, but his words were so much more absurd than she had anticipated that Eris’s eyes widened as she looked up.

“Live with me.”

Without so much as a change in expression, he calmly drove his point.

“Hmm? You have to protect me, Miss Eris.”

Truly, Eris had no choice but to realize once again that life was nothing but an endless series of uncertainties.

Just like the day fate had brought this man back into her life.