Chapter 54
Hahaha. Hahahahaha.
Laughter reached her ears, so faint she might have simply imagined it. It was a low, sweet, gentle laugh. The sound alone was enough to send a chill crawling down her spine.
The sensation slithered over her back like a snake, raising goosebumps in its wake. Evelyn’s body went rigid.
The laughter soon melted into a whisper.
“As you said, Eve.”
Warm breath brushed against her ear, and just as a shudder threatened to run through her, his gentle voice continued.
“You like the fog.”
Evelyn spun around. Calix was already standing behind her. Bent slightly at the waist to meet her eye level, he wore a smile of quiet contentment.
“Or have you already forgotten how much you love my cxck?”
The vulgar words rolled effortlessly from his lips in the same elegant, refined voice as ever. The thick mist swallowed the corridor whole.
Laura, who had been waiting beside Evelyn only moments ago, vanished into the fog as though she had been devoured by it.
Now they were alone.
Without so much as blinking, Evelyn kept her eyes fixed on the man before her, every nerve on guard. Half of it was instinct. Even if Evelia Locke had disappeared from the world, leaving behind only Evelyn Brumfield, the razor-sharp instincts that had kept her alive had never dulled.
Though, maddeningly enough, that seemed to be exactly what piqued the Duke’s interest.
His eyes, as blue as the open sky, narrowed into a chilling smile. The moment one perfectly shaped brow lifted—
“…Ah.”
The scenery changed.
The thick mist vanished. So did the corridor. The grand hallway, where towering stone columns supported impossibly high ceilings, was gone. In its place was the warmth of a familiar bedroom.
No matter how hard she tried not to think about it, she could never grow accustomed to this. The nausea rose in her throat.
Calix drew her into his arms. It was a disgustingly familiar embrace.
“Let me go.”
The futile demand dissolved into the air. Just as she had expected, he simply continued walking with her cradled against him.
Evelyn could only watch as the bed drew nearer. The helplessness of it made her grind her teeth.
It wasn’t as though she had never fought back. Just as she had when she fled the duchy. Just as she had when she’d crushed the Duke’s windpipe beneath her hands.
She had resisted with everything she had, yet the outcome had always been the same.
Beneath a being she could never hope to overcome, Evelyn had learned down to her very bones the meaning of helplessness and resignation.
Just like now.
“My wife, Eve.”
At the sound of his voice, Evelyn suddenly gathered her saliva and spat in his face.
A trail of spit ran down his jaw, yet the Duke didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. If anything, he merely looked at her with affectionate amusement. Her defiance was nothing more than an endearing tantrum.
Cool bedsheets brushed against her back. In the span of a heartbeat, the elegant dress she’d been wearing had disappeared.
Evelyn was already naked.
The man’s gaze wandered slowly over every inch of her bare body. As though savoring the traces he had left on her the night before.
“…Hah.”
Crossing half the continent in an instant. People disappearing without warning. She was already sick of things that defied all reason.
‘As if I care about a dress.’
Evelyn had never been someone who understood shame.
She might be pretending to be a duchess, but she was nothing like those noblewomen who assigned such importance to a body that was, in the end, nothing more than flesh.
To her, the body was simply a tool for survival.
Whether her clothes were stripped away, her body dirtied, or even wounded—it made no difference, so long as she lived.
And yet his gaze alone was enough to awaken the one feeling that had always been foreign to her. Shame.
Evelia Locke. The infamous assassin whom even the wardens of Zelakent feared was as helpless as a newborn before Brumfield’s jailer.
Having to kneel before him, every single time — the humiliation made Evelyn clench her teeth.
Eyes as blue as the open sky held her captive.
No one had ever looked at Evelia Locke this way. Not her employers. Not her targets. Not the prisoners of Zelakent. Not even its wardens. None of them had ever looked at her the way this man did.
Instinctively, Evelyn stopped breathing. It was the kind of instinctive reaction prey had after being caught in a predator’s gaze.
Another beautiful smile spread across the Duke’s handsome face. There was no killing intent in the smile that curved his eyes, but Evelyn knew. She knew this man wanted to swallow her whole.
Mist rolled lazily through the lavish, sprawling bedroom.
The room filled with pale fog that seemed intent on devouring her, lending the bedroom an almost dreamlike air.
Determined not to be consumed by the enchanting mist, Evelyn clenched both hands into tight fists, forcing herself to stay alert. If nothing else, she refused to let herself be cowed by him.
“Eve. What’s wrong?”
Calix gazed at his adorable wife with a sickening sweetness as he reached for her hand. His fingers coiled around Evelyn’s slender wrist like creeping vines.
Her left hand remained pinned against the bed, while he guided her right hand to his jaw. Her fingertips brushed against the saliva she’d spat at him only moments ago.
This wasn’t her will. It couldn’t have been.
With her fingers still damp from the cold, sticky moisture, the man pressed a satisfied kiss against them.
His crimson tongue slipped between smiling lips and slowly licked the length of her fingers. The heat of his tongue made her shudder.
Just then, the Duke leaned close enough to whisper.
“I’ll give you what you like.”
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