Chapter 28
4. Humiliation, Love, and Pain
Russell Ed Crocus.
The alpha who had taken her first, and since then, far too often. The crown prince of this kingdom — Marie looked at him and thought: for such a cold and arrogant royal, he seemed surprisingly well-loved.
‘Otherwise…’
How else could one explain the sheer dedication his subordinates poured into tormenting an Omega so beneath their prince’s station?
Ever since her first night with Russell, the maids’ ridicule had turned sharper, as though their tongues were sharpened knives.
Just like now.
“Don’t delude yourself, Miss Marie. You’re someone who will eventually have to leave. You’re not dreaming of staying at His Highness’s side, are you? He already has a fiancée chosen for him. I do hope you understand.”
“If it weren’t for those eyes of yours, you wouldn’t have even caught His Highness’s attention. If not for those exact eyes!”
That accusation had become rather familiar.
Marie swallowed a sigh. She was used to being despised, so it didn’t bother her much anymore. But that line was something she’d heard too often.
You’re just a stand-in, so you should know your place.
Strangely enough, it stuck. Enough to push her to ask, despite herself.
“What do you mean by ‘stand-in’?”
There was a beat of silence. And then, the maids burst out laughing in unison.
“Oh my, so now you’re curious?”
The way their eyes gleamed as they looked at her — how grotesque it was. Like they’d been holding in their fury all this time, only to be finally unleashed by her long overdue question.
“Listen carefully, Miss Marie.”
The maids rushed to explain, almost tripping over one another.
The crown prince once had a young fiancée, they said. She had been with him the day the late Queen passed under scandalous and unfortunate circumstances. And you, they added, have the same eyes as that girl.
So don’t delude yourself. That interest of his? It won’t last.
Marie exhaled faintly, a quiet ah escaping her lips. Was that why the crown prince kept meeting her gaze so often?
Shamefully, she had been sharing his bed with unsettling frequency. Their pheromones were naturally intermingled.
She hadn’t forgotten the purpose of their coupling — pheromone regulation. But still, she found herself helplessly drawn to the bed of that dominant Alpha. Spreading her legs, taking him in, moving with him — it had become routine.
Especially during the deep, when they were deep intertwined in one another, Russell…
‘Marie.’
‘Hhnh… ah—Your Highness, it’s too much—hah… ah!’
‘Look at me.’
‘Please—hah—ahh, there, yes—right there—hah!’
‘Look properly, Marie Alphrose.’
‘Hnnngh!’
He always told her to look at him, relentlessly, obsessively. It was embarrassing enough to make her want to look away, to escape the weight of it. But still, the way his gaze held her down, like stakes pinning her to the earth — she had liked it. Strangely. Shamefully.
‘So that’s what it was…’
Was it just because she had those eyes, the same as his lost betrothed?
‘But even so…’
A flicker of resistance rose inside her. A quiet push against what the maids had said.
Back then, his fiancée must have been a very young girl. And despite what the maids insisted, Marie had never once felt like he was looking through her, like he was seeing someone else in her place.
Of course, come morning, she would wake to the chill of an empty bed, as though the fervent passion of the night before had never existed. Each time, the emptiness stung a little more. A quiet ache lodged deeper in her chest.
Even so…
“Why aren’t you saying anything, Miss Marie? We expected you to be a little more hurt.”
“Thank you for telling me. I heard you quite clearly.”
“…!”
It seemed the maids had wanted her to wilt, to despair at the news. But instead, something else came to her mind. Specifically, that the Crown Prince, as a boy, had lost both his betrothed and his mother at the same time.
Marie understood what it meant to lose family. Picturing him as a child, suddenly left alone, made her heart tighten. And at that, she tilted her head in quiet confusion.
‘Am I heartbroken? For someone like him?’
The realization struck like a blow. He had everything and lacked nothing, so why was she the one feeling sorry for him?
“Hey! Are you even listening to us…”
Marie knew herself to be a fairly cold person. Her world revolved around her younger sister and her aunt. That was all she had room for. Just keeping herself afloat was enough of a struggle, so she rarely had the energy to care about anyone else.
So then why was she, of all people, worrying about him?
It was ridiculous.
“Ha, you damn…!”
The maids clutched at the backs of their necks as though their blood pressure had spiked at Marie’s return to her usual impassive face. But lost in thought, Marie didn’t even notice.
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