Chapter 74
The master of the palace had returned.
In the days that followed, the Crown Prince’s residence brimmed with tension so thick it stung to breathe.
The Omega their lord had risked his life to bring back had rejected him.
Every exchange between them was sharp-edged and frost-laced.
“Leave.”
Marie didn’t even look at him. The Crown Prince, standing like a shadow inside her room, said quietly after a long pause:
“Why aren’t you eating? Is the food not to your liking?”
“I simply have no appetite.”
A frigid response. Russell, gazing at the back she turned to him, answered in a voice equally cold:
“Then I suppose I’ll have to punish the palace chefs for failing to suit your taste.”
Marie scoffed, the sound sharp and dry.
“How petty of you, Your Highness. Is that your attempt at a threat?”
But the words that followed, spoken by a man who only moments ago seemed so cutting, fell limp, deflated like a punctured balloon.
“If you’d just look at me… I won’t punish anyone.”
Slowly spoken. Regret lingering in every syllable. But Marie didn’t so much as twitch in his direction.
That was how it went every day and for every conversation, over and over again.
When she’d regained consciousness, Marie found herself once more inside the palace walls.
She’d run immediately and was caught just as fast.
The maids’ panicked reactions had changed too. There was no longer the careful indifference from before, but clumsy deference. It was almost funny.
They all knew Marie was pregnant. The sudden shift in their attitude only deepened Marie’s unease and distrust.
What are they trying to hide now?
What about my little sister and my aunt?
What about Ryan?
Are they all truly safe?
‘Let me go.’
‘Miss Marie, your body is in a very weakened state. Especially in early pregnancy, you must take great care. You’ve moved too much with severe nutritional imbalance and pheromone deprivation.’
‘Let me go.’
‘…’
‘Let me leave.’
But even when she purposefully avoided looking, the man behind her relentlessly pressed his pheromones against her.
‘Just go back to the way you were. What do you want from me?’
Tears slipped down her cheeks like a fool’s surrender.
‘Is it the child? Is that why you’re doing this?’
The Alpha pheromones made her body feel calm and that made it all the more miserable. It seemed he’d finally decided: he wouldn’t kill her or the child.
That, at least, was a relief.
But the change felt far too light. Too superficial. How was she supposed to trust him? How could she believe he truly meant to keep her and the child safe, that she wouldn’t be treated like she had been before?
When her resistance finally crumbled, many came to see her.
The same palace maids who had once tormented her now visited one by one, bowing low and offering apologies. And they told her the truth.
‘We waited a long time for His Highness to exact his revenge. The daughter of a servant. An Omega. A girl who’d harmed the queen and a young fiancée… We thought you were the culprit. We scorned you, humiliated you, turned our backs. We know it’s too much to ask for forgiveness. You can strike us, scream at us. We don’t expect your mercy. But… His Highness—’
’I don’t want to hear it.’
’Miss Marie…’
’Don’t ask me to forgive you.’
Marie had grown bitterly, resolutely cold. She even found it laughable.
Marie Alphrose was not the daughter of their enemy. She had never deserved the way they treated her. And now they wanted to apologize?
So what?
‘I can’t trust any of them.’
She couldn’t trust a single soul.
They said that just yesterday, there had been a public trial for Arwena von Dietrich. That she had been sentenced to death. That the truth of Marie Alphrose’s innocence had been revealed. That she was no longer the Crown Prince’s courtesan.
But again, so what?
“Marie, I’ll just release my pheromones and go.”
Russell, who had suddenly come, spoke in his usual calm voice.
It wasn’t like him at all. There was an unusual softness to him, and that made Marie feel afraid. Why has he changed like this? Is it really because of the child?
“You’re unstable in many ways right now because of the d**g that woman gave you. That’s why all these thoughts are coming to you.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“You don’t even want to hear an explanation about the wrongs done to you?”
“That doesn’t make them go away.”
“Doesn’t it change things?”
He had made her a courtesan, but it turned out the Crown Prince hadn’t brought in the debt collectors.
As if afraid of further misunderstandings, the man known as the captain of the knights had laid out everything they’d kept hidden, so exhaustively it became tiresome. And in that moment, Marie found her brief sense of relief pathetic.
“Your Highness.”
She heard someone approaching, their face brightening as if seeing hope.
Marie slowly opened her eyes and looked into the mirror before her, seeing the man who had stopped behind her.
Somehow, he looked thinner than when they had met at the cliff — his face more tired and his expression desperately out of place.
‘That expression again.’
As if he truly loves me.
“I want to leave.”
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