Chapter 68
Through her thin clothing, his heart beat pounding could be heard.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Any injuries?”
“I’m unharmed. Bella and Reus are too…”
Bella, tired from the day, had buried her head between Floria’s knees and fallen into a deep sleep.
Reus, uncomfortable in the cramped cave, seemed eager to go outside at any moment.
“As you can see, we’re all fine.”
“Floria, what about you?”
“I’m fine too.”
“Weren’t you scared?”
At his words, Floria shook her head.
“I wasn’t scared.”
Back when she got lost in the forest long ago, even in her dreams she’d tremble with fear—afraid that no one would come for her.
She feared that her mother, her father, would abandon her in the woods like one abandons a cat, then forget all about her.
But not today.
Everything was different now. She believed he would come for her.
Somehow, her heart had ached whenever she thought of Aidan.
When she watched him sleep, when she felt his intense gaze on her, and when she wondered if perhaps he desired not her, but her sister Helia—each thought made her heart nearly burst with pain.
Yet she’d never doubted—even for an instant—that he would come find her.
Even if he’d initially sought Helia, he had never once disappointed her.
Floria’s lips, which had trembled before, now curved into a gentle line.
“I knew you’d come to meet me.”
She believed Aidan, that the people of Sieff Castle would not leave her abandoned in these woods—that they’d search the whole forest and definitely find her.
They wouldn’t abandon me. They wouldn’t forget me.
She believed wholeheartedly that he would surely rescue her.
“You didn’t cry, did you?”
Floria quietly looked up at him.
His voice was curt but laced with warmth.
Now, Floria could be sure.
The man who saved her that day, when she had wandered desperately searching for Fabian…
“It was you.”
The man who had stubbornly refused to remove his helmet—he was Aidan.
Since the event was years ago, Floria had tried to forget that day.
No, she had actively tried to forget. She didn’t want to leave traces of the memory of being abandoned by her family—it had been too painful.
So she buried it deep in her chest.
Even if the memory had remained, she wouldn’t have noticed him that day.
He had never removed his helmet, so she never saw his face.
Seeing his imposing figure, she might have guessed, maybe—but how could she have imagined that the tyrant Aidan would have casually saved her life in those woods?
“Why didn’t you say something? That we’d met before?”
At her words, Aidan’s eyes narrowed.
“You recognized me?”
Floria nodded. Aidan’s lips curled into a wry smile.
“If I’d told you, what would have changed?”
Floria gazed up at him silently.
If she’d known it was Aidan who saved her that day, her fear when she first came to this castle would have been less.
That day, a sudden downpour had come, just like today. She’d taken refuge in a cave en route to the palace.
She thought she would die in that forest, and despair swallowed her—she felt abandoned by her family.
But with him sitting beside her, her pain slowly melted away.
She collapsed to the ground and passed the time staring at the pouring rain.
The man beside her never spoke kindly—but her tears had ceased before long.
If she hadn’t met Aidan that day, she might truly have died.
So if she’d known her savior was him, she wouldn’t have trembled with fear approaching the Sieff Principality.
But…
Despite the fear and dread, she had fallen in love with him.
Whether it was he who saved her that day, or not… Floria would have fallen in love with the man before her.
Ultimately.
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