Chapter 84
Epilogue_Ever after
Could he really be that beautiful?
Hunter quietly watched Prina, who could not take her eyes off Nathaniel, sound asleep in the large cradle.
“…My baby. My small, beloved baby.”
Prina whispered softly to herself.
Did she know? That every time she looked at her child, her expression seemed as if she possessed the entire world.
That sight stirred something strange within Hunter.
By nature, a mother who has given birth does not leave the nest. That was why, from the moment Hunter began to claim Prina, he spilled his seed into her again and again, to ensure she would stay in the nest he had built. It reassured him to know she would remain, yet at the same time he felt jealousy for the role he could never replace.
Not long after returning to the mansion, Prina began showing signs of pregnancy. Any pregnant female of any species required protection. Eating what he brought her and taking care of what he told her to, Prina was gradually tamed once again into Hunter’s hands during her pregnancy. And ten months later, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
“Nathaniel.”
The child’s name was Nathaniel.
It meant ‘a gift from God’, chosen by Prina herself.
Even though the child bore pitch-black hair inherited from both father and mother, she dared to name him so. Poor Prina seemed still unable to let go of her lingering attachment to happiness.
“We really are a happy family, aren’t we, baby?”
Prina would often repeat this as she held Nathaniel in her arms. She sang lullabies to him, spread out a mat near the vegetable garden for picnics, fed him meals with her own hands, and even when his mouth was hardly dirty, she carefully wiped it clean.
On the surface, it all appeared perfectly ordinary and happy. Just like any other family.
Prina, you are hopeless. Always searching for happiness in the smallest of things, and endlessly craving it. Perhaps, as long as you live, you will always be that way. Not realizing that it is the very source of your misfortune.
Just as she had named him, Prina cherished the child as though he truly were a gift from God. Nathaniel was her only hope, her reason to live. And perhaps because of that mismatched name, Nathaniel even became a gift, a stroke of fortune, to Hunter himself.
The relationship between Hunter and Prina, which had grown somewhat strained, inevitably improved thanks to Nathaniel. He was the child’s father, so at the very least, she had to tie her heart to his. And in the ordinary happiness Prina envisioned, the father of her child—Hunter—was an indispensable part.
Even after they had returned to the mansion, Hunter had inwardly worried for a time that Prina might run away again. But once the child was born, he could not deny that the atmosphere had completely changed.
Nathaniel was a boy who looked exactly like Hunter.
His sapphire-blue eyes alone resembled his mother, but everything else was entirely Hunter’s.
When had Prina grown so weary of him, ready to flee at any moment? And yet now, because of a child who bore his face, she had turned back toward him. What irony.
Still, if that was the happiness Prina sought, Hunter was willing to accept it. He already has.
To Hunter, this irony felt like a firm rope binding the two of them together.
And since Nathaniel was now seven years old, it had already been seven years of such binding.
Which was why, at times, resentment and frustration would rise within him.
You must live because of me, for me, Prina. Not for the child.
After all, a child is nothing more than a toy for you to grow attached to and play with. And yet, even with your master right before your eyes, you let yourself be distracted by a toy.
Even though I know that giving you toys is what keeps you here, I cannot help but dislike it. I myself am hopeless.
But what can I do? If I were to destroy the toy, Prina would leave.
And so, just to see her smiling face, Hunter could never bring himself to end this childish make-believe.
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