-ˏˋ♡꒷︶꒦꒷︶︶︶꒷꒦꒷︶꒷♡ˎˊ˗
[ Tl/N: This is continuation of the flashback from chapter 3 ]
(3rd PERSON POV)
“I like it.”
Ethan glanced toward Archduke Rihast.
“Archduke Rihast is a dominant alpha so….”’
Ethan, who said so, stopped talking for a while and turned to Eileen.
“I’m fine. Instead, I want you to marry the person you love. No one will ignore our family now, so choose and love the person you want. Understood?”
“Are you still not done?”
Irritation permeated the face of the impatient Archduke. Ethan, who shouted ‘I’ll be right there soon,’ hugged Eileen’s small frame for the last time.
In addition, Eileen reached out to her brother’s back, turning around to greet him.
“… No.”
Eileen shook her head strongly.
“No, not you, brother.”
Brother Ethan will die, he’s going to be killed.
The Archduke will never care for him.
‘Oppa, you will never be happy with that person.’
“Don’t go…Please.”
Eileen sobbed. She patiently waited for news about her brother after he left with the Archduke. She was only able to meet with him a couple of times. She had no idea why her brother’s face casted such shadow until the day she finally lost him.
“No… No!”
Eileen let out a shrill scream.
“Haaa, what is this?”
And a rough voice coming from above her head caught Eileen’s attention
“Your sleep talking is loud.”
Seemingly in a daze, she was trying to recognize the voice.
Whose voice was that? Why is my heart breaking so much? Where is Ethan? Who caused Ethan Oppa’s death?
All kinds of thoughts came to her mind and it tormented Eileen.
“Will you come to your senses if I slap you?”
Focus returned to Eileen’s eyes in response to the calm threat.
It was a picturesque man with a square frame. It was so beautiful that it felt surreal. At the same time, she knew the beautiful man was also cruel.
“You bastard. Freaking dominant alpha.”
The tension in the air suddenly dispersed along with Eileen’s voice.
Lloyd’s eyebrows twitched.
Eileen, who had fully awakened from her half-asleep state, covered her face in embarrassment in response to the cold eyes coming from the Archduke. She couldn’t believe she called him a ‘bastard’ right in his face, but when she saw his eyes, she knew it meant otherwise.
‘Why did I even say dominant alpha?’
Throughout the entire continent, Dominant Alphas were so rare you can count them with the fingers of your one hand. In addition, the Archduke of Rihast was the only one in the empire.
‘If I just murmured that it was just an ‘Alpha’, I’d make an excuse that it was someone else, but why?’
Eileen pretended that she didn’t recognize her own sleep talking. She pretended to wipe the saliva around her mouth and covered her face in shame.
“The carriage was so comfortable that I fell asleep without realizing it.”
And while avoiding his gaze, he murmured with his lips on the back of his hand.
‘I wouldn’t have dozed off if it was a regular day. And out of all the coincidences, I just had to doze off and sleep talk right in front of the Archduke!’
A couple of days more and she would have thoroughly prepared to welcome Archduke Rihast, still, that wasn’t the case. Eileen was nervous because she couldn’t hide Ethan in a safer place. Under such circumstances, she should have been relaxed, but the Archduke was quiet and made her uncomfortable.
“Your Highness?”
“Can you step off the carriage now?”
Eileen reluctantly got off because of the sarcastic tone coming from the Archduke. When she inadvertently raised her head, She found a huge building behind Archduke Rihast and couldn’t help but gape at it.
The Archduke’s residence couldn’t be compared to the Claudia mansion despite both coming from a noble lineage. It was not a mansion but a fortress. Eileen can’t help but be overwhelmed by the pointy roofs, as well as the tall size of the residence.
“It’s really big.”
It wasn’t the first time she came here, but the size surprised her every time she saw it. Wouldn’t a thousand people be able to get a room if they live in a place like this? That is if you calculate and divide the area carefully.
Eileen, who found the strange look on the faces of people passing by in front of her, made her close her gaping mouth. Some tilted their heads, and some whispered something to the person next to them.
‘They are trying to recognize who I am because Ethan isn’t here.’
The servants showed a strange reaction when Eileen, instead of Ethan, got off the carriage with the Archduke. Eileen, who volunteered to come to a place where she shouldn’t have come, clenched her teeth. It would have been a big deal if she went and brought Ethan after everything.
‘You have to pretend to be ignorant and endure it.’
“I’ll send you to your room right away so you’d better sleep soon.”
Great Prince Rihast, who doesn’t care about others as much as Eileen, called the butler who was waiting in advance. Eileen nodded slightly to the sound of the Butler’s step towards her and guided her to her room.
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At the very least, she thought she would be fortunate if she broke up with Archduke Rihast and pretended everything that happened between them was something of the past.
“Oh, speaking of, I had something I wanted to ask but ended up unable to because you were asleep.”
It seems that Archduke Rihast would persist if she didn’t answer.
‘Ah, that’s right.’
Eileen cursed him earlier, she had no right to refuse which made her worried, what would she answer if he asked about how she openly cursed him?
Eileen held her skirt in his low voice. She had to think of an excuse because she called him a bastard earlier. Should she act like she didn’t know? It’s best to push ahead with a valid excuse.
“What’s your name?”
“I didn’t even know I called you bastar-……..It’s Eileen.”
This was no different from openly admitting she knew she called him a bastard.
Eileen put up with her desire to cry as she spoke her name. She felt embarrassed that she immediately made a follow up question.
“Why did you want to ask for my name while I was sleeping?”
“I was going to call you earlier, but I didn’t know your name and saw you were asleep.”
“Oh…”
Eileen asked with her eyes.
Did he just propose to a woman whose name he didn’t even know?
Archduke Rihast ended the conversation arbitrarily, perhaps unable to read Eileen’s eyes.
“I remember.”
The words of Prince Rihast, who turned around to leave, wrapped around Eileen’s ears causing her to freeze.
‘He meant he remembers my name, right? He isn’t remembering something else, isn’t he?’
Eileen, who followed the butler, forced herself to think that way.
-ˏˋ ━━━━━━ ʚɞ ━━━━━━ ˊˎ-
In the Archduke’s residence, except for the regular meetings, temporary vassal meetings were held. The only people who could propose something during the meeting were the Archduke and the Senate. It seems that the influence of those elders was quite huge. Whenever a meeting was held, all qualified and influential people were allowed to attend.
As the meeting began, a question was thrown by Lord Calyx, the youngest Senate member and Lloyd’s uncle.
“Your Highness. Can I ask you something?””
“Say it.”
Calix shut his mouth for a while and slowly brought up what they saw.
“The Claudia Omega you brought in…”
“She’s a Beta.”
“I thought I heard it wrong, but I guess it’s true.”
Lloyd’s expression was indifferent to Calyx’s sighing words. It was a reaction that meant he didn’t care what they thought about his decision nor the Beta he brought in.
“What do you mean a beta? There’s a Dominant Omega in that family. Weren’t you supposed to pick that one?”
“There were no other conditions besides taking someone with Claudia Blood as my marriage partner.”
“…….”
Everyone who participated in the meeting was speechless.
It was Calyx’s father, the previous Archduke of Rihast who made a promise of marrying a Claudia descendant into the Rihast family. At that time, it was questioned how he carelessly promised to marry the unborn children. However, the previous Archduke pointed out a very trivial reason,
‘It was because the Claudia bloodline looked good.’
The answer was very brazen, and that brazen blood seemed to be inherited by his grandson.
‘No, shouldn’t I be more like the previous Archduke? Why is my nephew more like the previous Archduke than me, his son?’
Calyx glanced toward Lloyd with an exasperated face. It doesn’t matter as long as the Claudia bloodline condition is met. However, he should have at least brought an Omega to continue the Dominant Alpha bloodline.
But Lloyd was acting as if he was asking what the problem was.
It was time for Calyx to somehow persuade Lloyd. Someone who was watching silently spoke with a heavy gaze. It was Alan, the Senate’s elder representative.
“Betas have problems with their successors.”
“But they can have children.”
When Lloyd’s half-assessed answer towards Alan’s serious voice raised a tension, Calyx intervened once again.
“That’s not what we’re trying to point out, isn’t it?”
Calyx thought Lloyd was such a frustrating nephew! He barely suppressed a shout as well. In the meantime, Alan opened his mouth, talking to Lloyd.
“Even if Betas can give birth to an Alpha’s children, it’s very unlikely that the children will inherit the Alpha trait.”
“Omegas don’t immediately give birth to Alphas as well.”
People’s expressions gradually eased at Lloyd’s easy-going rebuttal. His ability as an Archduke is excellent, but once he was stubborn about something, they couldn’t change his mind even if the sky were to split in two.
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“Well, your highness.”
At the same time that Calyx called Lloyd, people’s eyes turned back to him. They expected Calyx to say something against the archduke again.
“Unfortunately, during the previous Archduke’s reign, The Claudia family did not have any Dominant Omega amongst their children. However, there is one at this time. Of course, everyone expected the Archduke to bring the Dominant Omega as his spouse. Why did the Archduke bring such a stern lady?
Lloyd’s lips were slightly twisted because of Calyx’s question.
TO BE CONTINUED…