CH 50.1

“Why?”

“I heard she has a close relationship with Master Irvan, but what do you think would happen if she begins hanging out elsewhere?” one of them chatted. “Don’t you feel that Master Irvan would find it favorable if she becomes your wife?”

“Are you telling me to become a husband who shares his wife?”

“It’s not a bad position. As long as she returns in time. Master Irvan will be happy to escape the limelight with that woman, and you will be happy to be with her and even secure her life. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

The other party laughed. “So who’s going to put the bell around the cat’s neck?”

“Someone confident, but for now it’s not me,” the man chuckled.

The insidious laughter of aristocrats chatting at the corner of the ballroom secretly penetrated Emma’s back. Despite her churning stomach, she couldn’t escape the suffocating ballroom as  Lady Evelyn, lonely and without a single close friend, dragged Emma around constantly. She also didn’t have an excuse to turn away from Evelyn’s innocent eyes. Up ahead, Evelyn, who was waltzing on the floor while a beautiful melody was played, gladly gestured to Emma. She waved her hand in kind.

Under the sparkling chandelier, Emma tilted her cup, smelled the thick perfume floating in the air. She felt frustrated. Lonely, like a solitary duckweed floating in the cold wind in the middle of a lake. Soon enough, she was not able to stand it and quietly snuck out to the terrace.

Here, it was silent. She put her elbows on the rail and stared up at the black night sky. The sky would be the same everywhere. In Summerville, in Reshire, even in Polarville.

Suddenly, Uncle Phillip, her remaining family, came to mind.

Emma was out of the Van Wert Castl, yet she hadn’t contacted her uncle even though she had the opportunity to. She wasn’t willing to acknowledge her loneliness and sadness from being betrayed. Moreover, there was still a hint of distrust and cautiousness. Those two hellbent on catching her might attempt to catch her once more if her whereabouts were known to the outside world.

So, everytime her pen touched the paper to contact her uncle, she flinched in fear. Her nanny and butler in Polarville might be waiting. On the other hand, the rumor she’d heard from Layna was still in the back of her mind. The stories about Uncle Phillip may be all made up, but Emma was a cautious woman at heart.

Emma hated how she doubted everything, as she had been betrayed greatly once, and now it was inevitable. She couldn’t repeat another folly of having to pay the price for freedom with her life.

‘First, let’s think it through…’

Now, Otto and Dora are alive somewhere. Her enemies still hadn’t shown their evil hands as of yet, but there was no telling when a crisis would occur.

Emma regretted having used her real name in Wert City this entire time. Had she made an alias, she could have felt a bit safer, but Irvan had ruled against it. Though when she thought about it deeper, Irvan was right. Regardless, Otto and Dora would still be able to find her.

She hadn’t known then, but Irvan, whose status was no different from the king of Reshire, told her to fearlessly use her name because he could use his strength to protect her.

‘With the way things are going, I…’ Emma looked up into the deep, blue night sky and thought of the tall and handsome man who would be under the same sky. ‘I missed Irvan.’

Even when she was lost in the sea of strangers, Irvan was the only one to occupy her mind. She missed his warm hugs, his strong hands, his wide chest, the broad shoulders that encased her and the warmth of his body lying beside her. The man who helped her in a desperate crisis. The only one person she could trust and rely on in this cruel society was Irvan.

‘He must be safe, right?’

Just thinking about Irvan’s safety sent chills down her neck and spine. Although he could easily kill werewolves, Irvan was still human. Whenever Emma remembered the infected wound from the werewolves’ claws, she couldn’t relax.

‘I miss him. I want to see him.’

Emma, resting her chin on the rail and staring blankly up at the night sky, desperately prayed that Irvan, somewhere under the same sky fending off monsters, would return safely.