A Shadow Cast in Paradise - Chapter 58

Riana froze in place with her eyes wide open.

Sched’s jaw muscles could be seen tensing tightly.

He roughly grabbed Riana’s wrist.

“Your Excellency. Your Excellency…!”

Ignoring her protests, Sched strode forward as if piercing through the corridor.

His steps were headed towards one of the guest rooms prepared for distinguished visitors.

Entering the room and locking the door, Sched threw Riana down in the middle of the room.

“Ugh, Your Excellency…!”

Riana’s maid uniform became disheveled as she fell to the floor.

Her white calves were revealed beneath the hem of her skirt.

Yes. The leg that had been bitten by the dog on the day he found her was now completely healed, with no visible scars.

Sched recalled that day.

Even on that day when he saw that blood-soaked leg, did he feel a hint of lust?

His teeth clenched tightly.

“You, tell me properly… Whether you want to attract my attention or avoid it.”

Why do you appear at that exact time and place when I’m trying to escape?

Disappearing when I want to catch you, why do you only come when I want to run away?

And why especially today are you wet, driving people even crazier?

His blood boiled.

It was meaningless to distinguish whether he was angry or excited.

Sched approached Riana as she staggered to her feet.

Her white nape wet with moisture, even her disheveled hair, all seemed to tempt him.

She emitted an overwhelmingly strong fragrance.

It permeated deep into his lungs, spreading to his fingertips and toes.

“Did you put on perfume to seduce someone?”

The heat rising in his chest made it hard to breathe.

Sched roughly loosened and threw off the cravat that had been constricting him.

Sched asked, swallowing the fragrance so intense it sent shivers through him.

Riana usually didn’t wear perfume.

Then is this scent for me? Or is it for some other bastard?

Thoughts scattered in his mind burning hot with passion.

Suddenly, he remembered Dietrich asking about Riana at the banquet.

“Don’t tell me you were planning to meet that bastard?”

It had been bothering him constantly.

That fool had been hovering around Riana, showing interest in her since arriving in Paradel.

Riana was terribly kind to that deputy minister bastard.

Even when he stumbled over his words clumsily, she would listen quietly and smile.

She smiled fearlessly in front of him, even though he was the deputy minister and the final judge who had judged her family.

It made his blood boil to see those expressions she had never once shown to Sched Lester.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I…”

Riana shook her head but stopped speaking when she saw Sched breathing roughly.

It didn’t take long to realize that his scent carried on the hot air was not due to perfume.

“No way…”

Riana looked up at him with confused eyes.

The image of that night overlapped with Sched.

“The sedative…!”

Riana asked, but Sched didn’t seem to be listening to her question properly.

“Viscount Bitel clearly said he gave you a new sedative…”

“Did you talk that much with Bitel? Really…?”

Sched moved in close to Riana.

Ah, yes. Dietrich, Eclas…

All the men around Riana were irritating.

He wanted to monopolize her so that no one else could desire her.

His eyes flashing with color approached Riana.

Riana swallowed her breath at his overwhelmingly strong scent.

The thick, sweet musk scent she had smelled that day too.

The fragrance so intense it made her throat dry caused her body to go limp and her chest to feel hot.

Riana swallowed and shook her head.

Don’t give in, Riana.

“Your Excellency, you need to think rationally. First, the medicine…”

“Damn it, I already took the medicine a long time ago…!”

As Sched roughly threw off his jacket, the medicine bottle he had tucked inside rolled across the floor and touched Riana’s toes.

The brown medicine bottle was already completely empty, without a single pill left.

He had done his best to suppress his desire.

There was no time to look for water or anything.

He grabbed the wine glass next to him and poured in the medicine, hiding from people’s eyes.

He hoped that even if he fainted from the medicine like this, it would be fine as long as it could suppress the burning heat consuming his body.

As the medicine took effect, his excitement gradually subsided.

The cold wind in the corridor seemed to dissipate the heat that had been rising.

He thought he was getting better like that… but then Riana appeared.

At the same time, everything fell apart.

Riana looked at the empty medicine bottle.

“That can’t be… Surely the medicine should have…”

“It seems it doesn’t work on beasts.”

He muttered self-deprecatingly as he kissed her nape.

He could feel the small body in his arms trembling.

“Your Excellency…!”

He felt terrible self-loathing and at the same time indescribable elation.

Just her presence alone cleared his blocked airways and allowed him to breathe.

Holding Riana, he finally felt like he could live.

As he embraced Riana, he finally understood why people called Lupus a beast, why they despised and considered him dirty.

‘When I want you so disgustingly, who would say I’m not filthy.’

Sched thought as he engraved his vulgar emotions onto her white skin.

The dying embers in Riana’s chest were rekindled by his touch.

“No… Sched, please.”

Riana squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed the strong arms that were restraining her.

His kisses were rapturous and intense, as if they would devour her.

But they were certainly not pure.

It forcibly dragged out emotions she had barely managed to stuff deep into the trash bin.

Like a beast rummaging through a garbage dump, it ransacked deep into her heart, forcibly digging up old and dirty junk.

He finally brings out the torn scraps of garbage and shows them as proof.

As if to say, don’t you love me too?

With his kisses, he pieced together the torn fragments one by one, clearly revealing traces of emotion.

Could it be this miserable?

Riana roughly pushed away Sched, who was dragging out unwanted emotions.

“Your Excellency.”

At that, his hot lips detached from her nape.

Deep black pupils, dilated like an excited beast, gazed at her as if to draw her in.

As if urging her to accept this existing emotion, he thrust it before her eyes.

Riana trembled with her lips pressed together.

Yes. She couldn’t deny his proof.

She loved him.

Even if it was a torn and tattered emotion, it was love.

But it wasn’t purely love alone.

The emotion pulled from the trash bin clearly showed signs of being torn and crumpled.

No matter how much it was pieced together and patched up, it could never become a clean and beautiful emotion.

It could never be restored to its original form.

Therefore, her love was like that.

A trivial, dirty, and worthless emotion that wouldn’t matter even if thrown on the ground.

“What you need right now, Your Excellency, is not me but your fiancée.”

She suppressed the boiling emotions and grasped onto reason.

He had Giselle.

The woman he was engaged to, and would soon marry.

“I will go bring the Deputy Minister.”

Riana barely composed herself and stood up.

Then a great force grabbed her and threw her onto the bed.

“Ugh…!”

Two arms with thick veins bulging pinned down Riana’s body.

A solid and imposing physique that looked like it could crush her was looking down at her from above.

“Your Excellency…!”

“Does it not bother you at all?”

Sched asked in a low voice through clenched teeth.

His hot breath brushed against her cheek.

“You… it doesn’t bother you at all if I sleep with another woman?”

Sched’s body pressed heavily and firmly onto Riana.

He was clearly swayed by instinct, and also seemed angry.

Yet somehow, he looked terribly sad.

Her chest ached unbearably as it rose and fell shallowly.

“…Then how should I feel?”

Riana asked.

You already have a fiancée, that beautiful and perfect woman, so what should I do?

“Are you hoping that I’ll be upset?”

Riana asked Sched with sharp words.

Do you want me to be hurt about you spending the night with your fiancée?

Should I just keep hurting, constantly reminded of our mismatched positions?

Yes. Honestly, she envied Giselle Marlhein.

She wanted to be that endlessly pretty, pure, bright, and also bold woman.

She coveted her position too.

A proud and fearless but not gloomy, clever young lady.

Not a demon feared by all, but a saint welcomed by people.

But so what? What would change by envying and being jealous of her?

I’m a heretic and she’s a saint, I’m a traitor and she’s the deputy minister, I’m a maid and she’s the daughter of a marquis.

She always pretended to be calm and unaffected, but in truth she wasn’t.

Riana Serpens, no, Louise Ideana was an ugly human being.

Felix Ideana created an immortal monster through experiments, but couldn’t fix the heart.

She was still human after all, so it hurt.

She struggled to hide uncontrollable ugly emotions and suffered.

That’s why she tried to run away.

That’s why she had stuffed those filthy, tattered emotions into the trash bin in the deepest corner of her heart.

Because she didn’t want to get hurt every time. Because she couldn’t bear the pain anymore.

Reality was stuck in the mud, and she didn’t want to dream unattainable dreams.

Riana looked up at him with resentful eyes.

That gaze made Sched feel like he was going crazy.

“You… it doesn’t bother you at all?”

I get so angry just from you talking with Eclas or being together with Dietrich…

Sched’s hands gripping her tightened.

“What should I say to Your Excellency the Duke, who has a fiancée…?”

Riana asked Sched coldly.

Veins stood out on Sched’s neck.

Her constant mention of his fiancée seemed cowardly to him.

Sched retorted to her excuse:

“…What if I break off the engagement?”

Riana’s eyes wavered at the words that struck her heart.

“What would you do if I break off the engagement?”