“I can’t believe you didn’t know. You entered the duke’s household by deceiving even your gender. But I suppose a mere human wouldn’t know everything about wolf shifters. Unlike me, a wolf shifter.”
Though I had suspected it might be so, to think he was indeed a wolf shifter. That meant the duke wanted a union with another wolf shifter. Not a mere human, as Reina Tilbut said.
“You knew that the duke didn’t hire any female servants because a male wolf in heat is no different from a beast. Yet you pretended to be a man and coveted the duke’s woman’s position, acting as if you didn’t know. It’s disgusting. You took advantage of the duke who lost his senses during the spring heat. You shameless wretch, exploiting the weakness of wolf shifters who imprint just by mating!”
Reina Tilbut, who even shuddered as she said those last words, finally spoke what Chloe had to hear. The truth about imprinting that she didn’t want to know.
‘They imprint just by mating.’
Chloe felt as if the ground beneath her feet was endlessly sinking. The tall trees above her head were spinning in circles. It seemed those trees might fall and crush her at any moment.
She didn’t know about the spring heat, or wolf shifters, or imprinting. That incident was just the result of a series of coincidences. But it was true that she had deceived the duke by dressing as a man, and it was true that she had pounced on the resisting duke that night.
She couldn’t argue that the duke wasn’t the type to sleep with just any woman in front of him because of this ‘spring heat.’ As Reina Tilbut said, the duke hadn’t hired any female servants from the start, nor allowed any woman to approach him.
‘I see… So that’s why.’
At last, Chloe seemed to understand why the Ulpaz duchy had put forth such unusual conditions. The duke didn’t dislike women; he feared his own instincts, heat, and imprinting.
She felt like bursting into tears for no apparent reason.
No, I can’t cry now. I absolutely must not cry in front of that woman. Chloe bit the inside of her lip to hold back her tears.
“To think the duke imprinted on a filthy, ugly human like you, it’s shameful and infuriating as a fellow wolf shifter. If the next alpha is born from the likes of you, I don’t know if I could recognize them as an alpha. Well, an opportunistic sort like you would struggle to hold on as an alpha’s mate anyway. Perhaps your inability to hold on would be better for both the duke and the wolf shifters.”
Reina Tilbut spewed some more curses that Chloe couldn’t fully understand, then turned sharply and disappeared from the garden as if she couldn’t stand being in the same space as a human any longer.
Feeling as if her whole body had been beaten by the insults the woman had hurled, Chloe finally collapsed right there.
She was not that kind of person at all. She was just a human who had come to love the duke.
But what the duke was feeling wasn’t love. It was merely an instinctive reaction. Just like how a duckling thinks of and follows the first being it sees as its mother. Like considering the first person you sleep with as your destined partner and becoming subordinate to them.
No, you’re not a duckling. But you are a wolf. A wolf whose mind is bound by mere physical union.
Tears were already streaming down Chloe’s cheeks.
[This is the timeline separator]It was strange. Chloe hadn’t returned to her room even after lunch, when it was time for afternoon tea. Even after waiting and waiting, and finally pulling the bell cord to summon her, she didn’t come.
Another 30 minutes passed. It had been nearly three hours since he had last seen Chloe. It was the limit. Hugrey called for the butler.
“Where has Clyne Liden gone?”
Seeing the butler’s dumbfounded expression, it seemed he didn’t know Chloe’s whereabouts either. No, this woman! Where on earth had she gone?
“Find her.”
“If you have any instructions, please give them to me first. I’ll tell Clyne as soon as I see him that the duke is looking for him.”
His instruction was to find ‘Clyne,’ so why was the butler interpreting his orders on his own?
“Find Clyne. Right now, immediately, in my room.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Only then did the butler hurriedly bow and scurry out. Hugrey watched the butler leave and immediately headed for Chloe’s room. In his mind, he had already resolved that he could no longer keep Chloe as a personal attendant.
Conveniently, the annoying Tigrium woman had also left the mansion suddenly about an hour ago. She had come without warning and left just as abruptly, barging into his office to announce her departure without any prior notice.
She had said such nonsense.
But there was no time to pay attention to such drivel. By then, all his nerves were already on edge because Chloe was nowhere to be seen.
The Tigrium woman left the room with those cryptic final words. The sight of her silver hair swaying down to her waist seemed particularly repulsive. So much so that he felt an intense desire to remove Chloe’s wig when she returned, to touch her fragrant hair and inhale its scent.
Tap, tap, tap. Before he knew it, Hugrey was tapping the desk with his right hand. In his left hand, he held a ring box engraved with Chloe’s name.
The shop owner gave a doubtful look at the ring size he had pointed to. He seemed to think that being a Swordmaster was irrelevant to such matters. But how could he not know the finger size of a woman he had seen with his eyes and touched with his hands?
He hadn’t intended to give the ring right away. He had planned to wait for her to speak about marriage first, to want to marry him, but it seemed he would have to put this ring on her finger as soon as he found her.
Waiting, damn it!
It seemed that a wolf cub who had imprinted on his mate and fallen in love had to give up on the virtue of patience.
He needed to let her know she was a woman, that she was his mate, that she was the mistress of this mansion. If he did that, there would never be a situation like this again where he had to search for her.
He had to stamp her as his wife and even get it notarized, so he wouldn’t go crazy like this when she was out of sight, feeling like she might run away.
He wanted to announce to the whole country, the entire continent, that Chloe Liden was his wife. So that wherever Chloe went in the world, everyone would know she was his woman, and they could inform him, ‘Chloe Liden is here.’
“Chloe, Chloe Liden, Chloe Ulpaz.”
As he spoke her name aloud, Hugrey’s hand tapping on the desk to the rhythm of those sounds was getting faster and faster.
She wouldn’t reject me, would she? She would be happy to become ‘Chloe Ulpaz,’ wouldn’t she? She should be. Surely her affection for him hadn’t cooled in the meantime? She was still the lovely woman who had been stealing glances at him just this morning. So why wasn’t she appearing?
His throat was getting drier and drier.
There had never been a time when she disappeared without a word like this, even before they had confirmed their feelings for each other, when they were just servant and employer.
Could it be that in this short time, she had changed her mind and left this mansion? Did she not like the necklace he gave her this morning? Or was she afraid of his desire for her, which he had shown playfully, yet revealed only a tiny fraction of his true feelings? Had she discovered the howling of his body for her, which he had tried to hide?
Had he gone completely mad now? What nonsense was he worrying about? She had said she loved him. She wouldn’t change her mind so easily. What a flustered, pathetic, timid wolf cub he was being. She must have just fallen asleep somewhere. She would appear as if nothing had happened.
Hugrey recognized his own rapidly changing psychology, which he had never experienced in his life, and self-deprecated. It seemed that loving someone meant going insane. Otherwise, how could he be this anxious?
He barely composed himself and firmly pressed his fingers, which had been tapping somewhat frantically, onto the desk.
And 20 minutes later.
‘You stupid fool. Rash, lacking self-control, and unable to hide your overflowing feelings, you idiot.’
He was truly berating himself like a madman again. Cursing his actions from the night before when he had revealed his desire to sleep with Chloe, who had looked at him with such surprised eyes. He regretted even more not proposing and getting an answer right away when she looked at him with those cute and pretty eyes in the morning.
He could assert that he had never experienced such emotional ups and downs in his entire life. It felt as if a new self had emerged, trembling in fear of being abandoned by his mate.
Pacing back and forth in his office with his arms crossed, continuing to regret, he finally kicked the door open and went outside. He had to find Chloe right away.
Male lead reborn without memories — but he still falls for her.
The person he finds displeasing in this life turns out to be his cherished wife-master in previous life…
Xie Zhi and Fang Xianxing who had known each other for less than three days through a blind date sat in the same car in front of the civil affairs bureau. They had a disagreement and failed to get married.
Xie Zhi immediately took out his phone, slid through his contacts, and randomly selected the next marriage candidate.
The woman snatched his phone and hung up. Looking at his phone wallpaper, she awkwardly changed the subject: “An ancient painting, eh? It looks pretty good, it’s just that the person in the painting looks a bit like me.”
When he heard this, he sarcastically mocked her for being so delusional, completely unaware that, the person in front of him was the reincarnation of Wen Ru, the famous prime minister of Yuan Shun whom he most admired…
The female CEO who doesn’t want to get married with a divorce agreement in hand × The male archaeological researcher who will only get married if he’s sure he can get divorced
