Brody slowly lifted her head to look at Jax.

Jax felt her gaze and looked back at Brody.

Brody was looking at him with clear eyes.

In her eyes, there was neither terror nor awe nor contempt.

‘Was she always like this?’

Jax, momentarily surprised, took a breath.

Before going north, Brody couldn’t properly meet Jax’s eyes.

Eyes that shook without confidence, but filled with infinite longing. Those eyes were always tuned to Jax, sensitive to every breath and movement of his.

Jax had hated that attitude. It looked weak, and pitiful. He felt that his status dropped when she flitted around him like that.

“Why, what. What do you want?”

Jax spoke gruffly to Brody, who was looking straight at him.

Brody moved her eyes to look at the gag in her mouth.

It was clearly a gesture asking him to untie it.

Jax sighed and spoke.

“Don’t scream when I untie you. Let’s not exhaust ourselves unnecessarily.”

Brody nodded her head.

She didn’t intend to scream now.

“Phew.”

Brody sighed deeply as the gag was removed.

After catching her breath for a moment, she spoke.

“I’m hungry.”

“What?”

“Do you know how hard I worked today because of His Majesty? We have to eat to live. You’re not going to take me to the capital to handle my funeral, are you?”

“Uh…”

Jax’s mouth hung open at Brody’s cheeky words.

No, it wasn’t the first time he’d heard this.

When he found Brody in the south, she had coldly rejected him.

Jax had thought it was because Aiden was by her side, riding on his coattails.

But even when it was just Jax and her, Brody wasn’t shrinking or acting careful, she was confidently saying what she wanted.

Jax gave a hollow laugh and replied to Brody.

“If you’re so hungry, try making some fruit.”

“I’m too hungry to do that. Do you think fruit just appears out of nowhere?”

My word, she even talks back?

Jax felt a little flustered and said,

“Anyway. You’re useless.”

At those words, Brody’s eyebrows narrowed slightly before returning to normal.

‘Really cuts me down like breathing.’

Brody barely held back her anger.

Jax approached the load and fumbled around, then brought out some jerky and gave it to Brody.

But how would she eat the jerky with her hands tied?

She made another request.

“Untie my hands.”

“If you plan to run away after that, I want to tell you that’s stupid.”

“If that makes you uneasy, feed me.”

Brody said this, thinking that he would certainly refuse.

But Jax grumbled and took out a knife to cut the jerky into small pieces and began to feed her.

‘Uh, just untie my hands.’

But Brody didn’t show great displeasure and obediently accepted the jerky.

After all, she had to replenish her strength if she wanted to escape.

The hard jerky was painful on her empty, rolling stomach.

But she chewed carefully and forced the jerky down.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Puhuk!”

Jax’s sudden words made Brody cough as though surprised. A hundred or so times chewed jerky spurted out of her mouth.

Jax looked at her with a disgusted expression.

Then, unable to bear it, he took out a handkerchief and brushed off the jerky stuck to Brody’s mouth.

“Anyway, it’s dirty.”

Brody scowled.

Watching Brody’s reaction, he became curious. She wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed by that comment, she was annoyed?

“The Duke seems quite smitten with you. I never knew you had that kind of skill.”

Jax said, smirking.

Brody felt a chill at his gaze. This was clearly mockery.

She knitted her brows and retorted.

“Is that the elegant speech the Duke emphasized so much? It hardly seems aristocratic.”

Jacks’s face turned red as he read the omitted part.

‘He scolded me for being vulgar when I meet him.’

No matter what Jacks said, Brody of the past would always bow, saying that Jacks was right, either way.

But being criticized like an ‘ordinary person,’ he felt displeased.

He might have acted carelessly towards Brody, but he never acted in a way that would lose face in front of others.

‘Me? Worry about my face in front of Brody?’

Jacks felt a surge of anger and glared at Brody.

“It seems he took good care of you. Seeing how much you’ve changed. I guess he did a reliable job backing you up?”

He turned his body and approached Brody closely.

Brody was staring sharply at Jacks with clear eyes.

“Hmm, you’ve really changed. The thorns are quite a sight.”

Saying that, Jacks reached out and squeezed Brody’s cheek.

Brody’s eyes widened as if disgusted, and she turned her face away from his touch.

Jacks forcefully turned her face and stroked Brody’s lips with his thumb.

“A woman, you’ve become.”

Thump, thump. Brody’s heart started to beat faster.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up, and she got goosebumps.

The lascivious look in his eyes as he gazed at her lips made her feel like the hardearned jerky she had eaten was going to come back up.

Why is he acting like this? Suddenly, with Brody?

Is it a different thrill to see her not as submissive as the old Brody but rather defiant?

Brody suppressed her rising anger and spoke coldly, acting as if nothing was wrong.

“Do you want to sleep with me?”