Feeling the breeze against her skin, Velia noticed it was gradually getting colder due to the long time spent outdoors.
Yet, strangely, she didn’t feel like going back into the banquet hall.
“……Huh?”
At that moment, Prince Khaled draped his coat over Velia’s shoulders.
“You shouldn’t catch a cold.”
“Thank you.”
Velia grabbed onto the coat with a thin smile. She hadn’t realized she was cold, but with his coat around her, she felt warmth spread throughout her body.
It was amusing to think that she could feel warmth simply from someone draping a coat over her shoulders on the terrace of a party venue. As a smile tugged at her lips, Prince Khaled spoke quietly.
“Earlier, what did you discuss with Raul?”
“Pardon?”
“You seemed upset after dancing with him.”
Prince Khaled cautiously asked, curious about what nonsense Raul might have spewed to Velia.
At first, Velia kept silent, not willing to answer. But seeing her deep in thought, he felt compelled to bring up the topic again.
“…….”
Yet, Velia hesitated, her lips pressed tightly together, offering no response.
Raul couldn’t have possibly spoken well of him. Surely, in her small head, she must be debating whether to relay the message. He could only guess at the multitude of thoughts flowing through her mind.
“The princess thinks too much.”
His sighladen comment prompted Velia to open her mouth cautiously. It wasn’t that she intended to hide anything.
“Prince Raul asked if you would regret it. That I would certainly regret choosing you.”
The more she thought about him, the more her mood sank.
So what does that imply about the conclusion if she had chosen Raul?
“So I told him that wouldn’t happen.”
“I see. So that’s why Raul looked that way.”
Satisfied with her answer, Prince Khaled nodded, his arms crossed.
“Just that much talk doesn’t affect me. You don’t need to hide it.”
“……But there’s no need to hear unpleasant things.”
“Thank you. To think so much about me.”
Prince Khaled looked up at the night sky, a faint chuckle escaping him.
Compared to what he imagined, it wasn’t a big deal.
But seeing Velia deliberately holding her tongue for his sake, his mood seemed to lighten slightly. So he opened his mouth impulsively.
“Raul and I are not on good terms.”
At his abrupt statement, Velia looked at him. When Prince Khaled met her gaze, he continued with a smirk.
“One might think it’s natural, since we fight over the throne. In fact, when we were young, we got along very well.”
“Is that so?”
“That was before I knew of the pity Raul harbored for me. I truly thought of him as my brother.”
Prince Khaled’s expression as he said this was indifferent.
As if he was numb to it all, as if nothing could affect him anymore.
“If you follow me to the empire, you’ll naturally find out. You’ll see how insignificant a prince I am.”
“……Your Highness.”
“So it wouldn’t be strange if Raul laughed at you for choosing me.”
Velia didn’t like the selfdeprecating way he spoke.
“If I marry you, I will definitely be your strength.”
“Hahaha. Only a princess of Ronica would say something like that.”
Velia spoke a bit stiffly towards Prince Khaled, who tried to brush off the conversation with laughter.
“Moreover, you wouldn’t just hand everything to the First Prince and stand idly by, would you?”
“Does it seem that way?”
“If not, you wouldn’t have accepted my proposal. The gold mine or whatever, whether he found it or not, wouldn’t have mattered.”
But the moment he read her letter and came looking for her.
She had clearly noticed that he had some plan to bring down Raul.
“That’s why, even at my baseless proposal of marriage, you accepted, saying the conditions were good.”
It must have been his strategic move to prevent the First Prince from gaining the Kingdom of Ronica.
If by chance he could make use of the power of the Kingdom of Ronica, it would be nothing less than a fortuitous windfall. Furthermore, it was needless to say about the current Ronica Kingdom.
His statement that he found Velia an attractive target was not a false claim.
And so, Velia had favorably assessed his gesture of warning her even in situations that were significantly advantageous for him.
“…Indeed, you have good intuition.”
Prince Khaled’s expression slightly stiffened.
“You have a good head. Quick to judge the situation.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“So it makes me more suspicious.”
However, he soon relaxed his tense expression and shrugged his shoulders.
Contrary to his grave words, his tone was light.
“To be honest, there are more than one or two points that I find strange.”
Velia, who had been looking at Khaled speaking like this, bit her lip tightly.
Velia had a lot of work to do with him leading the way.
But if he demanded the source of that information every time and doubted her. Surely, the small doubts would accumulate and eventually crumble from the inside.
She didn’t want to leave even a little room for that.
“…There will be many moments of suspicion as you are with me.”
Velia carefully chose her words.
The Villainous Demon Lord Laid an Egg for Her (Female-Dominated)
Several months after transmigrating into a book, Yu Wu found herself facing the demon lord Li You, who could no longer conceal his dragon horns. With one hand on her aching waist and the other gripping a sharp sword, she stared at him.
The demon lord’s eyes were red with fury:
“This is all your doing! Today, I won’t rest until I kill you!”
Yu Wu rubbed her temples. Putting aside the taboo against bloodshed during pregnancy, wasn’t it this very man who willingly walked into her trap that day?!
Warnings:
- Male pregnancy.
- Height ratios are set to mirror typical male-female height proportions.
- Characters include a foot-loving demon lord and an eldest daughter from an immortal family’s concubine lineage.
