The Monster Duke Mistook Me for His Wife

***

  

Rumble.

 

I stood blankly, leaning against the closed door.

 

‘What the hell happened?’

 

My head was fuzzy as if in a dream. Am I weird?

 

Nathan, who was lying on the bed, tilted his head.

 

“Ria?”

“Nathan….”

 

I looked at Nathan like a crazy person, and then I fell on the bed.

 

“… Nathan, do you believe in a past life? Reincarnation? Fate?”

“Suddenly?”

 

Nathan blinked his eyes at the pouring of questions.

 

“Yeah!”

“I believe it. Because of past lives, reincarnations, and fate exist, you and I have met again.”

 

Thi, this can’t be? Then the 3rd prince was also reincarnated!

 

“Then, will my lover from my previous life be reborn as I met you again?”

“What do you think?”

“… He won’t, right? Because that person’s soul is locked deep inside.”

 

Even if it was a sacrifice to protect me and the world, by accepting the curse, he became an abandoned child.

 

Then, would God reach out to the cursed child? Would He have shown mercy?

 

God was sweet and kind, but at the same time, He was cruel and cold-hearted.

 

He didn’t destroy the soul of my lover as I requested, but He put a shackle to it so that he could not be reborn for a thousand years under the condition of a test.

 

“By the way, that person showed up. Is this possible?”

“What?”

 

I was stunned and buried my face in the blanket.

 

“The smile is so similar. He even knows the promise.”

 

The purple eyes that looked at me with sorrow kept glimmering before me.

 

Similar but also different. Foreign eyes.

 

“That person is the 3rd prince….”

“Who is he…?”

 

Nathan looked as confused as I was.

 

‘Is the 3rd prince really that person?’

 

All the evidence pointed to the 3rd prince, but I continued to deny it.

 

I can’t believe it, I can’t accept it.

 

Reborn? Possible. As he said, even if he falls into hell, he’s a person who crawls up from it. Nothing he can’t do.

 

‘By the way, the 3rd prince? No way.’

 

If that person were reborn like me, then that person has to be Dillian.

 

“It’s all a mess….”

 

Knowing all the promises he and I had made, it was hard to deny it any longer.

 

As I took a deep breath in the strange situation, Nathan raised his wings to my head.

 

“Ria, did I tell you before? It’s kind of a test.”

“Yeah.”

“You have to overcome it on your own, so there’s not much I can tell you.”

 

Nathan patted my hair and smiled sweetly.

 

“Believe in yourself. There is no need to be shaken by the circumstances around you. Because the way you are going is the right answer.”

  

***

  

The way I’m going is the right answer….

 

Not sure if it’s true, but thanks to this, my complicated head was slowly being organized.

 

“Cool.”

 

The cool night breeze cools his hot hair.

 

A few days ago, I found the pond where I was playing with Dillian and I sat alone in the same seat with him.

 

“In the end, I didn’t even see his face.”

 

Dillian came to me in the middle, but I didn’t open the door until the end.

 

I can’t help it. I still don’t have the confidence to see Dillian.

 

Surely he was going to ask me what kind of relationship I had with the 3rd prince, but I had nothing to say.

 

Because we have no relationship

 

But will Dillian believe it? I was afraid of how the way they looked at me would change.

 

“He’ll definitely be very angry later.”

“If you had known, you shouldn’t have avoided him.”

“Ugh.”

 

At the sudden interruption of the voice, I trembled like someone struck by lightning.

 

The limp hand was crooked. The body fell to the side with the collapsed center of gravity.

 

‘Dangerous. My head would get hit…!’

 

I closed my eyes tightly to the shock, but I felt a large and warm hand wrapped around my shoulder.

 

When I opened my eyes, ruby-red eyes were staring at me silently.

 

We looked into each other’s eyes for a long time.

 

Cool breeze, swaying hair, and the quiet sound of water in my ears.

 

All of this felt like a dream.

 

Was I captivated by the atmosphere, or did I want to use the excuse that I was possessed?

 

I slowly opened my tightly closed lips.

 

“… It may sound weird, but I am the reincarnation of the first Saintess.”

“I see.”

“Don’t you find it funny?”

 

I, who thought Dillian would laugh, just looked at me calmly.

 

“Not at all. You had divine power that overwhelms the Saintess and the High Priest, so I thought there must be a reason.”

“Right. There was a reason. Do you think you know the reason for my rebirth?”

“To meet me, right?”

 

Even up to this moment, I burst into laughter at his unstoppable confident yet sly temptation.

 

“That’s also right.”

“… Is that true?”

 

As he couldn’t accept the joke becoming true, Dillian asked several times with a surprised expression.

 

“Sir Dillian didn’t know, but there is an oracle that came down to Sinaize. It’s an oracle that came down on the day Sir Dillian was born.”

“An oracle?”

“It’s an oracle that, when Sir Dillian turns 25, a child of fate will appear to break the curse.”

 

I looked at Dillian’s surprised face and grabbed his hand.

 

“I am the owner of the oracle.”

 

I told him the story of a dream I had. And the oracle that came down to me and the contents of the diary I left in the past.

 

“So it is my mission to extinguish the Darkness and lift the curse from Sir Dillian.”

“So, Miss Ria’s divine power is my salvation.”

 

Salvation, I wondered if it was too grandiose, but it wasn’t wrong.

 

“If Miss Ria is the reincarnation of the first saint, what am I?”

“I guess that you might be his descendants.”

“Because that guy is still imprisoned in hell?”

“… That’s what I knew.”

 

Silence lingered again at my meaningful words.

 

“Are you saying no?”

“He must have been reborn like me.”

“… I wonder if that person is the 3rd Prince?”

 

Dillian, who was quick-witted, understood what I was trying to say at once.

 

I couldn’t see his face, so I bowed my head.

 

“Tell me. Are you sure that the 3rd prince is the man?”

 

There was nothing I could do other than nod my head at the cold questioning.

 

Then, as soon as I nodded, Dillian grabbed my chin and turned it around.

 

Contrary to the rough momentum, I was relieved by the gentle touch for a while.

 

He took my breath away when I saw the red eyes brimming with confusion.

 

“How are you sure? It may not be.”

“He knows the promise I made with him in the past. He knows everything that happened that day.”

 

Nathan doesn’t know, only him and me.

 

“Ha….”

 

Covering his face with a large hand, the heavy sigh he let out quickly turned into a sullen smile.

 

Bothered by the sudden change, I chewed my lips. His reaction was completely unpredictable.

 

As an excuse, I kept clamoring for something. If I didn’t do this, I thought I would die of suffocation.

 

“I don’t know what happened. Sir Dillian is the owner of the oracle…. Why, the real?”

“Don’t say it’s real.”

 

My shoulders trembled at the harsh voice. I didn’t know what to do with the clear anger I had encountered for the first time.

 

At that moment, when I was choking at the silence that weighed on my shoulders, Dillian stood up.

 

“Were you hesitating because the 3rd prince was that person? So, you don’t know what to do?”

 

I raised my head and was surprised to face the smiling Dillian.

 

“Then why didn’t you tell me earlier? I will solve it.”

“How…?”

“It will not be difficult. I just need to kill him.”

 

Unlike his friendly smiling face, the words that come out of his mouth are like sharp swords.

 

“When the confusing object disappears, Miss Ria’s head will be clear.”

 

At that moment, I realized why Dillian had been quiet until now.

 

He had been killing Manus over and over again in his mind.

 

Countless, many different ways.

 

I hurriedly reached out to Dillian.

 

“Don’t do that.”

 

And this act became a fuse.

 

“Why? Because you don’t want your fate to die?”

“What? What do you….”

“Are you afraid of losing your miserably lost lover again?”

 

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut at the ridiculous misunderstanding.

 

Yes, I was scared. Dillian kills Manus, fearing there will be war with the imperial family.

 

I’m afraid something bad will happen to Dillian. I’m afraid he’ll get injured, he will get hurt!

 

Dillian’s red eyes flashed strangely on my increasingly distorted face.

 

Anger, despair, anguish, jealousy….

 

He was tormented by emotions he couldn’t explain in words.

 

And when I met those eyes, it was painful as well.

 

“That bastard said. No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to resist fate.”

 

As if judging something, Dillian, who was looking into the air, burst into laughter.

 

“Did he think I would give up if he said that?”

 

Cold eyes turned to me. Dillian, who was kneeling next to me, who couldn’t move, made eye contact with me.

 

His half-turned eyes gleamed in the moonlight.

 

The dazzling light that I loved disappeared out of nowhere.

 

“Alright. Concede a hundred times and say it’s fate for you and that bastard.”

 

He doesn’t even want to assume this, so his eyes looking at me are chaotic. I shut my mouth at those eyes.

 

“The place where you will be may not be me, but the 3rd prince’s side.”

“… It can’t be.”

“But it doesn’t matter.”

 

I barely spit out negative words, but my voice did not reach Dillian.

 

Dillian, who had been pouring out his own words, paused for a moment.

 

“The place you are right now is beside me. I won’t let you go.”

 

He smiled sweetly as he looked at me, unable to breathe properly.

 

“Even if, you insist on being beside him.”

 

A large hand wrapped around my cheek. I felt a strong possessiveness from the fingertips that gently wiped my hard cheeks.

 

“It was my place from the beginning.”

 

As if about to bite my lips, he approached me and growled wildly.

 

“Your place is next to me.”

 

I met you first. I found you first

 

The red eyes that met were saying so.

 

Intense, hot, and painful.