Chapter 3

After leaving the Cube of Truth, I took a leave of absence and went to the Healing Temple in the Imperial Capital.

I had been dry-heaving lately, and my magic had become dangerously unstable.

I assumed it was a severe stomach condition caused by too many sleepless nights brewing potions, so I went to the clinic.

“Lie down and take off your top.” The white-robed healer pointed to the cold examination table.

Clutching my cramping stomach, I frowned. “It’s just an ordinary stomach spasm. Do I really need to undress?”

“Do as I say. Don’t waste my time.”

I gritted my teeth and removed my outer robe despite the discomfort, leaving only the thin garment underneath before lying down.

The healer pressed an ice-silk-gloved hand against my lower abdomen. The instant his spiritual senses entered my body, his impatient expression froze.

“There’s nothing wrong with your stomach.” He jerked his hand back and turned to inscribe a mark onto a diagnostic crystal.

“Congratulations. You’re pregnant. Eight weeks along.”

Eight weeks?

That was the exact night of the royal masquerade.

Ice filled my veins as I walked through the temple’s long corridor, clutching the faintly glowing diagnostic crystal.

I was pregnant.

Pregnant with the child of a man whose face I had never even seen.

If House Thorne found out, they would accuse me of disgracing the family, revoke my alchemist credentials, and perhaps even sell me into marriage with some elderly nobleman.

I had to keep this secret, save enough money as quickly as possible, and escape the Imperial Capital for good.

Bang!

The doors at the end of the corridor were suddenly kicked open.

Kyle strode toward me in black armor stained with dragon blood, radiating such terrifying fury that the healers scattered out of his path.

He came straight up to me and seized my wrist, gripping it so hard he nearly crushed the bone.

“Kyle! What the hell is wrong with you? Let go!” I struggled against him as pain shot through my arm, desperately trying to hide the hand holding the crystal behind my back.

“What are you hiding? What trouble have you gotten yourself into now?” Instead of releasing me, he yanked me into his arms. The overpowering scent of blood and dragonfire washed over me.

He ignored my struggle, his gaze fixed on the diagnostic crystal still glowing faintly in my hand.

His breathing grew ragged, his chest heaving like a beast on the verge of losing control.

“Vesper.” He clenched his teeth, forcing each word out. “What is that?”

“None of your business. Let go of me!” I snapped, bristling like a hedgehog as I stomped hard on his military boot.

“I asked you what that is!” he roared, slamming me against the cold marble wall.

The impact sent numbness through my back. I glared fiercely at him.

“My medical report! You have no right to interrogate me!”

“Then why are you hiding it like a thief?!”

Ignoring my protests, he snatched the diagnostic crystal from my hand and forced his magic into it.

The healer’s diagnosis appeared in the air above the crystal:

【Pregnancy confirmed. Eight weeks.】

The air seemed to freeze.

Kyle stared at the words. His eyes slowly turned red, the blood vessels standing out so sharply they looked ready to burst.

“Pregnant…” He laughed suddenly. The sound was more agonized than a sob, laced with a madness that made my skin crawl. “You’re actually pregnant?”

He lunged closer, cupped my face in both hands, and forced me to look into eyes driven wild with jealousy.

“Who the hell is the father?!” he roared. “Which bastard got you pregnant?!”

He frightened me, but I couldn’t back down.

“I told you, it’s none of your business!” I shoved at him. “This is my child!”

“Who is that bastard?” Kyle gave a cold laugh, murder blazing in his eyes. “He got you pregnant and then abandoned you? What kind of man does that?!”

“You don’t get to decide what kind of man he is!” The contempt in his eyes cut into me, and I shot back through clenched teeth, “At least he wouldn’t manhandle me in public like some tyrant!”

“Manhandle you?” Kyle’s hands tightened violently around my shoulders.

“Do you have any idea what Baron Thorne will do if he discovers you’re pregnant and unmarried? He’ll tie you up and sell you on the black market!”

“Are you really that cheap? You’d rather ruin yourself by sleeping with some worthless coward who wouldn’t even show you his face?!”

Slap!

I struck him hard across the face. “Shut up!”

As I watched him look ready to tear this “bastard” limb from limb, an absurd ache rose inside me.

Why was he so angry?

Did he think I had disgraced House Thorne?

“He isn’t some bastard!” I blurted out in self-defense. “There’s someone I love. I’ve loved him for a very, very long time.”

Kyle crushed the diagnostic crystal into powder with his bare hand.

Crystal shards pierced his palm. Blood trickled between his fingers and dripped onto the marble floor, but he seemed unable to feel the pain.

“Good. Very good.” He released me and stepped back.

“Vesper, you’d better pray I never find that bastard. Because if I do, I’ll crush every bone in his body with my own hands, rip out his soul, and burn it in hellfire for three hundred years!”

With that, he turned and strode away.

I sagged against the wall, my legs weak and my back drenched in cold sweat.

What I didn’t know was that the “bastard” he had cursed so viciously was Kyle himself.