Ch#97
97
He twisted his head away and gripped her wrist tightly.
Thalia held on tenaciously, digging her nails into the soft flesh. His face, which had been flushed deep red, now turned a pale, sickly blue.
He thrashed his body about, letting out a series of choked, strangled groans. Ignoring him, she applied more pressure to her fingers as if she intended to crush his tongue.
Just then, a sharp scream rang out from somewhere. Hurried footsteps followed, and someone grabbed her by the shoulder.
Thalia let out a savage shout.
“Let go! I’m going to pull his tongue out so he can never utter another disgusting word again!”
“Oh, good heavens! Someone, stop her!”
A shrill voice echoed through the air.
Regardless, Thalia gripped Lucas’s jaw and shoved her fingers even deeper.
Just as she was about to sink her nails into the root of his tongue, she felt a powerful pressure around her waist, and her body was lifted into the air.
Thalia turned around, huffing with rage. Varkas, who had hoisted her up like a piece of luggage, was glaring at her with eyes like frost.
“What on earth is going on here?”
He looked back and forth between her and Lucas, as if trying to make sense of the scene before him.
Then, Lucas, who had been slumped on the floor with a dazed expression as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened to him, scrambled to his feet.
“That—that woman just tried to pull my tongue out! Look at this!”
Pointing an accusing finger, the trembling Lucas stuck out his wounded tongue.
The veins in Thalia’s neck bulged.
“Bring it here! I’ll tear it out by the roots!”
The boy recoiled in horror.
“See? You saw that, right? She’s a total lunatic! She’s out of her mind! Why did you marry a woman like that instead of the First Princess? You should apply for an annulment right this instant…!”
“Lucas Raedgo Si’eikan.”
A low, sighing bass settled heavily in the hallway.
Lucas froze, and even Thalia, who had been raging out of control, went still.
After catching his breath for a moment, Varkas continued slowly.
“What did you say to my wife?”
“I just…”
Lucas’s voice trailed off, his expression flustered.
Looking down at him with cold eyes, Varkas spoke definitively.
“I suppose it is something you cannot say in front of me.”
Lucas’s face turned pale.
His eyes darted around before he muttered resentfully, “No, but still… does anyone normally go this far…?”
As she glared at him with murderous intent, Varkas’s sharp gaze turned toward her this time.
Thalia’s shoulders stiffened.
He questioned her like an inquisitor standing in a courtroom.
“Would Your Highness care to explain the circumstances?”
Thalia looked up at him with eyes full of spite.
As the insulting words his brother had spewed came back to her, her entire body began to tremble.
He wanted her to repeat those things with her own mouth?
She spat out the words through gritted teeth.
“Not in a million years.”
Varkas’s eyes narrowed.
Exhaling a long breath as if gathering his patience, Varkas added stiffly, “You must tell me the reason so that I can hand down a proper punishment.”
Lucas’s face contorted. He looked indignant, as if he were the one being treated unfairly.
Thalia, staring as if she wanted to tear his face apart, began to twist her body.
“I don’t need it, so let me go.”
“…”
“Didn’t you hear me? I said let go.”
Eventually, he set her down on the floor.
Thalia steadied her aching legs and scanned the people gathered in the hallway.
Intoxicated faces were watching them, wondering what was happening. A wave of disillusionment washed over her.
Shooting hostile glares in every direction, Thalia turned and headed for the bedroom. The distance of just a few steps felt like a thousand miles. She struggled to open the door, went inside, and threw herself onto the bed.
A moment later, Varkas followed her in.
Thalia buried her face in the pillow and ignored his presence. If she didn’t, she felt she might lung at him and interrogate him like a madwoman, just as she had with Lucas.
Is your brother right?
Did you really go that far with Aila?
“Thalia Roem Si’eikan.”
One side of the bed sank down, and a deep shadow fell over her head.
Thalia felt the tension rise along her spine.
A somewhat rough hand wrapped around her shoulder. Soon, her body was forcibly turned over, and her tear-blurred vision was filled with his face, which looked like a finely honed blade.
He questioned her sharply.
“Explain properly what happened.”
“What more is there to say?”
Thalia snapped back fiercely.
“You saw it all. I was going to pull your brother’s tongue out, but I failed because of you. What more explanation do you need?”
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because I wanted to.”
As if his patience had run out with her childish bickering, Varkas’s eyes froze over.
He grabbed her chin and murmured with an overbearing tone.
“Just how long do you intend to act like a child?”
Thalia’s face crumpled.
Lucas Raedgo Si’eikan was the one who had crossed the line first. So why was she the one receiving this reprimand?
Thalia brushed his hand away and spat back shrilly.
“I was only paying back the insult I received. If you want to blame someone, blame your father for raising his child that way.”
He pressed his fingers to his temples like someone suffering from a headache.
“Retaliation is done through a proxy. Not by lunging at someone yourself like a ten-year-old delinquent.”
“And who is going to be my proxy? Are you going to take your brother’s head for me?”
Thalia let out a scoff.
“I don’t expect anything from you. If someone attacks me, I’ll retaliate with my own strength.”
The coldness in his eyes grew even more severe.
“Are you saying you’ll climb on top of another man and get into a dogfight again?”
“I wouldn’t put it past me.”
Thalia shot him a hostile look.
“If you don’t want to see that, keep your brother out of my sight. If that brat lingers in front of me one more time, I’ll truly end him.”
The furrow between his brows deepened.
Her fingertips itched at the sight of his expression, which looked as though he were facing a terrible nuisance.
Suppressing the urge to scratch him all over, Thalia crawled into the corner of the bed and pulled the duvet over her head.
How much time had passed?
She felt Varkas get up. Before long, she heard the door close, and a chilly silence occupied the room.
Thalia peeked her head out slightly and looked around the empty room.
Once she was certain she was alone, the tears she had been holding back burst forth like a flood.
Biting her lip to swallow her cries, Thalia buried her face in the pillow and let out muffled sobs.
Then, at some point, she seemed to have drifted off to sleep. Opening her eyes in the dim darkness, Thalia flinched and turned her head at the sound of a clatter.
Varkas was organizing medicine bottles on a shelf, having returned at some point. As she stared up at him blankly, a quiet gaze flew over his shoulder toward her.
“Since you kept moaning in your sleep, I brought some painkillers. Take them and go back to sleep.”
His calm demeanor, as if he had never been angry, caused a strange sense of suffocation to rise within her.
Thalia pulled the duvet up to the bridge of her nose.
“I’m fine.”
A weary sigh escaped his lips. The way he brushed back his bangs somewhat roughly betrayed a hint of irritability.
Was this man suppressing his anger as well?
Thalia watched his face, bathed in the lamplight, intently. On his face, where the coloring was generally pale, his lips—the only part with vivid color—were frozen cold. After staring at them for a while, Lucas Raedgo Si’eikan’s vile voice echoed in her mind.
‘Could it be that our elder brother hasn’t forgotten his former fiancée?’
Thalia bit her lip. The next moment, before she could even realize it, nonsensical words slipped out of her mouth.
“If you feed it to me with your mouth, I’ll take it.”
Varkas, who was setting the bottle of liquid medicine down on the shelf, paused and turned back to her.
Only after seeing his slightly widened eyes did she realize what she had just said.
