Chapter 37: I Hate You
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 37: I Hate You
Blair bit her lip, trying to suppress the moan that threatened to escape.
To be honest, she was in no mood to be held by him. Not now. He was, after all, the man who might have killed her.
But she couldn’t bring herself to push him away. Not with the letter still on the table. She feared that if she didn’t offer him her body, his attention would drift right back to it.
Staring blankly at the sunset filtering through the balcony, Blair surrendered herself to Herdin’s touch.
Just then, Herdin turned her around to face him. He kissed her immediately before asking, “What are you thinking about so deeply?”
His fathomless eyes, now just inches away, seemed to peer into the very depths of her mind.
After a brief hesitation, Blair answered, “About Sir Caligo.”
At the mention of Caligo’s name, Herdin’s eyes turned cold. He despised hearing another man’s name from the lips he had just kissed. Especially at a moment like this.
But Blair, seemingly oblivious to his shift in mood, pressed on. “Is he one of your trusted subordinates?”
“We’ve crossed the line between life and death together,” Herdin answered dismissively, capturing her lips again. Only then did she seem to realize he had no desire to talk further, and she quietly yielded to him.
Even though he had gotten what he wanted, her compliance irritated him. Her attitude—devoid of emotion, as if she were merely placating a crying child—grated on his nerves.
The problem was, he was a fucking beast, and he had no intention of rejecting her.
Herdin scooped up Blair’s pale body and carried her toward the bed. As he moved, her clothes fell away, layer by layer.
Laying her on the bed, Herdin immediately held her close. Unlike usual, he had no patience today.
“Ah…”
Blair’s body was still tense, not yet fully relaxed. Her slender arms wrapped around Herdin’s back. Though she gasped for breath, overwhelmed by his weight, she responded to him as best she could.
That small gesture, and her eyes that held only him, were beautiful.
Herdin pressed his lips to hers, sharing his breath as if to sustain her panting form—though in the end, he only stole more of it away.
Before long, the room was filled with the glow of the sunset and the sound of their breathing. The quiet was shattered by the grandfather clock in the hall.
Dong— Dong—
The clock chimed five in the afternoon.
Blair, who had been held by him in a daze, suddenly snapped back to reality and pushed against his chest.
But Herdin didn’t stop. He had no reason to.
Blair squirmed, desperately trying to speak. “The… the pill. It’s time for my pill.”
“…Medicine? Ah.”
Blair took her contraceptive pill at this exact time every day. He often kept her up until dawn, leaving her half-asleep in the morning, and she was afraid she would forget to take it then. During the day, she was too busy with her duties. And at night, once they started, she was never in her right mind until the sun rose.
Thus, she had decided on this awkward hour.
“If I don’t take it now, I might forget…” Blair reached toward the nightstand. On it sat the pill bottle she had prepared.
Seeing this, Herdin’s gaze turned icy. He despised her desperate struggle to reach the bottle.
Was this contract marriage the only thing on her mind? Did she not consider any other possibility? How could she have the peace of mind to think of such a thing while he was buried inside her? While she was driving him so utterly mad?
It infuriated him that there was room in her mind for anything other than him.
“It seems you have the leisure to think of other things.”
The moment Blair’s fingers brushed the bottle, Herdin moved.
“Ah!”
The sudden, jarring motion sent the pill bottle crashing to the floor. Herdin forced her gaze away from the nightstand and back to him, whispering, “You can skip a day.”
“N-no, I have to.”
Blair’s face turned pale. Seeing her expression, a surge of sadism flared within him, laced with intense irritation. He sealed her lips with his own, cutting off any further protest. He couldn’t have stopped now anyway.
Blair swallowed her cries, resisting him, but Herdin was not one to let that slide.
He growled, his voice a rough scrape in his throat. “Let me hear you.”
Under his increasingly relentless touch, Blair’s resolve finally shattered, and a gasp tore from her lips. It was a losing battle from the start.
Herdin pulled her even closer, holding her tight.
She was warm and soft. Her scent was sweet, and she tasted even sweeter. Burying himself in her embrace felt like sinking into quicksand—inescapable and all-consuming, making everything else fade away.
Yet, alongside the fulfillment, a sharp anxiety crept in—a fear that even as he held her, she might vanish like sand slipping through his fingers.
So he tormented her more relentlessly. The more she cried out and reacted to him, the more he could believe she was truly in his arms.
Eventually, their held breaths burst from their lips.
Herdin reined in his lingering desire, waiting until Blair’s trembling subsided before slowly pulling away.
As her ragged breathing steadied, focus returned to her hazy eyes. Her tear-filled gaze was thick with resentment.
She pushed against his chest as he tried to hold her again. Though her feeble strength could never hope to budge him, Herdin surprisingly let her go.
Blair sat up, intending to pick up the pill bottle from the carpet, but her legs gave out, and she collapsed onto the floor. As if it didn’t matter, she crawled, took a pill from the bottle, and swallowed it dry—something she could normally never do without water.
Only then did she let out a shaky sigh of relief.
She could not get pregnant now. There was a high probability that the child would not be Asiel.
Asiel…
Asiel was her reason for everything. If she couldn’t meet that lovely child again, this second life she’d been given would be meaningless. The thought that she had almost lost her chance because of him made her blood run cold.
Herdin, who had been quietly watching her slumped on the carpet, scooped her into his arms.
Blair didn’t push him away this time, but her eyes held an unmistakable resentment she couldn’t hide.
Herdin sighed. “If, by some chance, you do get pregnant, I will take responsibility—”
“…No. That won’t happen.” Blair’s voice trembled as she cut him off.
Once she composed herself, her next words were resolute, without a hint of hesitation.
“We are getting a divorce. According to our contract.”
* * *
After bathing, Herdin entered the bedroom carrying a tray with a simple breakfast a maid had handed him.
Blair was lying down, her back turned to him.
Her already small frame looked even tinier buried beneath the blankets. She was pretending to be asleep, but he could easily tell the difference.
Herdin stared at her, his eyes cold and sunken. She had been like this since last night. She yielded her body whenever he took her, but that was all. She didn’t resist, but he knew. She was merely enduring him, waiting silently for the night to end. It was the only resistance she could offer.
Herdin set the tray on the nightstand and pulled her up into his arms. Blair, however, slipped quietly out of his embrace.
“…I’ll eat later.”
“Why?”
“I feel sick to my stomach. I want to rest.”
Seeing her refuse to even look him in the eye, the corner of Herdin’s mouth twitched.
Now she’s on a hunger strike.
He placed the tray in front of her. At the sight of it, Blair’s delicate brow furrowed.
“I don’t want to eat right—”
Just then, Herdin cupped her cheek and pressed his lips to hers. Sweet juice flowed into her mouth—a strawberry from the pancakes.
Startled by the sudden kiss, Blair reflexively swallowed. Only then did Herdin pull away. He wiped the juice from her lips with his thumb and stared down at her.
Her wide, startled eyes immediately filled with tears, her expression crumbling with resentment. The fact that he still found her beautiful, even like this, must be a curse of her damnably lovely face.
Herdin forced the fork into her hand.
“Eat. Before I feed you the rest myself.”
Though phrased as an offer, Blair knew it was a threat. She also knew his definition of “feeding her” would be exactly what he had just done.
Her gaze flickered between the food and him before she set the fork down.
A suffocating silence fell between them.
Blair looked straight into his eyes and spoke.
“…I hate you.”
“…”
“I really… hate you…”
Her suppressed emotions finally spilled over. Her eyes looked as if she might cry at any moment, but she shed no tears. Instead, the hand gripping the blanket trembled violently.
Herdin stared at her with his icy blue eyes, then turned and left the room without a word.