Chapter 37

These days, he would sometimes look at me with an expression of wanting to eat me, but he now knew how to restrain himself. It was better than the Shasha in the early days, who just opened his mouth thoughtlessly to eat me. Nanabi was curious about my blood, so she asked me a lot of questions.

“Is His Highness regularly ingesting your blood?”

“Yes, I feed him when he wakes up. Otherwise, he won’t be able to speak.”

There were times when he sometimes returned to being a dog and kept on bellowing. Though it was cute, it got on my nerves, so if possible, I tried to feed him thoroughly to avoid him turning into a dog.

“Does he maintain his consciousness?”

“Yes, he hasn’t lost his consciousness so far.”

“If he takes a large amount of blood at once, would it last that long?”

I nodded at the constant stream of questions.

The effect lasted several days if I fed him a lot of blood at one time. But it wasn’t something we did often. I became tired due to the large sudden loss of blood, and more than that, Sihael hated it.

The reason was that the little punk wanted to eat delicious things every day. After Nanabi’s questions were finished, Leonard asked.

“What about the wizard?”

“We haven’t found her yet. It seems it will take some time.”

Ah, right! Liliana hid very well. She faithfully followed her teacher’s instructions not to reveal her abilities easily, as her abilities could be misused.

“Hurry up. We don’t have much time left.”

“Yes.”

Everyone’s faces except mine had turned dark. I was relaxed as if I were in a completely different world.

I had told them to wait. She was supposed to come soon.

A week at the latest.

She will appear soon.

* * *

The next day, Leonard, who could no longer stay away from his duties, returned back to the capital. Before leaving, he left me with a message that he was leaving His Highness in my care and would see me soon at my coming-of-age ceremony.

Unlike his curt and cold mannerism on the first day, he was much more gentle this time. I felt awkward because it was different from what I knew of him, but I didn’t hate it.

‘It’s nice to be close to a handsome brother.’

I waved my hand at him as he left. Now that there was no one to watch over Lanoa, he again returned to his free-spirited self. Having been henpecked by Leonard for three days, he left with a crate of alcohol, saying he would enjoy his life his best this time and did not leave his room.

He seemed determined not to run into Sihael as much as possible. Nanabi decided to remain in the duchy just in case, but she spent most of her time studying my blood. Just like Lanoa, she had also locked herself in her room and didn’t come out. It was just that she didn’t drink.

When Sihael, who had regained consciousness, became calm, the servants got used to him running around without a leash, and sometimes talked to him or gave him snacks. Although things around had changed, the days were generally going peacefully.

‘Please let the days ahead be just like today.’

I prayed like that, but a fight unexpectedly broke out on a surprisingly trivial matter.

“Please stop it now.”

I frowned when I saw my hands full of teeth marks.

“I’m hungry.”

“But how can you chew my hand like this?”

The beginning of the incident was his growing appetite.

As his time as a wolf increased, Sihael started to relieve his stress by eating.

‘If this goes on like this, something terrible might happen.’

Worried about his health, I reduced his meal to two meals and put more vegetables in his meat-oriented diet. I adjusted Sihael’s diet only for the sake of his health, but he didn’t understand my heart. As the amount of food decreased, he started chewing my hand whenever he had a chance. He said it was because his mouth was bored.

He didn’t bite hard enough to make it bleed, so I let him do whatever he wanted, and he played with my hand like a toy. My hands, which he had bit, sucked, and chewed, were full of teeth marks and had become swollen like the hands of a sick person.

“Here, bite and play with this.”

I thought this was becoming too much, so I gave him a bone instead of my hand, but Sihael didn’t like it and kicked it away with his hind paw.

“I won’t bite you. I’ll just lick you.”

“But why does it have to be my hand?”

“You smell delicious.”

“No.”

At the firm refusal, Sihael expressed his dissatisfaction with his actions. He stomped his feet, raised his claws and scratched the wall. Every time he scratched with his paw, the wallpaper peeled off.

“Stop it.”

Sihael gave me a glance, snorted and ran around the room, hurling all kinds of things.

Crash, clink.

Things broke and shattered.

This jerk!

It might be because he had been a wolf for a long time, he gradually acted more and more like a dog that didn’t listen.

“I said stop it.”

Even though he heard my dangerously low voice, he did not stop. After going around my room, Sihael finally ran up to my bed and scratched the blanket. He ripped apart my blanket and then scratched the pillow, making the cotton inside fly around everywhere.

The canopy caught in his toes got torn and tattered. The scene of my room being messed up in a blink of an eye unfolded before my eyes.

‘This shitty piece of shit!’

Unable to stand it anymore, I hit Sihael’s head.

“You just won’t listen to me, would you?””

“Did you just hit me?”

When Sihael glared at me, I didn’t back down and stared back into his eyes.

“From where did you learn such bad things? Do you really want to get in trouble?”

“Trouble? How dare you scold me, the Crown Prince of the Empire?”

“If you’re a crown prince, then behave like a crown prince!”

“You’re one to talk. You’ve never treated me like a prince! Until when are you going to treat me like a dog? Woof! Woof! Woof!”

“…”

“…?”

A dog’s bark resounded, which did not suit the tense atmosphere.

It seems the effect of my blood had worn out.

“…Woof, woof, rufff!”

“What timing!”