CH 49

Ezekiel took a breath and clenched his teeth. The meaning of his wife’s answer was clear.

Herace was refusing him, saying she didn’t want to have his child. Even though he offered a reward that she couldn’t refuse; to see her child that she valued more than her life. But she gave it away at once.

It was Herace who was crying sadly with a tearful face, but Ezekiel felt more sorry for his situation. He didn’t expect to be rejected so quickly. He felt like he had the answer to the question that he had asked himself countless times over the past few years. His wife, who cared so much about her child, refused to have his child.

Recognizing that his plan to go back as before was ruined, Ezekiel had difficulty controlling his hatred of his wife. He lifted his wife’s head from his shoulders. He thought he’d lose his mind if he stayed any longer. Ezekiel struggled for a moment, barely pressing his rage of wanting to shake his wife, saying, “You can have Charles’s child but not mine?”

“……Think as you please.”

The voice that came out of her mouth was like chewing them and was full of pressed emotions. Ezekiel took a heavy step, controlling the boiling rage inside.

“Ezekiel!”

It was when he reached the door with a rough pace. Herace called him out as if screaming for him from behind. Ezekiel stopped without turning his head.

He thought heard her step, and then he could hear his wife breathing right behind him. As he lowered his gaze, he could see my wife’s bare feet, stepping closer to him.

“One last time…… You won’t believe it, but I’ll say it one more time.”

It was a voice full of sadness. Herace put her hand slightly on Ezekiel’s back in tears. The firm shoulders flinched at the sudden contact. But he didn’t look back at all.

Herace blinked at her husband’s back, which seemed not to collapse ever. The tear marks on the floor were getting more. She begged earnestly against his cold back, trying to exhale the breath, which was choked with tears.

“Erzen, is yours and my child.”

“…….”

“So please be nice to him. Don’t let him cry without me…….”

“…….”

“……please.”

****

Miguel’s nanny looked worriedly at the child she was serving. The child was reading a fairy tale. The size of the fairly large book showed the child’s amber eyes moving from side to side.

“Young Master, where did you go earlier? If you suddenly disappear…… Do you know how worried I was?”

The child seemed to be concentrating on reading, so she did not want to disturb him. But eventually the middle-aged woman expressed her concern to the child. Originally, he often played hide-and-seek according to his age, but now the castle was in a mess.

The entire castle was in an uproar over the return of the runaway Duchess. Although she did not see it in person, she was worried that Miguel might see such a sight because she could hear the sound of a maid who ran away with the Duchess being whipped into the building.

“I was with my Father. My father and I were together.”

“What? But the Master…….”

The woman tilted her head to Miguel’s answer. She heard that the owner who returned didn’t come out of the annex, but when did the Young Master go to him? Hana’s questions were scattered like fog with the child turning the pages of the book.

“Oh, come to think of it, you took a walk with Master earlier. I must have forgotten for a moment.”

“Aren’t you overdoing it these days? Don’t overwork if it’s hard. It’s not good for your memory.”

“You’re really a good boy. How could you be so?….”

The middle-aged woman burst into laughter at the words of a child not suitable for his age. Miguel smiled at the woman and his eyes glistened.

“Nanny.”

“Yes, Young Master.”

“……I have something I want.”

The child smacked his lips as if he had wanted to have his favorite food in front of him. The woman had surprised eyes at the greed of the child she had never heard of.

“I thought it would be crushed at once because it was as soft as jelly…… It was harder than I thought. I like it because I think I can suck it up for a long time.”

“What? What the hell is that……. Are you talking about candy? Then I’ll…….”

“It’s not candy. There’s no comparison to it.”

“Well…”

“Don’t worry about it because Nanny won’t be able to give it to me. It’s going to be in my hands soon anyway. “

It was a vague remark. The Nanny missed the timing of asking what kind of food it was because the child cut it off. Miguel put the fairy tale book at the end of the couch and ran toward the door with a lively gait.

“Young master, where are you going again?”

“I have a younger brother now. So I’m going to meet him.”

“Oh, My Lord! No!”

The woman opened the door and quickly chased the fleeing child, but the door slammed shut. In the reaction, the fairy tale book, which had been narrowly placed on the couch, fell to the floor and flapped over the bookshelf as if flying in the wind.

Like children’s fairy tale books, the books had more pictures than writings. The picture of a large beast opening its mouth was seen on the fluttering page. But the bookcase stopped narrowly at that part due to the wind suddenly weakening.

‌A bad monster swallowed the poor child in one bite. But there was no warrior to save the child.

The wide-open book showed the whole picture. The black beast on the left was showing his teeth by swallowing the child on the right with a bite. It was a creepy scene for a child’s fairy tale book to see. How scary its big mouth and teeth were.

****

Erzen was asleep. He cried all day looking for his mother. His sunny face was covered with tears, so it was pitiful just to look at it.

Ezekiel stared at the child’s black hair and looked around with his red eyes. Behind those closed eyelids were blue eyes the same color as his wife.

“Mom…”

The child sipped his fingers in his sleep and tried to find his mother. The wide bed and blanket were soft and thick without the child feeling the cold, but the child was wrapped tightly in radish. Ezekiel frowned at the voice of the child looking for his wife and sat next to him carefully.

“……please.”

He was going to raise him without any shortage of necessities even if his wife didn’t say so. Although he(Erzen) was not his own child, unlike what he told his wife, he was going to make him call him Father and raise him as a member of Serpence. He hated the child, but he was after all his wife’s child. And if this child thought of him as a father and followed him, there would be another shackle to tie his wife forever.

But he couldn’t. Even if he made up his mind, when he saw the child, he remembered that his wife had committed adultery. And whenever that happened, his heart tightened and it was difficult to maintain his reason as if he was being eaten alive by insects. He couldn’t hate his wife’s precious existence because of her endless love for her child.

“Erzen, is yours and my child.”

His wife finally told him a lie. That Erzen was his child.

Ezekiel remembered his wife’s watery voice and closed his eyes. If he turned around and looked at her face, he might have trusted my wife. Even though he knew it was a lie, when he saw his wife’s blue eyes, he couldn’t think or act like he was possessed by something.

He wanted to keep the relationship between his wife and his brother who was kicked out a secret. But she didn’t obey him. So ended up bringing the mistress and insulting his wife. He gave his wife the same pain he felt and eventually stopped brainwashing himself that he was wrong. He, Ezekiel clearly saw evidence of his wife’s crime on the child.

Erzen. As soon as this child was born.

If the child had not been born, if he had been born with any resemblance to him, or if he had not seen the secret meeting between his brother and wife, would he have closed his eyes and forced himself to believe that he (Erzen) was his child?

Ezekiel pulled back the blanket on Erzen’s stomach. The child curled up in the sudden cold. He slowly lifted up the top the child was wearing, unable to control his trembling hands.

“Ha……”

Ezekiel frowned. He choked on his own breath. He remembered the day when the child was born.

****

“It’s an honor to be your first son.”

‘It’ was born, breathing disgustingly and grinning. The same hair color and eyes as himself. Ezekiel turned his back on the newborn as if he were looking at a disgusting bug. Then ‘It’ said from behind.

“Go see your wife. There’s another Serpence child is born, not me. Maybe it’s a kid who looks just like you like me. Wouldn’t that make you feel more comfortable?”

He felt like ‘It’ was playing with him, so Ezekiel couldn’t even stand in front of Herace’s room, but he could clearly hear his wife’s scream in the next room. And at dawn, when everything was over, he went to the newborn’s room with red eyes and stared at the small child wrapped in a small cloth without anyone knowing.

The child didn’t look like him at all. All the colors and shapes resemble only his wife. It was all right up to there. He thought he was rather glad that the child looked like his wife. If there was any sign of anyone else’s resemblance other than his wife or him, the suspicion would not have subsided.

However, Ezekiel, who was wrapping the child in the cloth again that day, had no choice but to harden himself after discovering something.

“Why……”

It was disastrous to see it again. Ezekiel, who was overlapping his self to that day, looked around the child’s lowest rib with fearful eyes.

There was only one flaw on the child’s soft skin. a star-shaped red dot. The size of a child’s little fingernail was contrasted with white skin, giving off an indisputable presence.

Ezekiel exhaled and held his frozen fingertips. That unusual, hard-to-see shape wasn’t just on this child’s body.

“Brother!”

Shining Charles. Unlike him, he had everything, so he easily gained what he wanted the most. His younger brother also had the same shape and dot at the same place. It was also a characteristic of Charles, who neither their father nor himself had.

Ezekiel lowered Erzen’s top. As long as the child is Charles’ bloodline, he will suffer from madness for the rest of his life. His wife, who stood next to him, loved her brother as she had always loved him. She will have his brother’s child, but she will not have his children. She also ran away with his brother’s child. If he hadn’t ruined their relationship, the child, his brother, and the three of them would have a happily ever after.

Ezekiel suffered every time he was confirmed to have ruined his life. But nevertheless, he couldn’t let go of his wife. Herace was his. His companion who will spend her whole life next to him and rot in the coffin even if she dies. Even if Ezekiel died, he had no intention of letting his wife go from his side.

A smirk of ruthlessness leaked out. He was like his father, who kept his wife locked up in a room in a separate building. Then will his end be like his father?