TWOTCL༘ ೀ⋆｡

XVlll

⭑. ݁ ˖₊˚✩.𖥔 ݁ ˖๋ ࣭ ⭑.𖥔 ݁ ˖₊˚✩.𖥔 ݁ ˖๋ ࣭

However, when he suddenly looked up at Elysia, he realized her expression was somehow peculiar. But the look passed so quickly that Hadeon couldn’t define the emotion he had caught.

Elysia, hiding her hurt face right after hearing Hadeon’s words, muttered.

“…It’s a horrible thing. What family would welcome a bastard child?”

Picking up her knife and fork, she put a piece of food in her mouth and chewed quickly as she thought.

If I end up pregnant, that would be a terrible thing for this man.

Her chest felt strangely tight, as if something was weighing on it. But Elysia, pretending nothing was wrong, added,

“I am only His Grace’s mistress. Even if I were to get pregnant and give birth, that child would be labeled a bastard for life.”

Hadeon briefly looked up at Elysia. He replayed her words in his mind. Yet, he couldn’t find any mistake or error in what he had just said. Elysia was, after all, legally nothing more than a stranger to him, and if she accidentally became pregnant, the child would indeed be a bastard of the ducal family. No woman would want to walk the cumbersome path of bearing a bastard child.

But she would die before she even held the child.

Hadeon internally scoffed at the cruelty of his own bloodline. He assumed that Elysia was aware of the inhumane and horrific consequences that would befall a human woman pregnant with a beast’s child. Therefore, he didn’t want to mention such an unpleasant matter. Hiding his rising irritation, he coldly commanded her.

“You are not wrong. So, don’t make me repeat myself and go see the doctor.”

However, Elysia’s hand, quietly cutting her food, suddenly stopped.

Why is she acting like that?

Finding her reaction strange, Hadeon put down his newspaper.

Elysia couldn’t believe the insult she had just heard, but she tried her best not to show it as she responded to Hadeon.

“…Don’t worry. I’ll take the prescribed medicine properly to ensure there’s no concern.”

Contrary to Hadeon’s misunderstanding, Elysia had never truly played the role of a mistress to any beast men. Apart from a few forced experiments of physical contact by the Baron, she had protected her body with desperate determination.

So, Hadeon was the first man she had chosen to have an affair with. Naturally, she didn’t know what would happen to a human woman pregnant with a beast’s child. Elysia perceived that Hadeon was thoroughly treating her as just a mistress and was worried she might disrupt the hierarchy of the ducal family by possibly bearing a bastard.

Regardless of the rumors about me being promiscuous with ‘guests’ forced by the Baron, the southern socialites only know me as a promiscuous woman. This man must think the same.

Moreover, Elysia was an ‘orphanage-born human’ with unknown parentage. Even though she was adopted by the Baron, he only officially registered his beast kin, Celian, as his heir, remaining merely a sponsor to the human Elysia.

The man before her, Hadeon Lark, was of a vastly different status.

To have a bastard with an orphanage-born human woman, just the thought of it must be dreadful.

Hadeon felt an inexplicable annoyance as he watched Elysia’s sinking expression.

Which part made her so downcast?