Chapter 14

All that fuss—threatening to have me stuffed—just because I said no once.

My tail trembled with fury, but really, what could I do?

Hero or not, in front of Kain Kreutz I was nothing more than a dust bunny under the bed.

“Well? Have you changed your mind yet?”

He leaned close, golden eyes glinting, his handsome face infuriatingly smug.

Funny how a beautiful face could look so punchable. Truly, he was a remarkable beastman… in the worst way.

When I refused to react, Kain tapped his fingers lightly on the table, then held his hand out again.

Should I bite him?

I eyed those elegant fingers with savage temptation, but forced it down.

From the start, I hadn’t really had a choice.

“Chrrr…”

Hesitantly, I climbed onto his palm.

Plop. I sat, curling my tail around me—only for his hand to descend on my head.

A cold shiver prickled my fur, but his touch was unexpectedly gentle.

“There, that’s a good squirrel.”

“You’ve already won the thief’s trust, my lord,” Gerard noted.

“Have I?” Kain murmured, smiling faintly.

Trust? Ha!

Me, Muriel Aymond—never forget this insult. Never forgive this humiliation.

***

Kain toyed with me for a while, then finally began speaking of the matter he’d avoided.

“When I arrived, the massacre had already happened.”

His expression eased as he said it, almost as if unburdened.

He hadn’t explained why he’d left the fortress for Baron’s county a week ago—but the answer was obvious.

The Madness.

There were few reasons a Kreutz duke would leave alone, without escort.

Even Gerard had casually referred to it as an ‘outing.’

Most likely, he’d secluded himself to contain an episode.

That was my best guess—though of course I couldn’t ask him, not in squirrel form.

“Strictly speaking, I was a victim myself.”

Kain stretched out his long legs and spread the paper wide across the table.

Its two pages displayed lurid articles and blurred crime-scene photos.

“A victim?”

“A pack of mongrels scoured the land, attacking without warning.”

“Mongrels—as in the eastern mercenary hounds?” Gerard asked.

Yes. Carnivorous beastmen from the east.

Once, they’d been just another mercenary guild.

Now, swollen with numbers, they were little more than brigands.

“They’ve been eyeing the North for some time. So…”

“So?”

“I made an example of them.”

His golden eyes gleamed coldly.

Gerard pressed no further. He didn’t need to. Clearly, those mongrels no longer walked this earth.

“They won’t dare for a while,” Kain added, reclining into the sofa.

Beautiful. Terrifying.

I watched him and thought: this was a man who had no room for mercy. No tolerance for weakness.

Best not to provoke him.

Still…

So there had been a third party—the mongrel mercenaries.

Could they also be behind the attack that destroyed House Aymond?

Something to investigate later.

But one thing puzzled me.

Yes, Kain was ambushed. Outnumbered, caught off guard. But he was of the black dragon line.

No one could match his might.

And yet, when I’d found him on Bear Mountain, he’d been torn to shreds—half-dead.

How could mere mongrels push him so close to death?

Is he actually weaker than he looks?

Maybe I should try storming the fortress myself…?

I eyed him sideways when he suddenly murmured, “Saved you some trouble, didn’t I?”

Gerard nodded solemnly. “Indeed. Small mercy.”

Saved us trouble? What was that supposed to mean?

“As if I’d die from wounds that trivial,” Kain whispered in my ear.

He must’ve meant Bear Mountain.

But what did he mean, ‘saved you trouble’?

Before I could puzzle it out, Gerard spoke again.

“Then you didn’t use that, thank heavens. We’ll recover and dispose of it quietly.”

That?

The question answered itself when Kain strode to a cabinet and retrieved a small brown vial.

Its neck was bound tight with layers of seals. Even from across the room, it radiated danger.

It looked like poison.

No way…

A chill jolted through me.

Could it be—he drank this poison during his Madness, deliberately destroying himself to prevent worse?

Leaving the fortress to isolate himself, just in case.

Preparing for his own ruin, like the first black dragon patriarch before him.

“…”

I looked up at him carefully.

His face was blank. Neither admitting nor denying. But that calmness said everything.

“Chrr…”

A sigh escaped me.

“Are you… worried?”

He tilted his head, eyes fixed on me.

Worried? Me?

I couldn’t even solve my own problems—and now I was worrying about Kain Kreutz?

Ridiculous.

I shook my head quickly and turned away, but he pressed on.

“You are. In the mountains you clung to my leg, shaking like mad.”

“Did that happen? My lord, the thief always glares daggers at you. Hardly looks worried at all,” Gerard said dryly.

“Chrrt!”

That wasn’t a concern—it was me telling you to pick out a nicer grave plot!

But of course, these reptiles wouldn’t understand.

“Worry not,” Gerard added with a sniffle, dabbing at his eyes. “The Kreutz bloodline’s regenerative power is beyond imagining. Unless you take a direct hit from Lord Ferdinand’s dragon breath, you’ll recover without a scar. I, of course, would be reduced to ashes.”

Ferdinand—the former patriarch.

I remembered the night I’d glimpsed Kain’s bare skin beneath his robe.

Not a mark on him.

Yet I’d seen him drenched in blood only days before.

Celosia ointment could never have healed wounds like that.

No… the only explanation was his own impossible regeneration.

Or…

I felt my cheeks burn.

Could it have been me?

I wanted—desperately wanted—it to be my power.

I could hear animals. Sense emotions. Petty, useless little tricks.

They never worked on those stronger than me.

And no one believed me anyway.

At the Academy, if I returned claiming to have awakened a gift, they would only laugh.

I dreamed sometimes of going back, confessing proudly—only to see my professors and peers sneer.

That’s why I often wished, pathetically, for something greater.

A visible power. A miracle. The ability to heal the dying.

Something that would make me indispensable. So I would never be left behind again.

“Foolish,” I muttered inwardly, curling into a ball.

Still wishing for miracles, three years later.

Pathetic.

I tucked my face beneath my tail, blinking back tears.

Overhead, voices murmured.

“Why is he suddenly like this?” Kain asked.

“Perhaps because of you, my lord?” Gerard offered.

“Me?”

“He’s realized you’re far too strong to ever need his protection. He must feel powerless, just like all those captains who left the order.”

Kain made a sound of discomfort.

Powerless? Yes—but not because of him.

I considered standing and pretending nothing was wrong.

But then Gerard’s voice rustled closer.

“Shall I give him the medicine again?”

There was a faint sound, as if rummaging in his pocket.

And Kain’s low reply:

“Perhaps that would be best.”

Gulp.

I heard his throat swallow.

“Chrrrt!!”

No, you idiots! Not that medicine!