The Cursed Beast Caught My Leash - Chapter 135

Stella slowly lifted her eyelids and looked up at him. The moment Islay met those brilliantly colored eyes, he found himself holding his breath.

“I used to think I’d like to see you cry at least once…”

Stella blinked her lovely lashes and smiled like scattering breeze. Her softly murmuring voice was hazy, like a dream.

“To think I’d see it the moment I opened my eyes…”

A small hand caressed his wet face. Unaware of the tears streaming down his own cheeks, Islay hurriedly kissed her.

Fearing it might be too much for her, newly awakened, he quickly pulled away—but pressed his forehead against hers. He breathed heavily, as if able to breathe at last. Her familiar scent made his heart race.

“I thought… I thought you were gone.”

“I’m fine. It just feels like I had a really long dream.”

“Are you in pain…?”

“I really am fine.”

Stella kept giggling. Knowing how tormented he must have felt, she only smiled, and that made her both maddening and blindingly beautiful.

“How do you feel?”

Her voice was quiet, like someone who had just awoken from a long sleep. He knew exactly what she was asking. Islay brushed her cheek and neck with his lips several more times.

“I’m fine, of course. I don’t think I’ve ever felt better.”

“You mean you’re not hurt. And?”

“…You know. That was never the important part to me.”

“But to me, it was the most important thing in the world. It was our future. So tell me.”

Islay raised his head. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation, demanding an answer. He had no choice but to mutter, “Yes, probably.”

“Probably? Say it properly.”

“If you want to check right now, go grab the dagger from your maid’s luggage and slice me with it.”

Stella, who had been smiling all along, widened her eyes. Her already large pupils quivered in shock.

“What are you saying?”

“Our clan gains this tenacious life force, like twisting vines, the closer we get to the day of destiny. Even slashes heal instantly. It’s unbelievable even when you see it.”

“I—I don’t want to check that way.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to either. Because I haven’t forgotten that my body is yours.”

Islay cupped the back of her head and locked eyes with her, serious.

“I told you not to get even a scratch, didn’t I? I’m a man who listens to you well, so I won’t go slashing my wrist.”

His rebuke, with real weight behind it, was unusually long.

“Anyway, I don’t feel any urge to tear something apart.”

Nor did he feel the strange desire to grab her slender neck and choke it. Swallowing those blatant words, Islay continued, “Whatever the reason, I used to hit a breaking point several times a day where I felt I could completely lose myself. I had to take sedatives well past the lethal dose every day. But now…”

“Not now?”

“Yeah. Not at all. All I feel is my heart pounding for you.”

Islay took her wrist and gently pressed his lips to it.

“Just like any ordinary man holding the woman he loves.”

Stella was swept up in the euphoria of breaking the curse, then, realizing what she had just heard, gaped in disbelief. She then shot upright in a fluster. So sudden was her movement that Islay reached out to keep her from falling off the bed.

“W-what did you just say?”

His face filled her wide, rabbit-like golden eyes.

“Did you just say you love me?”

“……”

Islay couldn’t bring himself to confess outright. Suppressing his true feelings had become second nature, and like when he once couldn’t promise a future, he swallowed the words caught on his tongue.

But—

“Until now, I thought it was a feeling I shouldn’t give you. I believed that delivering a heart I wasn’t allowed to have… was something I shouldn’t dare to desire.”

His gaze, cast downward, settled on her wrist wrapped in a white bandage. With red eyes, he looked at the cloth as if measuring the wound beneath, then carefully brushed it with his fingertips. He brought her wrist to his lips and exhaled a deep breath.

“But now, thanks to your courage and will, I can love you freely.”

He finally understood the true nature of that racing heart he had long dismissed as a symptom of his monstrous curse. Sorrow and anger, resentment and fear, emptiness and tenderness… After everything they had been through, he now knew what to call those countless emotions he had felt for her.

“Not for a single moment have I ever not loved you. From the moment you took root in my heart, I never once wanted to let you go.”

“……”

“I love you, Estella.”

Stella, who had been silently listening, slowly lifted the corners of her lips. At his deep-toned confession, her expression lit up with the bashfulness of a young girl.

She reached out and wrapped her arms tightly around his sturdy torso. As their chests met, she could feel the thump of his heart.

“I actually knew. If it weren’t love, how could you have done so much for me?”

Islay had never weighed Stella’s life on a scale. Even when the priests of Calis had insisted that only by offering her as a sacrifice could he be freed from his binds, he stood firm.

Though he was a man capable of harming her if he wished, he had thought it better to become a monster—or even die—than to hurt her.

In the end, it was his devoted love that saved them both.

Now that they had regained the world, every moment was precious to them. The warmth of one another’s embrace and shared breath filled their hearts beyond words.

Islay lowered his head and pressed his lips to her shoulder. He inhaled deeply from her slender neck where her vital pulse beat. For a while, they clung to each other as if one, burrowing into the other’s presence. Stella lifted her face, bringing their noses together.

Their lips met naturally, and their breath mingled. What began as a gentle kiss quickly turned heated. Their breaths tangled with urgency, their wet mouths mingling with glistening saliva.

“Haa, ah, then…”

Pulling away slightly, Stella whispered, her face radiant in the bright sunlight.

“Maybe… we can do it now.”

As if entranced, Islay leaned in again to kiss her—but paused and lifted his head. His expression was that of someone wondering if he had misheard.

“I want to know… what it would feel like, after confirming our love like this.”

There was no way to misinterpret what she meant. Yet despite the nature of her words, her tone was unusually sincere.

“I used to always feel like crying. Not because it hurt, or because I hated it—just because.”

“Was it frustrating because we understood each other’s feelings but couldn’t express them properly?”

“Yeah, it was always like that. It felt sorrowful, overwhelming… And they call it ‘making love,’ don’t they?”

Her eyes sparkled with newfound boldness.

“So I want to know what it really feels like. I want to try it… Isn’t it okay for you too, now?”

Of course, the Islay of the past had always hesitated to share a bed because of the obsession that he should not produce an heir. That reasoning was no longer valid, but just because the filthy instinct once embedded in his body was gone didn’t mean the obsessive fear that had ruled his life had completely disappeared. All the more so when he thought back to how he had treated her on that bed while out of his mind.

Lost in thought, Islay suddenly let out a light chuckle. The look in Stella’s eyes as she gazed up at him was so innocent that his laughter came out almost involuntarily. How could she shine with such purity while asking something so suggestive…

“Not now, Estella. You’ve been bedridden for over a week and just woke up.”

“But I really am okay. Then… when can we?”

“Are you trying to set a date already? We’ll never be apart again, you know.”

Something in his words stirred Stella’s heart, and she looked up at him with trembling eyes.

“Forever…”

She savored the weight of that unbelievable word. Islay dropped a light kiss on her crown, then pressed his lips to her temple, her eyelids, her cheeks—one by one.

“Yeah. We’ll be together forever.”

No one could sever the fate that had bound them together anymore. Just as they were about to embrace and kiss again, as if it had all been decided—

“Captain!”

That was when Mikel burst through the door.

Judging by the crumpled scrap of paper in his hand, it must’ve been urgent, but he froze in rare shock upon seeing the two of them sitting on the bed.

Dora, flushed and following behind, quickly raised both hands to cover her eyes, while Gabriel hurriedly dropped his gaze to the scripture he held in his arms. A belated attempt at feigned ignorance.