Duke, Please Stop Because it Hurts

How much did she even cry while being within Raven’s arms?

Her head was ringing as soon as she thought how she had no more tears left to shed. A dizzy spell had suddenly struck due to the fact that she was bawling her eyes out for quite a long time, but she eventually regained her senses once again.

When she barely opened her eyelids, the first thing that she could see was his thoroughly wet shoulder. Only then Molitia was able to think back upon herself—objectively.

‘What the hell is this?’

No matter how reliable he was—but to cry like a child in his arms as such? She must have been quite unsightly. That single thought had immediately turned her complexion blue.

“Have you calmed down?”

His hands then carefully brushed against her red eyes. Raven didn’t utter a single thing when she was crying for such a long time. In fact, he only patted her back gently with that big hand of his.

Molitia paused before she tried to open her mouth. Her throat had become so dry that she couldn’t really speak with ease.

“…Yes, I’m fine.”

Her voice was barely uttered and it seemed to sound almost like an animal’s raspy growl. Even her cracked voice had fallen quite low.

She was soon attacked by a series of hiccups after saying just another small spoonful of words. Raven eventually let out a faint sigh.

“Let’s get you some water.”

Then, he intentionally rose to his feet while not making any fuss at all. Molitia immediately hung her head down in shame as she muttered under her breath.

It wasn’t until she drank the water, which Raven had brought, that she finally felt calmer. Maybe it was due to the fact that she had been crying so much previously? Her tumultuous state of mind was gradually getting much lighter than before.

She believed that she could finally say it right now. Her lips then slowly parted as if she was already bewitched with a mind that seemed to readily divulge everything.

“Actually, Lady Arjan Clemence had come for a visit just this afternoon.”

Raven’s forehead instinctively frowned at the single utter of the word, Clemence. He immediately remembered Count Clemence, who had treated her terribly.

“Why?”

“She was just wondering how I was doing here. How well I live and even, how much was I abused.”

“What do you mean—what are you even talking about?”

Raven’s eyes glinted ferociously.

“Is there anyone in the duchy who’d dare give you a hard time?”

“Raven, calm down. The people in the duchy are as absolutely good as they can be.”

Molitia immediately grasped onto Raven’s arms, which seemed to fling a punch anytime soon. Then, she gradually brought up a story, which she had never told him before—ever so carefully.

“…I’m not feeling rather well, actually.”

Raven’s actions immediately paused at that soft voice of hers.

“It hurts when I’m feeling down and I’ve always been stuck in bed along with a serious illness—thus, making up most of my childhood memories. The symptoms have eased up recently, but my still sick body probably couldn’t make it anywhere else.”

Her words, which had begun that way, briefly portrayed her bleak childhood. The moment went on to her long perpetuation in bed, her family’s state of awareness and even towards the time when she tried to marry him all the while hiding her own ailing body.

In contrast to Molitia’s continuous calm speech, blood vessels seemed to have popped up on Raven’s tight fist.

“The Count of Clemence…”

Raven could no longer contain his wrath. His face had already changed from that of anger, which gradually became much more atrocious.

He felt like someone had already trampled on his face while smiling—as sly as a fox—right at that instant. It was even questionable to say that if he had twisted his face to the point that it was indistinguishable as it had been contorted relentlessly.

This petite body of hers, that tender heart—all had suffered terribly and that made him hurt just as bad. That was when his hand, which was already balled into a fist, had turned so white due to the lack of flowing blood.