The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 584: No one should ever come between you and your family

Chapter 584: No one should ever come between you and your family

"Sweetheart?" Natha opened the carriage door after around ten minutes and climbed inside. "I’ve been looking for you--I’m sorry, I left you alone while talking to the others."

"Mm..."

Focusing my gaze on the baby in my arms, who finally drifted to sleep after I calmed down, I merely muttered. I had sent Jade to Vrida, calling the girl down from the hill, so the carriage was quiet. Usually, I would welcome it with joy; a blissful occasion of being alone with my sweet husband.

But at that time, it was only uncomfortable for me.

"Sweetheart?" naturally, Natha could see through the rotten mood I did not bother to mask. "What’s wrong?"

"You don’t know?"

Without meaning to, my voice came out cold and dry, almost like what Natha usually used when he faced other people. Other people that weren’t in his inner circle.

He frowned slightly; an unsettling expression I glimpsed upon as the carriage started to move. The slightly uneven terrain made the carriage jolt, and it gave me excuses to look away from him as I tried to keep Shwa from waking up.

"You didn’t look happy about the summon to the Sanctuary," Natha leaned forward, placing his hands gently on my knees. "Is this about it, sweetheart?"

I was ready to explode and openly show how angry I was, but this gentleness told me that in the end, he was still my husband Natha. After chewing the inside of my cheek for a few seconds, I raised my head and looked at him with a slight frown. "How could you just say we’ll be there without even asking for my opinion?"

"Sweetheart, it’s not a request we could reject,"

"Why not?"

"Would you reject it if Lady Apheria summoned you?"

It was an angle I hadn’t considered before, but to be fair, Mother never showed any greed toward Shwa. If anything, she cared more about my well-being than the baby. Still, I could understand that it wasn’t an easy thing to challenge a deity’s order, so my rising annoyance went down a little bit.

"Alright," I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to keep my heartbeat steady again. "But don’t you think you should at least talk about it with me first?"

Please say yes. I looked at him again, speaking with a hint of whine in my voice. Please tell me you understand.

"Sweetheart..." Natha returned my gaze with confusion and a slight alarm. "Were you...going to reject it?"

With a bitter heart, I scooted back in my seat. "...yes."

"Why?"

Natha chased my retreating figure, grabbing my knees. Well, there wasn’t any place for me to run away inside the carriage anyway. It was hard to look at his eyes, and it was hard to start a conversation in which I knew we would have a conflicting view.

It wasn’t exactly the conflicting view that burdened my heart and dried my throat, but the possibility of my husband not taking my side.

It was scary. It was as scary as thinking he loved someone else in the past.

Biting my lips to stop them from trembling, I clenched my jaw and steeled my heart for confrontation. "I don’t feel good about this."

"About the summon?"

"Yes," I swallowed painfully, feeling like my throat might constricting any second. Perhaps that was why, but my voice came out hoarse and shaky. "I felt like...I feel like Shwa would not come back from the Sanctuary if we go."

"Sweetheart, what nonsense are you talking about?" Natha sounded genuinely confused, which made it feel even harder for me to speak. "It’s just a summon--I went before, but I came back."

"But you are not Shwa!"

As I raised my head and my voice, I could see the shock and confusion in his eyes, which made him pull back slightly. As he let go of my knees, I hugged the sleeping baby tightly.

"You are not a vessel for Primordial One’s soul."

The silver eyes shook slightly before shifting toward Shwa, and for a second, I had hope that he finally saw my stance. That he finally understood.

"Sweetheart, are you insinuating that His Majesty and Lord An’Hyang will keep him there?" he frowned. "That’s ridiculous."

My naive wish was the ridiculous one.

"It’s only going to be a simple blessing, since our child is so important--"

"Then why wait for a hundred days? Why not do it today?"

"Maybe it won’t be as effective when doing it outside the Sanctuary," he tried to explain rationally, but I could see his growing impatience. A gaze of someone facing a petulant child. Did he think I was just throwing an unreasonable tantrum? His gaze softened for a bit, but the knife had lodged in my gut. "Come on, sweetheart...there’s no way His Majesty and Lord An’Hyang will do something despicable..."

"You don’t know that!"

Perhaps I was a petulant child. Perhaps I was merely throwing a tantrum. Did that mean he could just dismiss my feelings like that?

The anger and disappointment that I had worked hard to suppress while waiting for him surged up along with my voice. "You didn’t see his eyes!" I cast a barrier around Shwa and shouted. "I saw it! I saw how he looked at Shwa possessively!"

"Sweetheart, that’s absurd!" the silver eyes widened. "You’re just imagining it--His Majesty’s eyes had always looked cold. It’s probably just a bad feeling from exhaustion and hormones. Remember how you were when the baby was still inside the flower?"

I see...

So he thought it was merely a hormonal panic? A post-partum depression?

He didn’t think it was important, then?

My heart grew cold as if someone had me in freezing water. And that someone was sitting in front of me.

"How could you say that?" my voice dropped low, just like my heart.

"Sweethe--"

"You..." I clenched my jaw as the fury was stewing in the pit of my stomach. "You were so scared of losing me because you thought my soul would get whisked away again. You were so scared that I wouldn’t make it after my role of providing a vessel end. You were so scared that you couldn’t even tell me who you were when we met,"

He stiffened and looked at me in bewilderment as poison dripped from my tongue. "You can act on your paranoia, but I can’t?"

"But...sweetheart--all of it doesn’t happen in the end, so--"

"It didn’t happen, but your fear was real, wasn’t it?" I glared at him with eyes stung by welling tears. "And what if it happens this time? Just because your fear was proven to be nothing but fear, I have to dismiss mine?"

"No, that’s not..." Natha clenched his jaw to pause and closed his eyes.

The carriage had stopped, but neither of us moved. I held the baby tightly in my arms and the silence worked to defuse the tension slightly. After a few seconds, Natha took a deep breath and when he opened his eyes, they were calm again.

He exhaled slowly and leaned forward again. "This is our God and King, sweetheart. Thinking such things is no different than blasphemy."

I gritted my teeth.

Yeah. He didn’t understand.

"Anyway, let’s not cast a cloud on our child’s happy day, alright?" he smiled. Softly, gently, lovingly. Everything stabbed my heart mercilessly. He reached out his hand toward my head instead of my knees this time. "For now, let’s celebrate and--"

Slap!

I smacked his hand away. It hurt. It hurt in my hand and it hurt in my heart as I looked at his frozen eyes. But my heart was feeling colder than the fear seeping out of him at that moment.

"Don’t touch me," I hissed, shielding the sleeping baby with my sleeve. "Don’t touch my child."

"...Valen?"

It took him a few seconds to stir, but when he came to, I was already opening the carriage door and climbed down, startling the guards holding the door open.

They were probably even more startled when I stomped my way out to the yard and Natha scrambled out to follow me in utter confusion.

Somehow, the fact that he was still confused hurt even more.

My husband, my smart husband. Feeling confused about this situation even after I spelled out my concern during the whole carriage ride. You should have understood. Even if you didn’t agree with me, you should at least understand why I took this step. Why I was angry.

His hasty steps and confused tone felt like a stranger. And it hurt.

"Sweetheart? Valen--"

"As long as your loyalty lies in the King instead of this child..." I stopped and turned around, staring at him sharply while raising my hand.

If our bond was something that could be overridden by the King’s influence

"You shall not touch him."

How could I trust you to keep him safe?

With my hand, with the hand that bore our bond, a gust of wind pushed him back, and a thick, invisible barrier conjured between us.