IWJACM Chapter 25

Elise had no strength left to lift her head, so she only nodded, faint and wordless. Why such a chill—ah, her hair was soaked through—it was because her hair was soaked.

Not just her hair. Her whole body was damp through. Even wrapped in the thick cloak, the cold seemed to reach straight to the bone.

"We're nearly there. Bear with it a little longer."

Judging by how thoroughly drowned-rat she still looked, she couldn't have been unconscious very long.

Still, given that she'd gone off a cliff into a lake, still inside the carriage, her body was in far better shape than it had any right to be. Nothing felt wrong when she moved. And when she'd checked beneath her clothes, there wasn't a single wound or bruise anywhere.

She'd even come to her senses faster than she'd expected. Was that Andrei's magic at work?

'Could've sworn—something left me, there in the water.'

Hadn't the shattered barrier reconnected itself?

She clenched her hand and opened it again, but felt nothing.

'Like it was... me. Like I'd done it...'

Must have been a mistake, she supposed. After all, Elise's body couldn't hold even the faintest trace of the mana that ran, however thin, through Argan's imperial blood—not a drop of it, not in her.

So the barrier reforming must have been some kind of trick of the mind. It was thanks to that same barrier that she was in this decent a state to begin with.

Elise managed to clear her throat. Thankfully, her voice came out reasonably steady.

"My lord, I can walk now. I'm all right."

Rezet looked down at her the way one might look at someone who'd lost their mind. His answer came flat and final.

"You are not all right. A stout knight goes off a cliff into a lake, he has no bones left to collect."

"But nothing's broken. Nothing even hurts. My brother's magic must have worked well."

It was a little wasteful, though. She'd meant to save that protective barrier for the night she spent with this man—in case something went wrong. But it had let the knights dodge a rain of arrows, so it hadn't been spent for nothing.

Elise cleared her throat again.

"Put me down. If I've come around this well, I really am fine."

She waited a moment for his answer, but Rezet simply closed his mouth and said nothing more. He clearly considered the request beneath a reply.

Elise gave up and changed the question instead.

"Where are we going?"

"We've entered a nearby village. I mean for us to stay here a few days."

Just then, he stepped into what looked like an inn. Ruben handed Rezet a key.

"Third floor. Bathwater's being heated now."

"Send it up the moment it's ready."

"Yes, Your Grace. And the drills—"

"Half a day. Not one of them gets off. Midnight. That goes for you too, Ruben."

Drills? What drills? Elise was baffled, but Ruben only gave a stiff, silent bow and disappeared.

"Do Lothier's knights get drilled? Why—"

"They failed to carry out an order properly, and as a result, failed to protect their lord. They're only receiving what that failure earns them. Don't concern yourself with it."

The Grand Duke's voice was low and hard. He climbed the inn's steep stairs without pause and shoved open the door to the third-floor room. A fire was already burning in the hearth.

"Thank you, my lord. Now—"

Elise opened her mouth, assuming he'd set her down.

"From here I can, my lord?"

Contrary to her expectations, Rezet didn't stop. He carried her straight into the room and pushed the door shut behind them.

Elise looked around, flustered. It wasn't lavish by any stretch, but compared to a military tent or a prison cell, it was a properly furnished, tidy bedroom.

The Grand Duke spoke in his usual blunt tone.

"Yvessa's hurt her arm."

Elise's face fell. She'd hoped so hard nothing would happen to her. If it was only her arm, at least, that was something.

"With no other maid available, I'll be seeing to you for the time being."

"I'm sorry? Seeing to—"

While Elise was still processing, Rezet set her down on the round rug beside the bed. The moment the warmth of his hold left her, her body trembled.

"But sharing a bedroom—"

"It's hardly strange for the man who is her husband to share a room with his wife."

"Ah… right. That's what we are."

Something about her response didn't sit well with him; one of his eyebrows rose slightly.

However hastily thrown together their marriage had been, they were, technically, a couple who'd gone through with the full wedding rite. While Elise was still turning that fact over anew, the Grand Duke closed the distance by one more step and began undoing the two layers of robe wrapped around her.

Elise startled and caught his hand.

"I—I can manage it myself..."

"You're ice-cold. Can't even lift a finger—it shows."

"……"

"Don't fight me. My mind won't rest easy otherwise."

There was nothing to be done, then. Her hand, which had been holding him off, dropped away without any strength left in it. Seizing the opening, he cupped her cheek with his palm.

Only after flinching once at the sudden heat did she realize just how cold her own body actually was. The Grand Duke muttered something under his breath. To her surprise, something like unease crossed his face.

"Your temperature—"

It seemed her "I can do it myself" had no traction left whatsoever. His jaw set firm, Rezet peeled the sodden cloak from her shoulders and threw it toward a corner of the room. The waterlogged cloak hit the floor with a heavy sound.

Next came the equally soaked dress. The sash cinched tight at her waist came loose under his hands.

Then the row of buttons running from her collar down her back was undone in one motion. Rezet drew her arms free from the wet dress, one at a time.

It took less than a few minutes for the heavy dress to slide past her hips and drop with a soft thud to the floor. Only then did her body feel lighter.

But the chemise beneath the dress—and the undergarments beneath that—were soaked through, nearly transparent. The thin fabric barely functioned as clothing anymore. Elise's cheeks went red in an instant.

'...He'll see. All of it.'

She kept sweeping her wet hair down with her hands, again and again. All she could do was hope the hair tangled damply to her waist would somehow cover her chest and what lay below.

But Rezet didn't stop there. He reached behind her neck, undid the chemise's button, and pulled both the chemise and the undergarment straps down together. She hadn't dreamed he'd go even this far—Elise flinched, startled.

"M-my lord…?"

As she curled inward, the swell of her breasts, rounded and visible through the near-transparent chemise, only became more visible.

"You can't keep wearing wet clothes."

Forcing down the ache gathering low and hard in him, he draped the blanket over her shoulders. The pale, water-slicked skin disappeared beneath the thick cloth. He moved his hand beneath the blanket and stripped away the last clinging garments from her body.

"It'll take time to heat the water. If we just wait, your temperature will keep dropping."

"That may be, but."

Elise now had nothing on beneath the blanket at all. Rezet's hand still rested beneath it, against the bare skin of her waist. Sensing her go rigid, he let out a short, deep sigh.

"Grendel's dragon, Semesitha, is known chiefly as a thunder-dragon, but it's said she carried a flame nature alongside it. So do I."

"……"

"It should be enough to warm you through."

She had no grounds to refuse. Elise let herself be drawn, awkward and stiff, one step closer into his hold.

He wrapped an arm around her back to keep her from retreating, and moved his other hand beneath the blanket.

Elise didn't know where to look, undone by the touch tracing down along her spine. Wherever his hand passed, her body warmed through. Some dizziness crept over her, perhaps from the sudden heat pressing inward through her skin.

This was the first time anyone but an attending maid had touched and smoothed her body like this.

But looking at it another way, this was something she'd be doing with this man countless times going forward. It hardly made sense—she'd been the one to boldly offer to bear his child first, and yet she was embarrassed at simply being seen unclothed.

Elise tried, as best she could, to let the tension drain from her body. But every time his hand moved, her body twitched against her own will. Her mouth kept going dry, and her toes kept curling in on themselves.

His touch was too slow. Everywhere his fingertips passed, every sense seemed to rise up at once.

As Elise kept startling in his hold, Rezet tightened the arm around her, as if binding her in place.

"Be still."

His hand had already moved past her hips, encroaching as far as her thighs. The heat against her bare skin left every sense sharpened to a point.

Her breath caught. It wasn't only the touch and the heat against her.

Something about the Grand Duke's mood wasn't ordinary.

Elise drew a small, shallow breath and lifted her head. Held so close against him, all she could make out was the sculpted line of his jaw. His teeth were clenched tight together.

'Angry—is he... angry?'