Beast in the Woods, Deep in the Night - Chapter 29.2

Chapter 29.2

He recalled Christine’s moist, tearful eyes when she said that. Those bright, clever, purple eyes that changed their light faithfully as she intended.

As he recalled the faint curve in her eyes as she smiled and the long eyelashes that stretched over them, he had a strange feeling of wanting to add something that he would normally have held back.

“I’ll go back first if my part of the job ends early, so just know that.”

“…”

Isaac looked into Edgar’s eyes without realizing it, then hastily lowered them. He seemed to know who he was thinking of when he announced his quick return.

***

‘At least a week, and ten days at most.’

Christine looked at the calendar and counted the days. Even though it had only been three days since Edgar had left, she felt impatient.

She could only stay here for a month to avoid Duff’s suspicion, but her precious time was flying by like this.

No matter how much she pretended to clean and diligently collected the chimera’s tears, the time she couldn’t touch him was too precious. What if she missed the opportunity to talk to him and find out what was the connection between her curse and the power of Richard, or if he knew how to lift the curse completely?

Edgar, no, Prince Richard who had faked his own death but was actually alive, had to complete his mission safely and quickly return to her.

Thinking that, she took off Edgar’s cloak and hung it up in the closet. There was still a faint scent of Edgar’s skin on it.

It was the scent that came out when she took a deep breath in his firm embrace. It was a sensual scent that seemed to come only from male beasts, and only from the alpha males, so she wanted to keep smelling it.

Decius must have thought she was wearing his cloak because she didn’t have a proper coat, so he sent her some new clothes. But she just kept using this one.

‘It’s high quality and comfortable, so I keep going for it.’

She gave a good reason for her actions and put the chimera’s tears she had collected today in a small cloth pouch. She had gathered quite a lot now, about a handful.

The jewel in the necklace that Duff was lending for an enormous amount of money was barely large enough to be held in one hand, so it seemed that just collecting as much as she had collected so far would considerably alleviate the inconvenience caused by the curse.

That is, if she could take the jewels safely to her mother.

When her thoughts reached that point, Christine fell down on the bed.

One question that had not left her mind since she became aware of his identity popped up in her head again.

‘Edgar Richard is the child between the grand duke and his imprinted companion. Unlike the chimeras, he can imprint on anyone he mates with.’

The fact that Edgar was a nobleman was actually not a big problem for Christine. What good was his status if he didn’t want to reveal his identity?

She just felt relieved to know why he gave off such a mysterious sense of intimidation.

The only thing that bothered her was that he could imprint on a woman as a male from Richard’s family.

She had heard that the imprint was a pretty strong expression of love for the males of Richard, who inherited the wolf’s nature to be faithful to one companion.

From the point of view of the female who was being imprinted, she was being branded as his companion whether she loved him or not; so even though he doesn’t know how she might feel, from the point of view of the male, it was like that.

Knowing this fact, as an elite guild member, Christine had no choice but to calculate the probability that he would imprint on her.

‘If he had already imprinted it on another woman, he wouldn’t have held me. And I don’t think anyone would have reacted that way to the news that Edgar had brought a woman if that were the case.’

In other words, he must not have imprinted on anyone yet.

“It’s true that I did something I normally wouldn’t because of my instincts. I’ve been able to control them quite well so far.”

Edgar spoke as if it was his first time being with someone, but Christine wasn’t naive enough to believe him. How could a man who was a virgin until the age of thirty be so skilled? It was a setting that only came out in romance novels.

Even if he had such a rough personality, he was handsome, his lower body was beastly, and he had insane stamina, so there must have been a lot of women running to him. What would be the reason he delayed imprinting on someone?

‘It could be that he has no intention of imprinting on someone he doesn’t love.’

To summarize her reasonable assumptions, it was like this.

It seemed that Edgar Richard had not imprinted on anyone yet. He seemed to have no intention of imprinting on a one-night stand partner whom he had no feelings for.

Considering the two assumptions, there was absolutely no reason for her to be anxious about being imprinted and tracked by him.

‘I can’t believe I’m worried that a man who doesn’t even bat an eye when I keep hanging around him will imprint on me.’

She must be… quite bored lately.

Christine laughed, thinking that it wasn’t even a motive for laughter.

She was convinced without a doubt that Edgar would not imprint on her.