I’m Going to Change My Husband With a Predatory Marriage - Chapter 90

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 90

Arpard’s mood, which had been excellent just moments before, plummeted to the depths with a single sentence from the woman beside him.

“Because I felt pity for the person who will become your lover later.”

A lover, she said.
What in the world was she talking about?
It wasn’t the words themselves that bothered him.
It was the person who had spoken them.
‘Is that something a wife should say?’
Of course, it wasn’t unusual for couples bound by political marriage to maintain separate lovers.
His own parents were rather the exception in this regard.
But Arpard didn’t currently have another woman, yet Hillia often spoke of it as though it were an established fact.
‘As if she were certain it would happen.’
The recollection only darkened his mood further.
Hillia sometimes behaved as though she had glimpsed the future.
From the moment she came to him proposing a marriage by abduction.
Just as she had predicted the dragon’s eclipse days ago and arranged all her plans accordingly.
Then… did that mean she had foreseen another woman entering his life?

“Why would I take a lover?”
“…Because the future is uncertain, isn’t it?”

Arpard’s mood only worsened at Hillia’s response.
So that was it.
The reason Arpard had spoken so curtly.
“I have no intention of keeping a mistress.”
At his words, Hillia’s violet eyes—which had been brimming with composure all along—widened considerably.
“…Why not?”
“That’s an odd question.”
“But we don’t know what might happen in the future, do we?”
“True. The future is uncertain.”
Hillia acted as though she knew something he didn’t, but he remained ignorant of it.
Yet precisely because of that uncertainty, there was one thing he could affirm with absolute certainty.
“I know myself well. I have no intention of keeping a mistress besides my wife.”
“….”
Hillia stared at him with her mouth agape, as if she’d lost all words.
To her stunned silence, Arpard drove the point home like a nail.
“So you should abandon the idea as well.”
“Pardon? Abandon what?”
“Keeping a lover on the side.”
“What? When did I ever say I wanted to keep a lover—!”
Hillia was about to flare up in anger when she suddenly grasped something crucial.
“Wait. You still haven’t let go of that misunderstanding, have you?”
“What misunderstanding?”
“Count Beltane!”
The moment the word “lover” and Beltane’s name left her lips in the same breath, Arpard’s mood began to plummet into the depths of the earth.
His stomach churned with displeasure.
More precisely, he felt such a dark impulse that he wanted to drag that man standing guard outside the door here and now and kill him.
Naturally, Hillia’s presence prevented him from acting on it.
Whether Hillia knew this or not, she continued with her excuses.
“I’ve told you countless times. Count Beltane is merely a loyal knight. You know that too—you’re just teasing me, aren’t you?”
“….”
She was right.
At first, he had genuinely misunderstood, but that misunderstanding had never truly persisted.
It was more akin to teasing Hillia.
But this moment was different.
Arpard truly, sincerely, and fiercely felt his insides roil and his nerves fray at the mere mention of Beltane’s name.
Hillia continued speaking as if soothing a petulant child.
“There is truly nothing between Count Beltane and me. Of course, I’m grateful for his loyalty, but that’s all it is. I’m certain that even if Count Beltane had served another house, he would have offered the same unwavering devotion.”
“….”
Arpard fell silent.
It was not because he agreed with Hillia’s words.
It was quite the opposite.
‘If I hadn’t seen his expression just now, I would have thought the same thing.’
That he was like the very embodiment of chivalry—a stubborn, thick-headed fool.
That all Hillia would ever see in him was his loyalty as a Knight.
But I had already witnessed it.

“…Hillia’s husband is me.”

Count Beltane visibly wavered at the words ‘Hillia’s husband’.
I caught the faint traces of indignation and jealousy flickering across his face.
‘As a man, I could recognize it.’
Yet here, in this moment, Count Beltane’s name surfaced once more after that clash of wills.
In a bedroom where we were alone together.
Arpard found that displeasing as well.

* * *

“….”
“….”
Arpard and I stared at each other, both stubborn in our silence.
An awkward, uncomfortable quiet filled the room.
I was the first to break the silence with a sigh.
“I don’t understand why you keep bringing up Count Beltane… but it’s really not like that.”
“…I know.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
I asked in exasperation.
Then Arpard turned the question back on me.
“Why do you assume I would naturally cheat on you?”
“….”
“Do you trust me in other things? Am I really so untrustworthy to you?”
I didn’t know what to say here.
Because I know your future?
There was far too much I would need to explain.
And before that, I was afraid.
Seriously telling someone else that I had regressed.
I had already tried telling someone once, and it had ended in spectacular failure.

“Actually, I’ve come back from the future.”

That person…
I suppressed a bittersweet memory that threatened to surface.
I truly cannot speak of it.
Yet I couldn’t simply pass over this moment in complete silence either.
At least I needed to reveal some measure of sincerity to prevent mutual misunderstanding.
So I spoke honestly—omitting only the details of my regression.
“The truth is, I’m preparing myself.”
“…Preparing for what?”
“Preparing without hope. If I don’t hope, I won’t be hurt.”
As I spoke, I was startled by my own words. I’d known Arpard would soon love another woman, and without realizing it, I’d been bracing myself for that reality.
‘…What is this?’
If I didn’t care for Arpard, why would it matter if he loved someone else?
Why was I thinking such things…?
Just then, Arpard’s voice, slightly subdued, cut through my spiraling thoughts.
“…Are you saying you don’t have hope in me?”
More precisely, it would mean that having no hope in him was better for me.
I hesitated to answer truthfully.
Moments ago, I’d wanted to show him my genuine heart.
Everything felt impossibly complicated.
As I struggled for words, Arpard nodded as if he understood.
“Of course. It would be difficult to fully trust a mad prince. I understand.”
As he said this, Arpard’s expression bore even more hurt than yesterday.
Seeing that, I simply couldn’t let it pass.
“That’s not it.”
“…What do you mean?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.”
“But you just said—”
“I’ve experienced so much betrayal that I struggle to trust people. And I have this habit of anticipating the worst beforehand.”
This is a genuine habit born from living through regression.
“If I truly didn’t trust you at all, I wouldn’t have requested the abduction marriage.”
“…”
An expression I’d never seen before crossed Arpard’s face.
For reasons I couldn’t explain, this moment felt unbearably shameful and difficult to endure.
Perhaps because, while I hadn’t revealed the regression itself, this was the first time I’d exposed even fragments of my raw, unguarded self to another person?
That must be it.
I felt more exposed than if I were truly naked.
So I immediately turned away, threw myself onto the bed, buried my head deep beneath the blankets, and cried out:
“We’re sleeping separately tonight!”
I was utterly mortified.
Arpard’s laughter rang out brightly through the bedroom.
Soon, the sound of rustling drew closer to my side.
“To your bedroom…!”
I suddenly lifted my head from beneath the blankets, my anger flaring.
Arpard’s face had already drawn inches from mine.
“I don’t like this.”
Whoosh—my face burned crimson without my control.
Arpard replied in a serious voice devoid of amusement.
“I don’t sleep well in other beds.”
I hesitated and tried to back away, attempting to leave the bed.
“Then I’ll go to a different room…!”
But Arpard caught me.
“We’re officially a newlywed couple in the eyes of the public. It wouldn’t be a wise choice to let it be known that we sleep separately.”
He was right, which made it all the more infuriating.
So I cried out stubbornly.
“I’m going to sleep without looking at your face!”

* * *

His wife did exactly as she said.
She turned away with a soft sound and fell asleep, while Arpard carefully drew her into his embrace from behind.
He had only recently realized that since sharing a bed with her, he had begun to sleep quite deeply.
As befitted his dragon bloodline, he required little sleep.
An hour or two a day was sufficient, and during times of tension, he could go days without rest.
Yet when he was with her, sleep came to him strangely easily.
Deep sleep. Uncharacteristically so.
Like in this very moment.
Arpard rarely dreamed.
It might have been because with so little sleep, he had few opportunities to dream.
Or perhaps because he had so little to regret or dwell upon.
Thus, Arpard was unaccustomed to dreams.
Especially not nightmares.

“No! No!”

A woman was crying out. It was a voice he knew well.
Through his blurred vision, he recognized the familiar face.
Soiled pale pink hair crudely cut short. Pale, delicate skin marred with wounds and bruises scattered across it.
And above all, an expression twisted in terror and tears.

“Save me… please save me…”

It was Hillia.
It was undoubtedly he who had struck her down as she cried out and mounted her like a beast.
The pale pink strands of her disheveled hair scattered across the black stone floor burned vividly in his mind.
But the him of ‘now’ possessed no reason capable of proper judgment.
He merely followed his instincts like a beast.
He began to lick the blood flowing from Hillia’s wounds.

“―!!!”
When I opened my eyes, I realized I had been dreaming.
A nightmare experienced for the first time in my life.
Unnaturally vivid. And utterly cruel.
I slowly turned my head.
Hillia, unaware of what nightmare her husband had just endured, lay nestled in my arms, sleeping peacefully.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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