The Crown I Will Take From You - Chapter 334
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Part 2, Chapter 181
When Medeia regained consciousness, everything around her was quiet.
Chezare was lying beside her.
Though she had brought him through the fierce blizzard, his body had grown cold.
Even his faint heartbeat had long since stopped.
Her heart dropped with a thud.
‘Chezare.’
She shook him with trembling hands.
But those golden eyes that once blazed with fire would never reflect her image again.
‘No…’
No sound came out. As if she were in a vacuum, the world rang hollow and muffled.
Meanwhile, his body grew colder and colder.
“Chezare—!”
Medeia gasped and opened her eyes.
The faint scent of herbs brushed her nose, and a gray ceiling came into view.
‘…It was a dream.’
She gripped the sheets. Her heart was still beating frantically.
She couldn’t clearly distinguish between the nightmare she’d just had and the hazy reality before her eyes.
Her last memory before losing consciousness was the moment she had tightly gripped Chezare’s sleeve.
Medeia unconsciously felt around the space beside her. But all her fingertips touched was cold sheets.
She bolted upright.
The moment she realized she was completely alone in this room, her heart sank.
Was he alive?
Or had she been too late?
“No, no.”
Heat seemed to rush to her eyes.
Just as she let out a sob-like moan, creak, the door opened.
The silhouette of the man who entered, bending his body at the low doorframe, was larger than the door itself.
The shoulder above the bandages visible through his loose flannel shirt was still solid.
The moment she saw the man’s black hair swaying in the cold draft flowing through the door, Medeia rushed out without hesitation.
“Chezare!”
* * *
The rooms in this house were entirely suited to the build of the innkeeper, Mr. Jenkins.
Therefore, when opening the door and entering, Chezare had to duck his head slightly.
So his reaction was a beat late.
He reflexively caught his wife as she leaped toward him.
As he held Medeia steady with his bandaged arms, a dull, throbbing pain struck his entire body.
“…Dea?”
But such pain didn’t matter at all.
“Does it hurt? Are you in pain? Where?”
“Che, hic, Cheza…”
Because Medeia was crying while clinging to him.
The moment he noticed her ragged breathing, trembling shoulders, and tears flowing down her white cheeks, he froze.
Not once had he ever seen her, who was always calm and composed, cry so breathlessly.
The man’s sculpted face grew serious.
“Dea, explain slowly, where does it hurt, how does it hurt, damn it, what the hell—”
Chezare had been by her side the entire time.
The snow had briefly stopped, so he had only stepped away momentarily to find a way to communicate with the outside world.
But what could have happened in that short time—
“…I thought.”
Just as he furrowed his brow,
“I, I thought I was, losing you, hic, I thought.”
A sweet voice flowed between her suppressed sobs.
“That wasn’t how I wanted to send you off, I was afraid it would be the last time, afraid I’d lose you, …I, I…”
Unaware that Chezare had frozen like an idiot,
“Hic, hic, I regretted it… I should have told you. That I wanted to stay by your side too, hic, that I felt the same way… I wasn’t honest enough.”
Medeia muttered urgently and incoherently.
As if she had to say all the regrets she’d felt while wandering the snowy mountains right now,
As if she feared she’d never get another chance to confess her true feelings.
“…Dea, do you know what you’re saying right now?”
Chezare gently wrapped her trembling hands.
His face looked cold and ruthless in his effort not to waver in the sweetly pouring rain.
“You need to speak carefully. Because there will be no turning back.”
Chezare knew himself.
Having waited for her heart all this time, once he held onto her, he would never let her go again. No, he couldn’t.
Even if Medeia wanted to take it back.
“…”
But at Chezare’s words, more moisture filled Medeia’s eyes.
She too knew he was warning her now.
He was always like this. A man who got whatever he wanted, yet always yielded to her alone.
“I avoided it because I was cowardly. Knowing everything, even though I knew too, I was afraid… If you betrayed me, I felt I could never heal. I felt I couldn’t overcome it…”
Medeia scraped out even her most petty and selfish true feelings.
Even while feeling shame at that selfishness that thought only of herself,
“I know I was cowardly, that I’ve been using you for my own convenience…”
Her voice was faint, barely audible unless one listened carefully, but Chezare caught every word.
“That can’t be. Dea, please forget that I’ve been begging you to do just that all this time—”
“Making the Emperor change his mind couldn’t have meant for me to use you.”
He hesitated. Because he recalled his last memory before leaving her.
In Chezare’s arms, Medeia was still trembling.
Had he been happy that she came looking for him?
‘You cunning bastard.’
The moment he realized he was the one who had driven Medeia to this breaking point, Chezare’s face contorted.
“…Dea, I was wrong.”
During their time apart, imagining how much she must have dwelled on his careless words,
Knowing he was the cause of it all made him feel utterly pathetic.
It felt like scraping his heart with a dull axe.
“It was… my tantrum. I was the cowardly one.”
Pressing his lips to her fragile temple, Chezare spilled out his petty fears.
His arrogant pride, which had never been broken in his lifetime, crumbled silently for the first time before Medeia.
“I was afraid you’d leave me, afraid that after ascending the Imperial Throne, you’d abandon me without regret.”
Medeia looked up.
“You can laugh at me for being a pathetic fool. But you know what? Now I…”
The man who had always been dignified was hanging his head before her.
“I’m more afraid of you leaving me than of failing to become Emperor.”
“…”
Just because he wanted her affection.
“…Dea, you did nothing wrong. From start to finish, it was all my selfishness—”
Affection surged in her chest.
She couldn’t contain her feelings for this man.
Medeia unconsciously lifted her head and pressed her lips to his jawline.
Touch. At the slightest contact, the man who had been like Mount Tai stiffened like a rock.
Golden eyes that seemed to contain the abyss gazed solely at Medeia.
Whether he wanted to devour her or was restraining that impulse, it was impossible to tell with the eyes alone.
Medeia pressed her lips against his again.
‘I want to convey my heart.’
Like knocking on a closed door, she gently bumped her lips against his. Once, twice…
“Gasp…!”
Her lips being swallowed happened in an instant.
Smooth flesh seemed to gently wander inside her mouth, then immediately bound her tongue without leaving any room to breathe.
Medeia’s closed eyes trembled violently.
As she unconsciously tilted her head back, firm hands embraced the back of her head.
The other hand wrapped around her waist pulled her into an even fiercer embrace. As if it would not allow any more distance.
Whoosh, it was then that fire ignited between the two.
He pushed Medeia forward like a whirlwind.
‘How…’
Through her past life, Medeia had been confident she was detached when it came to matters between men and women.
However, even she had never experienced anything like this.
Jason had never kissed so fiercely, persistently, as if devouring his partner…
“Dea.”
A cracked voice that seemed to scrape the floor interrupted her thoughts.
The heat that had gathered around her eyes seemed to spread throughout her entire body in an instant.
No, it seemed to spread throughout the entire room.
She became hot in an instant, and her stomach bubbled and boiled. She felt suffocated as if she were in a fire.
Chezare intermittently breathed air into her as if soothing her.
However, he never parted his lips from hers.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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