The Kidnapped Prince is Mine Now - Chapter 25

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

Chapter 25
I needed to confirm Konrad’s condition. I opened my mouth hastily.
But then.
“K… o… n…”
Damn it.
It wasn’t a lie that I’d administered the antidote in the correct sequence. After waking from sleep, the pain that had pressed down on my entire body began to fade rapidly within mere minutes.
However, my vocal cords and tongue, unused for several days, were still unable to function properly.
Maximilian gazed down at me with an expression of adoration as he spoke.
“You want to ask about Konrad? Don’t worry. I didn’t kill him.”
Didn’t kill him?
That meant he’d harmed him in some other way. Where? How much?
I clenched the blanket in frustration. Yet I didn’t dare glare at Maximilian recklessly.
I knew it well. My anger, my despair, every swirl of emotion—they were all joy to Maximilian.
Then Maximilian, who had been sitting in the chair, reached out his hand. The moment he swept the blanket away from the bed, my pupils dilated without my realizing it.
Maximilian tossed the blanket beneath the bed and murmured.
“You must have suffered greatly. Your clothes are soaked through.”
He was right. I barely lifted my head to look down, and the already thin chemise, drenched in sweat, revealed my skin beneath with perfect clarity.
Maximilian rose from his seat and gazed down as if admiring my nearly naked form.
Above his blue eyes, filthy desire rippled and overflowed.
“Elise.”
Maximilian whispered, his voice trembling as though making a confession.
“I’m curious. What kind of face would you make if I strangled you?”
With those words like a warning, Maximilian’s hands wrapped around my throat.
In an instant, with a sharp grip, a violent wave of nausea surged as my throat constricted.
“…!”
It began. Along with memories of the past, pitch-black terror engulfed my entire body.
Even as I flailed my hands and twisted my body, Maximilian’s grip didn’t loosen. Rather, he layered his other hand on top, tightening his hold further.
I could see his eye sockets flushed with excitement trembling slightly.
I couldn’t breathe. With a strangled, gasping sound I made involuntarily, my body shook.
“Beautiful.”
It was the moment my vision began to fade to white, his voice dripping with rapture.
A sharp whistling sound drew near, and the hands strangling my throat released.
“Cough…!”
I thought I was dying. Truly.
I gasped desperately for air and coughed. Tears streamed down my face reflexively as I hurriedly looked around.
Only then did I see it. Maximilian, now standing at a distance from me. A long spear embedded in the bed’s headboard above.
And pointing a blood-soaked sword at Maximilian…
“Remove your hands from my wife.”
Rotar Eisenrit, my husband.
A suffocating tension settled over the room. I felt my mind clearing as I struggled to comprehend the situation before my eyes.
Rotar had returned from the Snowy Mountains. At the most opportune moment imaginable.
But.
‘…Why does he look like that?’
Rotar’s appearance was devastated from head to toe.
Blood was splattered across his tattered armor, and I couldn’t even tell if it belonged to his enemies or to him.
Setting aside his appearance—the way his chest heaved with ragged breathing suggested he’d run here. Yet the knights who should have been escorting him were nowhere to be seen.
Were they waiting outside? No. Through the open bedroom door, all I could see were fallen soldiers.
Judging by the mixed colors of their armor, Maximilian’s soldiers had been the ones to fall to Rotar.
‘Surely not… alone?’
Why? Had the entire force that departed with him to subjugate the monsters been annihilated? Both the Graufels Knights and the Holy Knights?
In the midst of my confusion, a gentle voice shattered the silence.
“I merely administered the antidote I’d just obtained in haste.”
A brazen response from someone who’d nearly had his skull crushed by a spear while strangling another man’s throat.
Rotar spoke without lowering his sword aimed at Maximilian.
“No matter your status as the First Prince, you cannot simply invade the bedroom of the Second Prince’s wife, who is already married.”
“Well. There are always exceptions. I was merely trying to help. What would people think—that I was violating the Second Princess Consort?”
Had the intruder not appeared, he would have done exactly that.
‘No, before that, I might have bitten my tongue and died steeling myself for a sixth round.’
Maximilian remained composed, his lips curled upward as he gazed at me, then addressed Rotar.
“But tell me—I heard you were subjected to an abduction marriage. Is there any greater dishonor for the Imperial Family?”
“….”
“That’s why I came to help you, Rotar. My devout younger brother, who was meant to walk the path of a priest, suddenly subjected to an abduction marriage—how could I, as your elder brother, remain idle?”
Rotar, devout? I’d never even seen him offer a prayer before meals.
“So I contacted the Archbishop. I hear the Saint accompanied you to the Monastery on the Archbishop’s orders. Something seemed off from that point onward.”
This was where the real argument began. I swallowed quietly.
Let me think this through. Maximilian had conspired with the Archbishop to kill Rotar at the Monastery.
But then the Saint suddenly appeared and spirited Rotar away on the Archbishop’s orders? The Archbishop’s actions weren’t consistent.
So it had to be one of two things. Either the Archbishop had betrayed Maximilian, or the Saint had lied.
‘But the Archbishop isn’t the type to have the audacity to openly betray Maximilian.’
So the answer was already determined.
“Rotar. I believe the Saint stole the Archbishop’s authority, intercepted you, and carried out the abduction marriage herself.”
The answer being that I’m a madwoman.
If the Archbishop, pressured by Maximilian at this point, panicked and revealed that everything was merely the Saint’s elaborate fraud?
“Rotar, once the marriage is annulled, you’ll be free again. You could return to the path of priesthood you desired.”
I would be captured, and Rotar would be executed. The same ending as my previous life.
It was then that Rotar took a step forward.
“That will not happen.”
He still held his sword aimed at Maximilian.
“Elise Eisenrit is my wife.”
As his body moved, blood dripped steadily from his arm and blade in considerable quantity.
Only then did I realize one more crucial fact.
All this blood was flowing from Rotar’s wounds, and no hemostasis had been achieved whatsoever.
Yet despite this, Rotar spoke without changing his expression even slightly.
“No one shall ever take that woman from me.”
Another step forward. Rotar drew closer to Maximilian.
Maximilian showed no fear as the approaching blade neared him. The faint smile that had lingered across his face simply faded away gradually.
Rotar, treading upon blood-soaked ground, issued his warning.
“You will pay the price for the suffering you have inflicted upon my wife. Someday, you will answer for it.”
‘Ah.’
In that moment, I understood. The price Rotar spoke of was not limited to what had transpired today alone.
From the first cycle to the fourth. He was warning me about the entirety of my life, every moment I had been manipulated by Maximilian.
My mind was beginning to blur, when refined footsteps echoed from the lower floor outside the bedroom, drawing steadily closer. The figure who appeared was—
“Your Highness Maximilian. A letter from the Archbishop has arrived….”
It was Belsh, commander of the Second Imperial Knight Order and Maximilian’s right hand.
The moment he saw Rotar pointing a sword at his sovereign lord, his mouth fell shut.
But his tension was brief. After surveying Rotar’s blood-drenched state, he placed his hand upon the sword at his waist and spoke.
“Lower your blade.”
It was a threat—comply, or be cut down.
Immediately, alarm bells rang in my mind.
Would Belsh have dared to speak so brazenly to Rotar under normal circumstances? No. It was proof that Rotar’s wounds were grave enough to make him consider engaging.
I had to redirect the conversation. I hastily pointed to the paper in Belsh’s hand.
“The letter! Let’s read the Archbishop’s letter!”

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