Ch. 3 - Fated

Eira patiently waited for Kael’s return, only to ask how he could have ended up with Alice and spent a long night with her. She even thought that perhaps the two of them were conspiring together to ruin her life.

Yet Eira’s love for Kael was more than just sincere. She was so devoted to her love that she couldn’t bring herself to hate Kael even a little, even though there were plenty of reasons to hate Kael.

Her chest rose and fell as she tried to control her increasingly tight and shallow breathing. She didn’t know how many times she’d coughed up cherry blossom petals today.

Until finally, her throat felt itchy again, and she started coughing—for the umpteenth time.

Her shoulders shook violently as she fought the pain. One hand clutched her neck, hoping it might slightly ease the agony she was enduring, even though it made absolutely no difference.

Her breathing was ragged. Her gaze remained fixed on her palm, as if something were stoking the flames of her emotions.

“Damn it!” she muttered in frustration.

Eira immediately went outside and looked up at the crescent moon, which was so clearly visible that night. Eira's fangs bared as a white glint flashed in her eyes, revealing her anger.

“Can’t you ease the pain I’m suffering?!” she shouted at the moon.

Yes, Eira was angry at her fate. Living amidst her clan’s extinction, she was afflicted with an illness that she didn’t even know if anyone else had ever experienced.

That was when her tears broke free. She was furious at the Moon Goddess for making her fate so heartbreaking.

“I’ve even given up part of my soul just to keep Kael alive. Why don’t you just make him love me back so I don’t have to suffer from this damn flower disease?!” she wailed, crouching in front of her house and clutching her aching chest.

The pain was too much to bear. Her mate hated her so much for a mistake she had never committed.

Eira’s sobbing stopped when she heard the sound of a car approaching. She stood up and roughly wiped the tears from her cheeks, realizing that Kael had come home.

She had only one hope: that Kael wasn’t with another woman again.

“Kael,” Eira called out as Kael got out of his car.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” Kael cut in quickly before letting Eira ask him a barrage of questions.

He hurried into his house to avoid Eira. But Eira followed him, still hoping to get an explanation as to why Kael was involved with her best friend.

“How could you have a relationship with my best friend?” Eira asked, as if ignoring Kael’s reluctance to speak to her.

“I didn’t know she was your best friend.” In the end, Kael answered anyway, even though he was annoyed.

“But Alice knows you’re my husband.”

“Then ask her why she didn’t say a word when I asked her to have sex with me.”

Eira was quite surprised by Kael’s blunt attitude—he didn’t even try to soften his words at all. Shouldn’t he be embarrassed to talk about his bad habits?

It was painful to hear that Kael had actually chosen to do such a dirty thing with another woman, even though he already had a wife who loved him so deeply—with everything Eira could give him, she would surely give it without Kael even having to ask.

Yet her existence was completely disregarded.

“Everyone knows about that bad habit of yours, Kael. Aren't you ashamed?”

Kael stopped right in front of his bedroom door and turned to glare sharply at Eira, a look that instantly cowed her, causing her to take a few steps back to avoid his gaze, which always succeeded in rendering Eira completely powerless to resist.

“I never wanted to mate with you. To hell with fate. But our marriage was just a damn condition I had to meet before I was sworn in as leader of the Valerius Clan.”

“But I’ve given you everything. My love—”

“Don't talk about the love you gave me. The devastation you brought to my life is far greater, Eira!” Kael quickly interrupted.

"You’re only here because of your own desire—you said you’d atone for your parents’ mistake of killing my parents!” He continued.

Eira bowed her head deeply.

Kael was right. Kael had never forbidden Eira from leaving from the very beginning—even before they were married—and he never wanted to see her again.

Eira, who chose to stay by Kael’s side and was willing to become enslaved to atone for the sins of her adoptive parents, who had betrayed Kael’s family and even gone so far as to kill them. Yet Eira actually was merely a victim.

No one ever suspected that they were fated mate.

“Your parents were so poor they had to beg us for work. After being given a job and a decent place to live, you stabbed us in the back because someone offered you more money. And you still have the nerve to say you’ve given me everything?” Kael taunted.

This time, Eira was truly speechless. She didn’t dare say anything anymore, even though, deep down, it wasn’t just love.

True, Kael wasn’t raising his voice this time. But clearly, his hatred for Eira was becoming more evident in the way he stared at her, and the shift in the atmosphere around them made Eira feel increasingly suffocated.

“You’ve truly brought nothing but misfortune into my life!” Kael said before finally storming into his room and slamming the door.

There was nothing she could argue against because, fundamentally, none of Kael’s words is wrong. Weakly, Eira dragged her feet into her room. There, she no longer hid anything. Her sobs broke out again along with the coughing fit, which seemed to be getting worse and more painful.

Her heart felt as if it were being torn apart—so brutally that Eira’s vision slowly began to blur. She crawled toward the drawer where she kept her belongings, still sobbing from the pain that felt increasingly inhuman.

Eira’s hands frantically rummaged through the contents of the drawer until she finally found what she was looking for.

A book titled “The End of Hanahaki,” which she had once received from someone.

“How long?” she muttered to herself as she turned each page of the book.

His hand stopped right on a page of the book.

‘The fate of those afflicted with hanahaki is determined by the person to whom you have given your soul. Your life and death depend on that person.’

Eira’s hands clenched the book so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her already pale face grew even paler.

The sentence from that book was enough to drive her out of her mind. So, that was how Eira’s story would end.