The Bride They Sacrificed: Reborn To Love And Kill のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 31 - チャプター 40

Lucian finished bathing. The sound of running water faded behind the bathroom door. He reached for a towel, wrapping it low around his waist, secure but casual, as if he had never once considered the effect of such simplicity. Another towel went to his hair, and he raked it through slowly, water dripping from the ends and trailing down the hard planes of his chest. He then came out of the bathroom with steam drifting lazily into the bedroom. He was bare from his upper body, unbothered, and effortlessly devastating. Droplets of water still clung to his skin, catching the warm light as they traced slow, deliberate paths down his torso, over muscle, across skin, disappearing beneath the edge of the towel. His bare chest, broad and solid, rising and falling with an easy, unhurried rhythm. His shoulders were wide and powerful, the kind that spoke of strength without needing to prove it. And his abs... It was mouthwatering. Unapologetically on display. They flexed subtly

Lucian stood up abruptly. The movement was so sudden, so violent, that the legs of his chair shrieked against the marble floor before he even fully straightened. For half a second, it looked as though the chair might topple harmlessly backward. But then Lucian grabbed it. With raw, unrestrained force, he lifted it and threw it across the room. The chair slammed into the far wall with a deafening crash, splintering on impact, wood cracking and breaking apart as pieces scattered across the floor. The sound echoed through the dining hall like a gunshot, rattling the windows, shaking the glasses on the table, and making several people gasp aloud. Lucian rushed toward her. Fast. Just too fast. Everybody’s heart jumped straight to their throat. This wasn’t unfamiliar. This wasn’t shocking. This was terrifying because it was known. This wasn’t the first time Lucian had hurt a family member or gone mad. And they all knew, every single one of them, that he would do it al

Lucian exhaled slowly and deeply. But not the way a man does when he is trying to calm himself, rather, the way a man does when he knows impact is inevitable and is bracing his body for the collision rather than trying to avoid it.His thumb brushed against Elira’s side in a subconscious motion, protective, grounding, his fingers grazing the fabric of her dress as if reminding himself of where he was, who he was now, and, most importantly, what line he could not afford to cross again.The contact was barely noticeable to anyone else. But she felt it.She felt the tension coiled tight beneath his skin, the restraint vibrating through that small, deliberate touch. That single brush of his thumb told her more than words ever could, told her that this wasn’t anger boiling over, this wasn’t pride or ego or dominance.This was control being held together by will alone.He pulled her aside from his family, not away from them, not hiding her, not shielding her behind his body as he once woul

Everyone looked at Elara after she and Lucian went back to their seat. She was still quiet all this time. Now... the whole family looked at her intently. Not as Lucian’s wife. Not as an outsider who had somehow wed her way into the Hale family. But as something new. Something unaccounted for. Something that did not fit neatly into their expectations but at the same time she did. They all resumed eating and pretended that everything was okay. After a while... Elara stood straight, not by pride but by resolve. Her heart was still racing from the whole ordeal, the echo of earlier chaos still pounding in her ears, but her voice, when she finally spoke, did not betray it. “I would like to clear something once more. I didn’t marry Lucian for money,” Elara said calmly. Everyone stopped eating and looked at her. Her voice was steady, even, threaded with a quiet certainty that demanded to be listened to. “I didn’t marry him for status. And I didn’t marry him to take something from t

After dinner…They didn’t speak as they left the dining hall.Not because there was nothing to say, but because everything was still too raw and alive beneath their skin to say it out loud. Words felt reckless right now, like one wrong syllable might crack open everything Lucian had barely managed to shove back into place.Lucian walked slightly ahead of Elara, not intentionally leaving her behind, but instinctively positioning himself that way, the way he always did when he felt unsteady, when his mind was still bristling with threat and monsters.The adrenaline hadn’t fully left his body yet. It still buzzed beneath his skin, sharp and restless.It was like something feral pacing in a cage that had only just been locked away.Elara noticed all of it.She noticed the way his jaw was set so tightly that she could see the muscle twitch.She didn’t rush him. Didn’t reach out. Didn’t speak.She understood, in that instinctive, bone-deep way she had when it came to him, that this was not