Predatory Marriage - Chapter 363. Final (1)

Leah didn’t come back to her senses until the sky was colored by sunset. For a while, she sat on the edge of her bed in a daze as the events of the previous night returned one by one back to her mind.

“……”

She buried her face in her hands. She had had s3x with Ishakan before when he was rutting, but last night seemed somehow worse.

To call him a depraved beast hardly seemed sufficient, but she couldn’t come up with anything better. Leah groaned inside.

She was so hungry. And she had lost an entire day, so now she had a lot of work to make up. Slowly, she climbed out of bed.

“Ahhh!”

And immediately fell to her knees. Her legs folded under her as soon as she put weight on her feet. Sitting on the carpet, the pain belatedly flooded her, conquering the daze she had been in since she woke up.

Leah clutched at her belly with one hand. Her whole body ached as if she had been beaten, and she felt in no condition to move on her own. Angrily, she shouted at the cause of all her woes.

“Ishakan…!”

Ishakan appeared immediately with a small bag in one hand. Quickly, he picked Leah up off the floor.

“When did you wake up? You should be lying down…”

She wanted to scold him, but her throat hurt too much to shout again. When she reached to rub her sore throat, he quickly brought her some water. He seemed almost embarrassed, and very aware of his mistakes. Posted only on NovelUtopia

After she had moistened her throat, Leah asked a simple question.

“Are you all right now?”

Ishakan looked in her direction, but did not meet her eyes.

“I was really worried about you…it’s the first time you’ve done this…”

He sighed, lifting her into his arms without acknowledging the question.

“Should we go wash up?” He asked.

Leah agreed, wrapping her arms around his neck as he carried her to the bathroom. The small bag he had brought contained a mixture of herbs, which he poured into the bath. Then he helped her undress. Leah was shocked when she saw her own naked body.

Dousing her shoulders with the herbal-scented water, he washed her hair.

“But what happened?” Leah asked as he attended her. “Why did you drink that potion?”

“I wanted to be sure it wasn’t a real love potion.”

Her eyes widened at the way he said it, as if it were a small matter. Ishakan explained what had happened in detail as he bathed her.

He had decided to be cautious when he learned that Balkat could make love potions. It was a difficult piece of magic, even for a sorcerer like Morga. Initially, the Kurkans had been sure that the potion would be fake.

Though they had accounted for the possibility that it would work.

“So you took the Kurkans from the palace to investigate it?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I was trying to make sure.”

They had wanted to find the Tomari they assumed was delivering fake potions to Balkat. But as the investigation dragged on, Ishakan had chosen to make a more direct inquiry himself.

As soon as he drank it, he knew it was fake. But while the potion could not move his heart, it had had a powerful effect on another part of his anatomy.

“The King and Queen of Balkat are not just beautiful, they are skilled at seduction,” he explained. “Anyone who spent a night with them after drinking that potion would naturally give them their hearts.”

They had mistaken the overpowering lust for love. So the Balkat royals had bravely come to Estia with their potion, but failed miserably.

“Love potion…”

Leah understood perfectly. So they were the ones to blame for the cruel difficulties she had endured. Ishakan had wanted to wait until the situation was resolved to tell her, so she would not worry. He had known that an issue of love potions might resurrect some of the most terrible memories from her past.

Fury suddenly erupted. She couldn’t believe anyone would try to take Ishakan away from her with such low, despicable manipulation. It was unforgivable.

“I would like to slap them both,” she said.

Ishakan frowned, looking guilty again.

“I have to tell you…” He confessed. “I killed them.”

.

“……”

Of course Ishakan would have taken care of them properly. And they would have suffered a lot more pain than a few slaps. Leah just nodded.

The warm water made her feel sleepy, and her eyes began to drift closed as Ishakan bathed beside her. His voice sounded faint and far away.

“I have another gift for you,” he went on. “We turned the capital upside down, investigating the potion…and we found your counterfeiters, by chance.”

His large hand lightly touched Leah’s cheek.

“What should we do with them?” He asked. “Shall we behead them? It would be appropriate to hang them in the market square…”

Leah mumbled a reply, and abruptly fell asleep.

It was a deep sleep, and comfortable.