Don't Keep a Dog in the Garden - Chapter 30

Cassia’s eyes, always radiant, looked like the dim light of a dark sky thick with storm clouds.

“You killed for the Emperor, and I turned a blind eye to those deaths for my own sake. Do I have the right to hate anyone?”

At her muttered answer that wasn’t quite an answer, Whisker shot up.

Cassia rose as well, following him.

On the bed where the pillows lay side by side, the two faced each other.

The comfort Cassia offered was self-reproach, but Whisker responded with anger on a pained face.

“Why should you take responsibility for those deaths? They’re the ones who used you!”

The nobles who claimed to be the Grand Duke faction had only one justification. Golden Dawn.

Cassia Hestian Diorent was a direct descendant of the great Emperor Slayden, so she should inherit the next throne. That was their logic.

From the Emperor’s perspective, that was treason.

Giiern was the son of the younger brother of the great Emperor Slayden, and Jachim, chosen as the next Emperor, was of Giiern’s blood.

At the end of the claim to overturn that bloodline, Cassia was hung out like bait.

Deaths to restore Golden Dawn? Loyalty staked with one’s life?

All of it was nonsense.

Yet this woman, uselessly generous and stubbornly lonely, knew everything and still couldn’t turn away.

He should’ve killed more.

He should’ve killed them all.

Even now, even tonight.

A dangerous killing intent flashed in Whisker’s red eyes, and Cassia gave a faint smile.

“I don’t hate you.”

Those few words instantly snuffed out the dangerous flames that were about to consume Whisker.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you. I must’ve said too much.”

And she lit a different spark.

A formless fondness, a longing like frost flowers at dawn.

At Cassia’s sincerity, perhaps revealed for the first time after being hidden and hidden again, Whisker felt heat rise within him.

A heat that felt like anger and also like sorrow, and as if searching for water, he reached out desperately.

His fingertips gently brushed Cassia’s cheek and touched her earlobe.

Whisker’s long fingers parted her black hair and wrapped around her slender neck.

He slowly pulled her in and held her tightly.

He had always thought desire was something explosive, like fireworks, but it wasn’t.

It wasn’t a surge of lust erupting like a volcano, but a wish to touch her like the softest feather of a mother bird.

She was, painfully, a generous person, and this time as well, she didn’t avoid him and ended up in his arms.

“Whisker?”

Unable to either embrace him or push him away, Cassia called out in a flustered voice.

Burying his face in her shoulder and wrapping his arms around her back, he asked, “What should I do?”

Everything he could give her was already prepared, yet he had forgotten to ask whether he could give it.

After holding Cassia tightly, Whisker let her go.

It was only for a moment, but Cassia felt as if she would be crushed in his embrace.

For some reason, that dangerous feeling felt solid and comforting.

He had suddenly grown angry, then suddenly pulled her into an embrace. As always, he was impossible to predict.

And the gaze he met her with was a complete mess.

Whisker’s eyes were rarely ever sound, but now they were a confusion she didn’t even want to try to read.

As unsettled as his gaze, Whisker asked once more, “Tell me. What should I do? How should I treat you?”

“I don’t know what you’re thinking of doing, but whatever it is, don’t do it,” Cassia answered, serious yet urgent.

With that look in his eyes, there was no way anything he intended to do would be sound.

At Cassia’s firm refusal, Whisker let out a small laugh.

The sharp edge that had been so taut scattered, and the corners of his eyes curved into a gentle line.

“You always tell me not to do things. As if you know what I’m going to do.”

“Whatever it is, it looks dangerous.”

“It won’t be anything dangerous to my wife.”

“That’s what you think.”

Cassia also responded to his glibness with a faint snort of laughter.

Even that half-formed smile that didn’t quite become one was lovely, and Whisker wrapped her hand in his.

Lowering his head, he pressed a kiss to the back of her hand as if making a solemn vow.

The warmth against his lips and her scent brushing past his nose made Whisker dizzy.

He meant to release her after a light kiss, but his body didn’t listen.

He wanted to kiss her wrist as well.

Her shoulder, her neck, and her lips.

If he loosened his control even slightly, it felt like his body would move on its own, so Whisker remained frozen with his lips pressed to the back of Cassia’s hand.

In the end, Cassia shook her hand free and chided him.

“See? I told you it’s dangerous.”

Whisker couldn’t refute it and simply laughed softly.

His thin, long lips drew a pleasing curve.

For a moment, that somewhat pitiful smile almost captivated her, but Cassia pulled the blanket over herself and lay down.

“It’s late. Let’s sleep.”

As she closed her eyes and prepared to sleep, Whisker slipped his arm beneath her neck and lay down with his head on the pillow as well.

Pretending to sleep, he watched each and every one of her eyelashes as if engraving them into his eyes until Cassia truly fell asleep.

He thought he would die if he couldn’t have her, but what should he call this feeling that was content just to look at her?

What lies beyond longing, desire, and love?

Startled by the surge of an emotion no one had ever taught him, Whisker closed his eyes as well.

***

The next morning, Cassia had a very Cassia-like thought.

Since she’d come down to the Grand Duchy anyway, she might as well accomplish what she could before returning.

First, she needed to find a lead that could resolve the issue of the imperial troops, the most troublesome matter.

Since Whisker failed to carry out the Emperor’s order, she needed another justification to withdraw the imperial troops.

Cassia first summoned the highest-ranking commander listed in the deployment manual of the military camp.

“Are you Brigadier General Samuel Kurt?”

“No, madam!”

“Then you’re not Commander Behemoth either?”

“No, madam!”

“Staff Officer Guillaume?”

“No, madam! I am Centurion Patrick!”

The man, who appeared to be in his late thirties and carried himself with rigid discipline, shouted at the top of his lungs.

His face clearly showed that he had no rank worthy of standing before the Grand Duchess and had no idea how such an overwhelming situation had come to be.

Cassia had clearly summoned the highest-ranking commander, so she grew displeased, thinking she was being ignored, and asked sharply.

“Where is Brigadier General Kurt?”

“He passed away not long ago.”

“What?”

“They say a thief broke into his residence in the middle of the night.”

“A thief…? Then what about Commander Behemoth?”

“The Commander also died suddenly last week….”

“And the staff officer?”

“He has been missing for several days….”

Cassia rubbed her forehead with her fingertips after grasping the situation of the three commanders.

Whisker had seemed perfectly fine, so she thought Jachim was talking nonsense, but it appeared something had indeed happened over the past fortnight.

Should she consider it fortunate that it ended with only the three commanders dispatched from the capital being dealt with?

Letting out a shallow sigh, Cassia asked again, “When are they sending a new command staff?”

“I’m not sure about that either. This is the first time something like this has happened, and matters like that aren’t shared with centurions like me….”

Patrick scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

A centurion is a mid-ranking officer who commands a hundred soldiers.

She had thought it was a fairly high rank, but it seemed to be treated differently in the field.

“Then what are the soldiers doing at a time like this, with no command staff?”

“We’re practically like a local force, so in normal times we engage in our livelihoods.”

“What?”

Startled, Cassia asked again, and Patrick explained the current state of the imperial army in Verdi.

When they were first dispatched to the Verdi region, they were regular troops who received monthly pay.

They had the justification of capturing the culprit who assassinated the Grand Duke and protecting the Grand Duchy, and their morale was high.

But as time passed, that too faded, and six years went by in a peaceful Grand Duchy where not a single battle, let alone a war, took place.

As a result, they were said to be idle with nothing to do, their pay reduced to being issued once or twice a year at most, and despite it being an imperial assignment, requests for discharge or reassignment were not accepted.

With no other choice, the soldiers ended up settling down and living in Verdi.

At Patrick’s lamenting explanation that he now had three children himself, not only Cassia but also Rinox, who stood behind her guarding her, were left speechless.