Chapter 5

“What is he……”

Marquis Ian Reykis is the young leader of the Reykis family, which is a prestigious martial family.

A workaholic who had no interest in the society, a symbol of abstinence.

There were a lot of rumors about him, but nothing to explain what he was now.

“Excuse me, Marquis Reykis?”

He was barely leaning against the wall. When she called his name, he raised his head.

The moment he looked up at April, she felt goosebumps all over her whole body.

His messy hair drenched in sweat, golden eyes shining like that of a beast, and the immense color of lust emanating from them. His crimson lips shed a few hot breaths, and he seemed hot and heavy just from the side.

“P-Please try to calm down.”

“Ha….Don’t come.…any closer….”

He answered in a harsh voice, but April couldn’t do as he said. She knew that the reason he was like this was because of her own potion. This was a problem that people always experienced even if the medicine was effective.

“You need to cool off.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Just listen to me! No, can’t you hear me?”

The moment April reached out to his face to examine his fever, Ian clasped her wrists tightly and twisted her body.

“Ah!”

Every time April tried to escape herself from his grasp, his hold got tightened more and more. She felt him relax a bit, but soon her back hit the wall. However, April shut her eyes tightly.

“Ugh!”

He clasped her hand so tightly that it seemed like it would leave a black mark on the spot. The rich odor from his body irritated her nostrils. His heated lips left a trace of beauty on her neck, as if he was taking in her scent. April shrugged and opened her eyes.

‘Oh……no.’

Ian’s face was in front of her. He opened his eyes sharply and glared at April. He furrowed his forehead several times as if he could not see her well, but his eyes, like a brute beast, were much more fierce than usual.

“I told you….not to touch me.”

“Bu-But if you don’t….take any action….”

April’s trembling voice broke in the middle. For he, unable to find any reason, had swallowed her lips.

His tongue had suffocated April to the point where she could hardly even breathe, while his disheveled breath kept tickling her neck. The arm, which was holding her back, gradually rose up.

Their bodies clung together in an instant. While his body seemed to be boiling constantly, she felt that she was now in a considerable danger.

‘Please, please.’

At the time when April was trying to shake him off with all her strength, his body, which had been pushing her violently until now, suddenly fell over April. His body was unable to withstand the energy of the potion.

“Money is the enemy.”

April groped her tingling lips, while looking down at him, who had fallen on the cold floor.

“Ha, argh….”

He groaned out. It seemed painful. April quickly came to her senses and sat down beside him. His treatment was more important even when she was lamenting.

“I’m sorry, Marquis. Let me help you.”

Ian forced his eyes closed to listen to her voice. Unable to distinguish her face from his blurred vision, he relied on the voice to trace the memory. The scent that he had smelled before hovered on the tip of his nose more intensely.

“I hope this helps……”

As Ian was trying not to lose consciousness after being eroded by the heat, a cold liquid flowed down his lips. It was like water, but mixed with bitterness. Ian frowned, furrowing his eyebrows.

“It will cool you down slowly, just as the morning breeze soothes someone.”

With the faint voice of the woman, that seemed as if she was chanting a spell, a cold hand swept gently down his eyelids.

“Ha…..”

He breathed out. A chill, that he had ever felt, passed on to him from her fingertips. His beating heart gradually slowed down.

After a few minutes, he slowly opened his eyes, realizing that he was lying on her lap. He also realized that she had fed him something that helped in reducing his fever.

“A….April ?”

Ian murmured her name while her face became stiff. She forced herself not to scream, even if it was waiting to escape from the tip of her tongue. She felt like her strength was slipping out of her body.

“How do you know my…..”

“We keep running into each other, huh.”

Ian touched April’s hand lightly, which was resting on his forehead. He felt the exact same strange feeling again like the first time when he had touched her. Unwittingly, Ian clasped her hand and put it over his cheeks.

“Huh?”

His cheeks were as hot as fire, as if he could swallow ice. April was startled, trying to withdraw her hand, but his strength turned her down. Seeing him like this where she could feel his breath, she felt heat rising up on her cheeks, her face turning red.

“It’s cold….”

Ian’s voice rang in her ears. He opened one of his eyes to look at April’s reaction. Was it to ask for her help, or to warm up her cold hand?

But April did not answer his sleep-talking remarks. She thought that he would not remember it once he became fully awake.

‘But I’m glad that he ran to this place.’

When he thought that his breathing was beginning to relax, April’s sight had managed to catch his breath again. The hastily made fever reducer still had some effects. Ian closed his eyes with a more relaxed look.

April left him, carefully leaning her back against the wall. When she came down to the first floor, she felt relieved but was tired.

“Lady April! Are you all right?”

“Yes….. The Marquis is fine too.”

“Thanks to you, I’m relieved. He kept telling me not to call the doctor, so I was worried…..”

April had hurried out of the place, leaving behind only a short note. She just wanted to leave before Ian could gain his consciousness.

《The Count Rufous Rose.》

As soon as she got out of the detached house, April kicked the ground.

‘Hah…The potion.’

She did not expect that the side-effects could be this severe. There was something annoying about Count Rose, who had been obstinate until the end. She was not happy with Ian remembering her either. April brushed her fingertips slightly over her lips. They were still warm.

***

Ian opened his eyes in his bedroom, dizzy. His body felt heavy, it was as if he had gone into water with his clothes on. The night was still young when he had lost his consciousness. Now, the sun was already up in the sky.

“How do you feel, Master?”

“It feels like death.”

The young butler, Klaus, held out a glass full of water. Ian rose up from his bed and drank it in one gulp to quench his thirst.

“I have prepared a bath for you, Master.”

Ian, dressed in a robe, entered the bathroom attached to the room and glided himself into the bathtub. The steam of the warm water helps in relaxing his cold body.

‘How did this happen?’

The symptoms usually began a few days before his fever used to rise up, but this time it was different. It was literally a sudden raid. The heat, which had been spreading all over his body, was extinguished in vain at once with an unfamiliar medicine and her touches.

“I ran into her yesterday. The lady…..”

As he tried to recall yesterday’s events, he opened his eyes and groped at his lips. When he drank a strange drink, his body frantically started to go out of control. He had met her again at the detached house and kissed her at the moment’s attraction. It was never a dream.

“Crazy.”

He lamented. He had done something that might have been formidable to her. He should have been more careful. Nevertheless, she helped him. He did not know what would have happened to him if it hadn’t been for the drug at that time.

‘Wait. The medicine……’

The moment he remembered about the fever reducer that pressed down his heat at once, he raised himself up in an idle way. He came out in a bathrobe, and sat in front of a table by the window.

“Klaus. What happened about yesterday?”

“The Duke was answerable.”

“Ah, I’ve caused him trouble.”

“The Duke and Lady Lianna were very worried. He said he didn’t remember having a drink that was so strange that would cause someone to collapse.”

“Right. So someone might have spiked the drink…..”

Ian blurted out, still trying to recall yesterday’s episode. Fiora was waiting for him, as if it was planned from the beginning. The sweet aroma of the liquor she gave him was also strange. The scent that was subtly attracting seems to have forced him to gulp it down his throat.

“Rose.”

“Pardon?”

“There was something strange about the liquor that was offered by the daughter of Count Rose. And the lady in the detached house offered me a readymade fever reducer. I’ve never seen a drug like that.”

The woman who offered him a helping hand was definitely April, a friend of Lady Lianna. Her scent, the frosty touch of her fingertips, and her voice, he could remember it all with his senses that he inherited from his ancestors, the Langs.

There could be no medicine anywhere that could take down such a terrible fever. So she must have had a connection.

“Can she cure Master’s illness?”

“I’m not sure, but I will not disclose this to Duke Kane.”

“What should I do, Master?”

“Let’s try gambling. Send an invitation to Count Rose.”

“Yes.”

If she had made a drug that could not even be caught by the Langs’ sense of smell, her skills must be excellent. Ian couldn’t bear but be curious about April, whose truth Duke Kane was trying to hide so badly.