OPDPS 134

Lady Merel’s eyes widened.

“What… did you say?”

She froze for a moment, then seemed to think quickly before she spoke again.

“No. There’s no need for that. It would only cause unnecessary chaos. And in the first place… we don’t even know if what he said that day was sincere. You becoming the Grand Duke was the North’s good fortune. If anything, that just means his judgment was wrong.”

“I didn’t know you thought so highly of me.”

The unexpected compliment made the Grand Duke visibly uncomfortable.

“If we look at how the territory has flourished these past ten years, the outcome speaks for itself.”

Lady Merel reached for her glass again, but it was empty. She was about to call a maid when the Grand Duke quietly handed her his own glass.

“Thank you.”

Aeryl glanced between the two of them, then locked eyes with Sorel.

‘It’s not just me who thinks this is strange… right?’

While he and Sorel silently exchanged looks, unsure how to react, Lady Merel drank the water and, as if steeling herself, asked:

“Before the wedding, my husband—the late Grand Duke—told me you loathed me and were against the marriage. Was that… a misunderstanding as well?”

“…I never hated you. It was just… uncomfortable.”

There was another brief silence before the Grand Duke asked this time:

“Wasn’t I sent to the border every winter because you disliked me?”

“Me? I’d only just married—how could I have possibly had the power to send the heir out on missions? That’s ridiculous!”

Unless someone was lying, it meant the late Grand Duke had been driving a wedge between them from the beginning. No one in the room could bring themselves to speak. The past decade of resentment and conflict—all of it had been the late Grand Duke’s doing.

“And we can’t exactly ask a dead man why he did it.”

Lady Merel muttered with a hollow voice as she pulled Sorel more tightly into her arms. Whether Sorel understood or not, his small hand gently patted her back.

Meanwhile, the Grand Duke couldn’t even bring himself to sigh. Perhaps because he had spent the most time with the former Grand Duke, he could faintly understand the man’s motives.

“I think… he just wanted to start over.”

From his perspective, his first family had been a failure.

His wife had lost her mind, and his heir was a disappointment. Given his nature, it must have been unbearable. So he likely resolved to erase everything and begin anew.

The first wife had been easy to dismiss due to her instability, but the heir—surrounded by too many watching eyes—could only be disposed of by sending him on dangerous missions. But the heir always returned alive.

“I must’ve been a real thorn in his side. Foolishly surviving every time. And unlike my mother, he couldn’t just lock me away.”

“Lock you away?”

Lady Merel asked in disbelief, but the Grand Duke had already sunk into his memories, no longer hearing her voice.

He recalled the first time he passed the taxidermy room and descended into the basement. Down the dark staircase, pushing open a thick iron door—he found an empty space. A void.

There was nothing inside. And yet, that very emptiness had filled him with dread.

The space was much smaller than what he’d calculated from outside. Which meant there had to be a hidden room. He should have turned back then. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.

And in the end, he found it—the hidden space.

Inside was a lived-in room: a bed, a small table, slippers left haphazardly, a coat draped over a chair. A glass still half-full of water. Wilted flowers crumbling in their vase. Dust layering everything, untouched for years.

It was clear who had once lived there.

‘Mother…’

The mother he’d been told had gone missing had in fact been alive, shut away in that place. In that moment, the unease he’d long felt was confirmed—he realized he had always suspected she hadn’t vanished, but had been imprisoned somewhere within the estate.

She used to be locked in her room all the time.

Once a month, sometimes more often. His father had locked her in her room. Back then it hadn’t been this basement, but her proper chambers as Duchess—but that didn’t change what it was: confinement.

And the reason had always been the same.

To hide an Omega in heat.

Most had forgotten by now, but the former Grand Duchess—his biological mother—had been an Omega. His father, wanting an Alpha heir, had chosen an Omega bride.

He got what he wanted: an Alpha firstborn. But the mother, subjected to repeated heat-inducing drugs, had been ruined in body and mind.

This Omega is no longer of use.

So the father made his decision. He abandoned her, locking her up during her heats.

After that, she grew obsessed with Hiello. Whenever she saw him, she wouldn’t let go—clinging to him like a baby, smothering him. If he tried to escape, she’d claw at him and throw fits.

She’s not in her right mind.

Young Hiello had been terrified. The thought that he might share her trait, that he could be a secondary-gendered person like her, filled him with revulsion.

That such blood flowed through him—if that was what being a secondary-gendered person meant, he wanted no part in it, Alpha or Omega.

Time passed, and then one day, the news came—his mother had gone missing.

She had been traveling with his father to another noble’s estate when a sudden snowstorm had caused a carriage accident. It had plummeted off a mountain road, and her body was never found. A funeral was held with an empty coffin.

But all that time, she’d been here. In this castle.

After discovering the basement, everything else was a blur. He remembered confronting the late Grand Duke in a rage, being struck across the face, and then hearing the cold final words: that the funeral had already been held. That she was dead.

He had asked when and how she died, but instead of answering, the late Grand Duke killed the attendant who had been with him. The reason was that the attendant had overheard a secret that should never have been heard.

Afterward, the Grand Duke had dragged him out, chastising him for his recklessness and stripping him of his heirship. It had been so easy, just like he had thought for a long time.

‘Now that I think about it, it must have been because I didn’t manifest as an Alpha.’

At the time, he had believed that discovering the basement had been the problem. It was the reason he lost his position as the heir and indirectly caused his father’s death in the Great Purge.

But hearing the story today, a new thought crossed his mind.

‘My father had abandoned me much earlier.’

The feeling churned within him.

As his head grew hot, the anger and resentment he had thought he had buried began to surge up violently. He clenched his fists in an attempt to hold it back, but he couldn’t stop the overwhelming tide of fury inside his chest.

Just like his mother, he too had been discarded. Even a failed breeding stallion wouldn’t be treated this way.

“Your Grace, Lady Merel has asked you a question.”

Aeryl gently grabbed the Grand Duke’s sleeve and shook him. But there was no reaction from the Grand Duke. A foreboding feeling rose in him.

“Your Grace, can you hear me?”

Even as Aeryl waved his hand in front of the Grand Duke’s face, there was still no response. Only then did Lady Merel and Sorel realize something was wrong with the Grand Duke.

“Is he alright?”

“I’m sorry, but Lady Merel, Young Master Sorel, you must leave the room immediately.”

“Why all of a sudden?”

Aeryl glanced back at the Grand Duke. The pheromones emanating from him were unsettling.

“I’m sorry!”

Aeryl quickly grabbed Lady Merel’s wrist and dragged her away.

“What kind of disrespect is this!”

“I’ll explain later!”

He pushed Lady Merel and Sorel out of the lounge. The servants waiting outside looked at them in surprise, but Aeryl ignored them and immediately called for Raeler.

“Raeler! Defend! Get things under control!”

Suddenly, he felt an immense force explode silently behind him. Only then did the people outside realize something was terribly wrong and their faces hardened.

“Run!”

Bang!

Aeryl hastily closed the door to the family lounge, using his own pheromones to shield himself. The Alpha pheromones blasted at him like a gale. When he glanced back, he still saw the Grand Duke standing motionless, as if nothing had changed.

“Your Grace! Ugh!”

Even Aeryl struggled to remain standing under the intense pressure of the pheromones.

The enraged Alpha’s pheromones instilled an instinctive fear in him. Although he had managed to close the door, the situation outside was still unknown.

But now was not the time to worry about others.

This pheromone is incredible. It’s almost abnormal.

No matter how angry he was, this was excessive. No human body could withstand this much.

“Ugh.”

The Grand Duke grabbed his left chest and staggered. He tried to steady himself by holding onto a table, but it shattered under his grip. It seemed like he couldn’t control his strength at all.

Clutching his chest, the Grand Duke collapsed, trembling violently.

Aeryl immediately wanted to rush to his side, but the Alpha pheromones made it impossible to approach easily. Instead, he quickly assessed the Grand Duke’s condition with his eyes.

It looks like the pain is intense. His breathing is rough, his focus is off, and his body temperature seems elevated.

The pheromones were being released in excess.

Why? The Grand Duke normally has low pheromone levels, so it shouldn’t be in this kind of excess… Ah!

A sudden realization hit him.

That time when something shifted in his pheromones… it wasn’t just a suspicion—it was true.

He should have taken him for an examination yesterday, to adjust the medication according to his condition! If the treatment had been tailored to him, even in such an emotional state, things wouldn’t have escalated to this extreme.

The strength of the Alpha pheromones emanating from the Grand Duke made his fingertips tingle.

It’s more intense than that first time when he manifested… No, it’s even worse than that…