The Contract Wife Tries to Leave - Chapter 180
It felt as if shackles, impossible to break free from until this contract was fulfilled, were locked around her ankles.
Looking up at Leonid with tear-filled eyes, Johanna finally broke down, the tears spilling over. The sorrow and ache in her heart were unbearable. If only she felt nothing for him… if only he were someone who could leave her heart untouched, then perhaps this wouldn’t hurt so much.
Why did it have to be you…?
Why this heart…?
How foolish…
“Don’t cry, Johanna.”
He murmured soothingly, his hands gliding over her softly, with that habitual gentleness he could summon whenever needed—an empty kindness, hollow and detached.
There was no warmth in his touch, no sincerity, nothing that would lend it color or fragrance. And that was what tore at Johanna’s heart, slicing through it like the shards of shattered glass scattered across the floor.
“I’m giving you what you wanted, so why are you crying?”
His lips brushed her forehead. Johanna surrendered, her body going slack, giving up all resistance.
He stripped her of her clothing, lingering with obsessive care over every part of her. At length, he looked down at her vacant gaze staring into the void and entered her.
Her body rose and fell with his movements, and despite herself, she bit her lip until it bled, crying quietly in the face of the sensation that overtook her.
In response, Leonid lowered his head, licking up every trace of blood from her lips and greedily swallowing even the sobs that escaped her throat.
“Johanna.”
“……”
“Johanna……”
With both arms wrapped tightly around her upper body, he pressed himself against her, leaving no space between them. In that closeness, he whispered her name endlessly into her ear, driven by an inexplicable emptiness that seemed to lessen, if only slightly, each time he called her.
Even as their bodies were locked together, something felt missing. It left him restless, desperate to hold her, again and again. This desire scorched his heart black, like an unfillable jar with a broken bottom, no matter how much he poured into it.
He wanted her—he no longer denied that. No matter what, even if Johanna Lucerne resisted, he had every intention of keeping her by his side.
“Where do you think you’re going without me?”
“……”
“You’re not going back to that first love of yours.”
He wanted to find and eliminate that man from her past, the one she had harbored feelings for all those five years. If his respect for the law wavered just a bit more, he might have already done it.
For someone so beautiful as her to have pined for five years for some clueless idiot—such a man deserved nothing less than death.
A twisted smile crept to his lips, seething with rage at the fact he could never possess her completely.
He drove into her, relentlessly, with a force she could barely withstand. And as he reached his peak, he wrapped her in a suffocating embrace, thrusting deep into her.
“Urgh…”
His excitement swelled so greatly it felt as if he might knot inside her. As a staggering release surged from the tip of his length, Leonid buried his teeth in her neck, attempting to mark her.
“Aah…!”
He held her tightly, preventing any movement, flooding her with his overpowering pheromones. Johanna’s Omega pheromones wavered, unstable, as her whole body trembled, her weak murmurs of “no” escaping her lips over and over.
After a long moment, Leonid lifted his tongue to her neck, where a faint trace of blood had seeped into her pale skin. He licked it away, savoring the warmth as they remained entwined, relishing in the enveloping sensation of being inside her.
* * *
The person Josephine Babenhausen loved most in the world was herself.
To someone as brimming with self-admiration as she was, the revelation that she bore a fatal flaw—a malformation of her reproductive organs—was a brutal tragedy delivered by the gods of misfortune.
Her father, devoted to noble lineage and the preservation of Alpha traits, never hesitated to belittle her as “damaged goods,” his words laced with scorn.
With every insult, an unyielding anger piled up within Josephine, like layers of volcanic ash. Sometimes, she wanted nothing more than to kill her father, but she lacked the power to act on such desires.
And so, all she could do was endlessly console herself, her precious self: It’s fine; I am superior to everyone. I am second to none. My father simply fails to see my worth.
She clung to the belief that one day, someone would see her for who she truly was—someone far greater than her Alpha father, someone with remarkable lineage and unrivaled abilities.
And eventually, that person did appear.
Or so she believed at the time.
‘Hello, I’m Josephine. Let’s be friends.’
‘…….’
The boy, towering a full head above Josephine, was a hyper-dominant Alpha. As the sole heir of House Elderique, he was destined to become the Duke of Elderique one day—a colossal figure in every regard.
It was already intoxicating to consider him as hers, but even more, he was breathtakingly beautiful, almost unreal in his allure. Without a doubt, he was a diamond that shone brighter than any jewel, someone who would make Josephine shine above all else…
In that moment, Josephine resolved that she would possess him—Leonid Neubitz Rinke Elderique would be hers.
It was a scorching summer day when the sun blazed down, threatening to set the world aflame.
