Chapter 21…
The Flame Princess and the Demon King’s Bond.
Now that she thought about it, Felicia had never spent this much time alone with any man other than Alexis, nor had she spoken so much with one.
Alexis had been her fiancé, but also her childhood friend — he felt almost like another older brother. She had always felt affection for him, but never this restless, fluttering feeling before.
As Felicia struggled with this unfamiliar emotion, something black brushed against her feet.
A black cat rubbed itself against her leg — she had no idea how it had gotten in.
“Noah?”
It was around the time her engagement with Alexis had been annulled that she first began seeing the black cat with those familiar emerald-green eyes around the mansion.
It appeared almost every day, and she had grown fond of it, naming it Noah.
The cat had been there for her when she’d lost the person who’d been her emotional anchor, when she’d been overcome by the fear that even her very existence might fade away — it had soothed her heart.
“Myaaa.”
The black cat meowed as if in answer to her call.
“It’s my familiar,” Johan said.
When he picked up the cat, it rubbed its face against his arm and purred loudly.
“Yours, Lord Johan? It looks exactly like the cat that often came to play with me.”
“Of course. Because it is that cat.”
“Huh?”
“I sent it — Noah, right? — to stay by your side.”
“Huh?”
Felicia stiffened, unable to grasp his meaning.
Why would Johan send his familiar to her? What reason could there possibly be?
“Why… would you do that?” she asked hesitantly.
Johan didn’t answer directly. Instead, as he stroked Noah’s fur, he said,
“You used to see crows often too, didn’t you?”
At his words, Felicia remembered — from her childhood, there had always been a crow perched on the tree branches visible from the balcony of her mansion.
Now that she thought about it, she had often seen crows even when she traveled to the royal castle.
“…Yes, I did,” she murmured.
“That one’s my familiar too.”
With a flutter-flap, wings beat outside the window, and when she looked, that very crow was staring straight at her.
Felicia felt her heartbeat quicken — but for a very different reason this time. She unconsciously took a step back.
“Why me? I’ve never even met you before, Lord Johan… have I?”
The memory of being attacked twice flashed vividly in her mind, and her voice trembled with wariness.
Had her intuition — which told her he could be trusted — been wrong after all?
Seeing her frightened expression, Johan gave a faint, wry smile.
“It seems I’ve scared you. I’m sorry. I only sent my familiars to you to protect you. …Actually, we have met before, Felicia — when you were very young.”
“When I was… little?”
The unexpected answer made her go slack with surprise.
Seeing her wide-eyed confusion, Johan looked slightly awkward as he asked,
“I believe you were about four years old. Do you remember a boy who collapsed on the path near your estate?”
Four years old…
Felicia reached back into the hazy threads of her memory — and then one came into focus.
She had gone to pick flowers for her ailing mother and found a boy lying on the ground.
He had looked about her brother’s age, maybe a little older — with black hair and an extraordinarily beautiful face…
The image of that pale-faced boy lying unconscious resurfaced in her mind.
“The boy from that time…?” she whispered.
