After staring down at her for a long moment, Callix declared that he didn’t like the look in her eyes and struck her cheek with his riding crop.
“Aah!”
Melissa screamed, clutching her cheek with her hand.
Losing his reason entirely, Shushu lashed out and punched Callix right in the face.
Taking the blow, Callix didn’t flinch, turn his head away, or even blink an eyelid, showing no sign of injury as he glared down at Shushu.
“What is the meaning of this, Damian?”
“You started it by h-hitting, no—you hit my nanny!”
“No matter how much you were neglected and raised like a commoner by yourself while the Duke was away, you are still an aristocrat by birth. If a noble shows excessive favoritism toward a mere servant, it invites all sorts of scandals and tarnishes the family’s honor. Do you desire that woman?”
Shushu glared at Callix as if he wanted to murder him.
Callix let out a soft, mocking scoff, as if finding that glare amusing.
“If you say you don’t need her, I’ll brand her with a slave mark and sell her off.”
“I… I want her! Big Brother, Melissa is a precious nanny to me.”
Tears spilled unbidden from his wide-open eyes.
Overwhelmed by excessive agitation, Shushu’s chest heaved rapidly as he panted for breath.
“Perhaps you wish to marry that woman?”
“You crazy bastard, what are you even saying? Waaah.”
Ignoring Callix’s insane babble, Shushu just cried.
At that, Callix grabbed Shushu by the shoulders and shook him gently.
“Answer me. Do you wish to marry that woman?”
What on earth was going through this madman’s head?
He had no inkling of why the man was acting this way, and simply sharing the same saddle with him felt horrifyingly repulsive.
The massive waves of pheromones radiating from Callix washed over him, stinging like sharp needles.
“Waaah, Mom! Momaaaah!”
Gripped by a towering terror, Shushu stretched out both arms toward her, begging to be held.
Though terrified of the Young Duke, Melissa snatched Shushu right off the horse and pulled him tight against her chest.
Shushu buried his face in her bosom, inhaling her familiar scent.
The pheromones of an ultra-dominant alpha, felt from a proximity close enough to induce muscle spasms in his limbs, were lethal.
He had heard that an ultra-dominant alpha could exert pheromonal influence even over betas, but he had never imagined it could be this terrifyingly chilling.
“Looking at it now, my little brother seems to be a baby who still needs his mother.”
As if his ill humor had vanished instantly, Callix let out a hearty laugh.
Yet far from easing the tension, not a single one of the attendants following him dared to utter a peep, holding their breath in absolute fear.
No matter how deeply Shushu breathed in Melissa’s embrace, Callix’s pheromones continued pressing down on him, crushing his lungs to the point where he couldn’t catch his breath.
Gasping and choking as spasms wracked his body, Melissa lifted Shushu and rocked him back and forth, soothing him just like when he was an infant.
“It’s alright, Shushu. It’s alright.”
Watching the scene with a steady gaze, Callix spoke to Shushu.
“Shushu, come back to your brother.”
Shushu trembled, his eyelashes fluttering as he peered up from Melissa’s embrace at the Young Duke perched atop the gigantic warhorse.
Looking down at him from a height that felt as close to the sky as the heavens, the man terrified him.
After all this time of teaching him letters with gentle patience and acting like a one-of-a-kind older brother to him, how could he suddenly transform into a completely different person?
He had thought that by growing close to him, he had managed to change something, but it had all been an illusion.
This period of time hadn’t been mentioned in the novel at all.
Which meant that before his own transmigration, the original Shushu in the novel had likely run into a rampaging Callix while sneaking chocolate chip cookies from the kitchen, and that incident was probably how Callix had taken an interest in him back then.
If it were Callix, he would have killed a ‘fake younger brother’ who tainted the family’s honor without a second thought.
Discovering his real name ‘Shushu’ through such an absurd accident was probably just a plot device designed to kill him off in the future.
To keep from getting caught as the very person whose name-mark would appear on Callix when he turned twenty, he had desperately hidden the fact that his name was Shushu—but now it was all over. If he stayed trapped in the ducal castle any longer, he would inevitably end up dying at age twenty just like in the novel.
He didn’t want to die.
Gripping Melissa tightly, he screamed out.
“Run!”
She bolted like a madwoman.
The soldiers instinctively raised their bows at the nanny’s sudden action of fleeing with the second young master, but the Young Duke raised a hand to stop them.
“Leave the rest of you here. I will hunt them down myself.”
Callix struck his horse’s flanks hard with his riding crop, driving it forward at a gallop.
Naturally, no matter how fast Melissa ran on foot, she was quickly overtaken by the horse’s speed.
For a moment, Callix felt as though he were losing his mind.
How dare she? How dare she try to steal what is mine?
It was the first time he had ever realized his emotions could churn with such violent intensity.
Truly, a Gem with a high matching rate possessed the power to drive a mage stark raving mad.
Seeing Damian cast his gaze toward another woman filled him with a rage as if his entire country had been plundered, and when that woman attempted to steal Damian away, lightning seemed to flash from his eyes.
Yet it was only natural; if anyone were to have the precious jewel they kept securely locked away in a safe stolen from them, they would inevitably feel the despair of losing the entire world and rage against the thief.
Callix seriously debated whether he should trample Melissa to death under his horse’s hooves, and leave Damian crippled so he could never leave his bed again.
Instead, as she fled, she tumbled straight into a pit along with his Gem, rolling over and over together.
The way she shielded Damian by pulling him tightly into her arms was as desperate and fierce as any birth mother protecting her child.
For a mere commoner to harbor maternal affections for the Grand Duke’s child—truly overreaching and utterly absurd.
He looked down at them trapped at the bottom of the pit.
As if heaven itself had chosen to witness this tragedy, cold raindrops began to fall from the ash-gray clouds.
If left as they were, hypothermia would claim their lives.
Even so, seeing the fact that Damian was trapped in a pit with nowhere left to run, Callix wore the sated, fulfilled smile of a lion that had finally cornered its prey.
What an overwhelming sense of satisfaction.
He finally realized with absolute clarity what it was he truly desired.
He simply wanted to possess that jewel.
“Shushu, shall Big Brother come rescue you?”
Callix asked, wearing the most beautiful smile he could possibly muster.
