Overwhelmed by the exact same crushing humiliation she had felt when rejected on her wedding night, the moment the Duke vanished, Meiyue shrieked and began hurling the tableware left on the dining table.
“Uaaaaak! You impotent bastard! Even when I offer myself up for you to devour, you can’t even eat? There is seriously something wrong with that guy. That son of a bitch is totally a fucking cripple.”
After venting her spleen with a long bout of raging, Meiyue re-dressed herself and stepped out of the dining hall.
The attendants waiting in the hallway wore faint sneers of mockery on their faces, well aware of the humiliation she had just suffered.
Giving in to her temper, Meiyue lashed out and slapped them across the face.
“Do you also think I failed to win the Duke’s love?”
“U-uhk. Lady Meiyue, please spare me.”
“I will definitely bear a child of Vesper. And with that, I will become the mistress of this castle!”
Though the attendants cowered and begged under Meiyue’s violence, they scoffed inwardly.
‘You? How could you?’
But not a single fool dared to voice those thoughts aloud.
Meanwhile, having left the dining hall, Callix wanted to visit his younger brother’s bedroom out of concern.
However, soldiers were blocking the entry of any alphas, so even he could not get close.
With no other choice, he headed toward the garden and watched through the window to see if Damian was safe.
Because he was far away, he couldn’t see his face in detail, but Damian was writhing back and forth on the bed as if in immense agony.
Callix gazed at his younger brother with a heart full of pity, wishing with all his heart that he could take the pain and suffer in his stead.
He felt suffocated and driven out of his mind by the fact that there was absolutely nothing he could do to help.
Hoping it might give him a boost of energy if he woke up and saw it, he snapped a cherry blossom branch from the garden and placed it on the windowsill.
‘Get well soon, Shushu.’
Thinking that since they couldn’t meet, this sentiment wouldn’t reach him either, Callix felt a lump rise in his throat the next day when he discovered the cherry blossom left on the windowsill gone and a note left in its place.
[Big Brother, thank you. Thinking about riding bicycles with you and eating cool grapes gave me strength.]
He ended up shedding tears for the very first time since his mother passed away.
Yet he couldn’t quite fathom why those tears were falling.
Invitations to the celebration party for the Vesper family’s second young master—who had just manifested as a dominant omega—were dispatched to all the nobles of the Adamantian Empire.
Wondering what the pink-haired young man, rumored to look so much like the late Duchess, actually looked like, they sent back RSVPs confirming their attendance at the party held in Wintergarden.
The omegas invited to the party gathered in dress salons, giggling and chattering that if Damian took after his mother, he must be hideously ugly.
The alphas, meanwhile, reminisced about the late Duchess’s appearance and prepared expensive suits, not out of any genuine interest in the newly manifested dominant omega, but driven by the ambition to become the Grand Duke’s son-in-law and seize the power and wealth that came with it.
Duke Maldini was so lavish that people would have thought he was hosting a coronation for the Crown Prince.
As the nobles traveled down to the North, they encountered countless carriages bearing the crests of various prominent families, allowing them to gauge the sheer scale of the event well in advance.
Arriving at the ducal estate before the party commenced, the guests were assigned guest rooms and roamed everywhere across the castle hoping for a glimpse of Damian, but not a single hair of the rumored protagonist could be seen.
Right up until the day of the celebration party, they failed to catch even a glimpse of his face.
Finally, the long-awaited day of the celebration party arrived.
The nobles stepped into the grand ballroom and gasped at its immense scale.
The entire structure of white marble appeared like a great cathedral from the outside, but stepping indoors revealed an interior transformed into something far more secular than its sacred facade.
Gold everywhere—look to the left, gold; look to the right, gold.
It was decorated entirely in gold.
The sheer wealth, surpassing even what an emperor could easily command, left the nobles utterly cowed.
“As expected of the Vesper family. The scale of this party rivals an imperial banquet. No, it’s even more magnificent than the imperial court!”
“Just how much gold is all of this? I could believe this was a dragon’s lair.”
“Oh? Look over there, it’s the Young Grand Duke!”
“Goodness, he’s the spitting image of Emperor Helios’s portrait.”
The omegas let out awestruck gasps at the sight of Callix—tall, broad-shouldered, and sporting a muscular physique that could not be concealed even by expensive formal wear.
He was a hyper-dominant omega whose sheer sexiness made it feel as though anyone standing nearby might grow damp just from watching him from afar.
The nobles surrounding Callix were visibly captivated by him regardless of their secondary gender.
Like bugs drawn to flowers, they all seemed busy striking up conversations just to catch his attention.
The Young Grand Duke, who could easily be mistaken for the reincarnation of Emperor Helios, possessed a striking blend of strength and beauty that drew every eye in the room.
“Anyway, protagonist or not, isn’t he running way too late?”
“Oh, don’t be like that. Probably taking his sweet time carving lines into a watermelon. When the Duke married, I was abso-bloody-lutely shocked when I saw the Duchess’s face. You think that kind of bloodline skips a generation?”
The omegas chattering about the yet-unseen protagonist fell abruptly silent at the sound of a door-man in a black uniform striking the floor with his staff.
“Damian Vesper, entering!”
The murmuring ballroom suddenly grew as quiet as a frozen lake.
The moment the pink-haired boy—bright and blooming like cherry blossoms—stepped into the ballroom, the sound of someone swallowing echoed through the room like thunder.
That must have been because everyone was holding their breath so cautiously that even the smallest sound carried so far.
The nobles, who had naturally expected an appearance resembling the late Duchess, received a massive shock when they laid eyes on Damian.
Skin as white as the northern snow gleamed under the chandelier light as though dusted with pearl powder, while his tiny face featured wide eyes, a dainty nose, and a pink mouth arranged in exquisite detail.
His flawless, blemish-free face looked unreal, like a bisque doll.
He was truly an adorable boy.
His cheeks, flushed a soft, peachy pink, lent a sense of approachable warmth and vitality to someone who might otherwise have felt distant.
Even those who had never exchanged a word with him could instantly tell just how deeply cherished and pampered the child had been.
He was just a young boy who had barely manifested as an omega, yet he was already this stunning—it was impossible to fathom just what an incredible beauty he would grow up to become.
Passing through the crowd of alphas, Damian walked with the mesmerizing allure of dancers said to bewitch the kings of the desert and the graceful poise of a swan gliding across a lake.
The recessive alphas watching the young boy felt the strength drain entirely from their legs and had to steady themselves by gripping the tables.
‘What an ecstatic spring.’
