~Chapter 11~
When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing in a familiar hallway.
‘What…?’
I rubbed my eyes, still dazed.
I was in my pajamas, so I must’ve fallen asleep—then why was I standing in the hallway of the Grand Duke’s estate?
The moment I took a step back toward the bedroom, something sticky clung to the sole of my foot and peeled away.
Looking down, I saw dark red blood stains.
‘Damn it.’
It was a dream again.
One of those all-too-familiar dreams I was tired of.
At the end of the trail of blood was a puddle of it.
In the center lay a shape—maybe a dog, maybe a cat, or maybe a curse.
“That thing” licked its lips and looked down at the figure.
루.비.아.나.
(Ru. Bi. A. Na.)
Its mouth opened wide, speaking to me.
Just seeing its face made me nauseous.
배.고.파.
(Hun. Gry.)
Blood smeared around its lips, I shut my eyes tightly.
It was horrifying.
* * *
“This is truly strange,”
The physician attending to Rubiana let out a sigh, looking troubled.
“Her body is completely fine. Aside from a bit of anemia from vomiting blood, there are no abnormal symptoms.”
Damien shook his head.
“That can’t be. People don’t just cough up blood without a cause.”
“You’re right, of course…”
The physician glanced down at Rubiana, quietly breathing in her sleep.
“Still, there are no visible abnormalities. But like Your Grace said, there has to be something wrong.”
Damien caught the implication instantly.
“So, something is wrong, but it can’t be detected?”
“Yes, that’s correct. That’s the problem.”
The physician added, wearing a grave expression.
“Modern medicine likely can’t detect or diagnose the cause at all.”
Before marriage, Rubiana had told him she was sick—and that treatment would cost a lot.
But that hadn’t been a problem for Damien, so the marriage proceeded.
Although it was a contractual marriage, he still wanted to help her in return for her cooperation.
He had planned to assign her a personal physician soon, but she never brought up her illness again.
‘I thought she just didn’t want to talk about it, so I waited…’
That wasn’t it. She couldn’t talk about it.
Because most doctors didn’t even know what was wrong with her.
“For now, I’ve prescribed medication. All we can do is wait for her to regain consciousness.”
“Understood. You may go.”
After the physician left, Damien stood by Rubiana’s bedside, looking down quietly.
Her face was pale, but if not for that, she looked simply asleep—peaceful.
‘She carries so much fear inside… it’s hard to believe seeing her like this.’
He pondered her calm demeanor when facing curses—it must not be curses she feared most.
‘It’s probably her unknown illness… or death itself.’
‘I have to cure her.’
If modern medicine couldn’t do it, maybe curses—or something supernatural—could.
If he could ease her fears by healing her…
‘Then maybe…’
‘Maybe she’ll stay by my side longer. Even if I’m a cursed monster of a Duke.’
Just as Damien was lost in thought—
“Stupid Damien. What are you doing?”
A head with bright yellow hair popped out from the wall—it was Elliot, one of the cursed twins.
“Why are you standing gloomily over a sleeping person?”
Elliot scolded Damien the moment he saw him.
He slid out of the wall and plopped down beside Rubiana’s bed.
“Where’s Alice?”
“She’s sulking. Not coming. Leave her.”
“Did you fight again?”
“No!”
Elliot yelped.
Damien narrowed his eyes skeptically.
“We just… had a little argument,” Elliot muttered with a cough.
Damien reached into his vest pocket.
Soon, he pulled out a gleaming silver utensil.
“Apologize with this.”
“Huh…?”
He shoved the utensil into Elliot’s hands. He had been keeping it just in case Alice got angry again.
Like any girl her age, Alice loved shiny things—but she preferred well-polished silverware even more than jewelry.
“Hmph. Whatever…”
Still, Elliot quickly pocketed it.
He knew how much his twin—his only sister for over a century of cursed existence—loved silverware.
“And stop fighting. You’re siblings.”
“Psh, look who’s talking. Stupid Damien.”
Then Elliot pointed at Rubiana.
“Don’t mess things up and scare her away.”
“…So you’ve accepted her now?”
Not long ago, he had tried to get rid of her—using disguises and cursed dolls.
“I haven’t accepted her. Alice said we should.”
“…Right.”
The twins often blamed each other when the other wasn’t around.
Damien was skeptical, but didn’t argue.
“Anyway, stupid Damien, do something! What woman wouldn’t want to run from a place this gloomy and miserable?”
Damien flinched.
Elliot’s words hit too close to home.
“You’re worried too, aren’t you?”
“…”
“Then—”
Flash.
Elliot’s mismatched purple and yellow eyes gleamed unnervingly.
“You pretended to be sick to come to her room, didn’t you?”
Despite looking like a child, a curse was still a curse.
The moment he sensed Damien’s weakness, Elliot grinned wickedly.
(Heeheehee. Heeheeheehee.)
Elliot grinned from ear to ear.
He had been annoyed at being bound to a human, but even more frustrated at not finding any weaknesses to exploit.
Now he finally had one.
‘I can finally torment that dull human…’
“…”
But the laughter stopped.
“Ugh, fine. Wipe that look off your face.”
It was because he saw Damien’s expression.
“I wasn’t planning to mess with her anyway. And I won’t tell her you were faking it, alright?”
Elliot patted Damien on the shoulder and floated into the air.
“Anyway, I’m leaving.”
A moment later, Damien replied.
“…Alright.”
Reassured, Elliot disappeared through the wall.
Luckily, the owner of this mansion was the type to let a mistake slide—just once.
“Ugh. Freaking creepy guy.”
Elliot muttered and shook his head.
‘Sometimes he seems even more cursed than we are…’
He couldn’t forget the look in Damien’s eyes when he’d mentioned the new bride.
The stickiness of possessiveness like a swamp.
An obsession fit for a ghost who’d wandered for five hundred years.
And a glimmer of pure madness.
Curses often have inhuman levels of obsession toward a specific person.
‘And the way he looked when talking about her… it means one thing.’
Their master, more cursed than a curse, might already be obsessing over the new bride.
Rubiana had still not regained consciousness.
Damien, who had been watching over her for almost a full day, rose from his seat with a heavy heart.
His mind was tangled.
Just like Elliot pointed out, he had gone to Rubiana pretending to be sick—despite the curse dulling his pain.
And even now, he didn’t fully understand why he’d done it.
He only remembered how, on the day he lost control, she had embraced him.
The clarity in his head, the coolness like swallowing mint, the energy that filled his body afterward.
And…
‘Are you okay?’
That gentle gaze, full of genuine concern.
For some reason, he wanted to feel it all over again.
It was absurd, really.
‘You’re a monster.’
If it weren’t for him, maybe she could’ve lived a normal life. He should be grateful a proper woman came to him at all.
But even that wasn’t enough—he was wishing for more.
He understood all this logically.
And yet, strangely—
‘Just once more…’
Why did he long to see her look at him with those worried eyes again?
Thinking he was truly insane, Damien opened Rubiana’s bedroom door.
She had been moved out in a hurry for medical attention, so he had ordered the servants to clean up the blood-stained room.
Thankfully, the bed and sheets soaked in blood had been replaced.
‘There’s no benefit in seeing bloodstains.’
He had told them not to touch anything else—so aside from the bed and linens, the rest of the room remained untouched.
Even the desk, which had appeared hastily cleared when Damien arrived, remained as it was.
“This is…”
On the desk lay a detailed drawing on paper. It was of a ruby, glowing vividly red.
The artwork was so precise it almost looked like a real gem had been placed on the page.
‘Did she draw this herself?’
Damien had no idea Rubiana could draw so well.
It wasn’t just skill—the drawing had a magnetic pull that drew him in.
He began leafing through the other papers, captivated.
Flowers. Gardens. Books. Night skies.
Each drawing was beautiful, and Damien couldn’t look away.
Even a single rough sketch line was filled with affection from the artist.
He never knew drawings could feel so warm.
Before he realized it, Damien found himself gently picking up and admiring each drawing.
Then, he flipped over a sheet that had been turned upside down.
The image made him doubt his own eyes.
“…A curse?”
Just as detailed as the others, the drawing of the curse was disturbingly lifelike.
It looked as if it might crawl out of the page and flick its tongue at him.
Damien froze, as if struck on the back of the head.
‘Why would she draw this?’
No way…
‘Was she so traumatized by seeing it that she had to draw it to process it?’
He couldn’t imagine such a timid person would record these horrifying things unless she had to.
‘Because of me…’
Quickly, he began flipping through the rest of the pages.
Countless curses wriggled on the sheets, each one captured in uncanny realism.
Just how much pain must she have endured as she drew every one of them?
Weighed down by guilt, Damien read the caption written beneath one of the drawings.
Surely this would express the fear and suffering she had endured all this time…
[Curses are just so adorable.
Even the way it tried to bite my finger was just precious ♡]
“…Huh?”
Damien was very confused.
