Ivelina ate from his hand like a small cat, accepting each morsel with cheerful, efficient little bites.
She had been swinging her short legs and concentrating earnestly on her food, but at some point she tilted her head and cast a sidelong look at him. Her lips moved.
“Um… aren’t you going to eat, Kael?”
Every time Ivelina showed him this particular side of herself, the duke felt he might die from how endearing it was.
He wanted to sink his teeth into those pleasantly round, white cheeks and chew slowly.
He was in the grip of severe withdrawal symptoms—but there was one fortunate thing about his situation.
His self, when it came to Ivelina, had two distinct personalities.
One was a mother bird carefully tending to a newly hatched chick. The other was something far less wholesome.
The duke held on to the mother-bird self with everything he had, and through sheer, bloody-minded effort, kept his desire in check.
Ivelina stole another glance at him—he still hadn’t eaten—and her lovely lashes fluttered as she murmured:
“…You must be hungry.”
The corners of the duke’s mouth tugged upward despite himself. He bit gently into the baby rabbit’s pert earlobe and asked, low:
“Will you feed me?”
“No!”
Ivelina thrashed like a fish thrown onto dry land. She shook her head hard and made two tight fists.
“I don’t want to eat anymore! I’m full!”
“You’ve barely had anything.”
“I don’t want to! I won’t! I said I’m not hungry!”
She wriggled and squirmed in his lap, throwing a full tantrum.
Her soft, rounded bottom pressed and ground against his thighs with enthusiasm.
The duke wrapped both hands firmly around her waist to keep her from toppling over.
“Stop that. You’ll fall.”
“I don’t care! I want to leave! I’m not eating anymore! I’m ‘full!'”
She kept wriggling, bouncing, grinding—making an absolute scene.
‘Ha. I’m going to lose my mind.’
The duke pulled her flush against him.
‘Thud.’
He locked her in place and buried his face in her hair, and said, very quietly:
“‘Please.'”
“…”
“‘Would you just stay still.'”
‘You impossible baby rabbit.’
The duke dragged the words up from somewhere deep and put the full weight of what remained of his restraint into them, tightening the hand coiled around her waist.
A rough, fractured growl bored into Ivelina’s ear. She flinched—and went quiet.
She stayed frozen for a moment, stiff as ice, and then abruptly made a sound like a baby horse.
“‘Hiiing.’ Carry me on your back!”
The duke breathed out slowly, and obligingly presented his back.
‘Just you wait, baby rabbit.’
* * *
The duke’s reason had been thoroughly shredded by his conniving fiancée. As a result, he had become, incongruously, something approaching a sage.
‘Pat. Pat.’
He tapped Ivelina’s bottom gently where she rode his back.
She had demanded to be carried—and now that she was, she was quiet. She pressed one cheek against the broad warmth of his back, let her feet dangle, and breathed soft, even little breaths.
She was peaceful like that for a good while—and then started up again, squirming.
“‘Eiing!’ I don’t want cocoa anymore! I changed my mind!”
“What would you like instead?”
“To play! I hate being cooped up inside!”
“All right. We’ll go to the garden.”
“Yes!”
And she tucked her face back against his back, warm and soft.
The gentle, fluttering warmth of her breath against his shoulders brought a quiet smile to the duke’s face.
‘What on earth is she planning in the garden.’
Ivelina swung her two pale legs and wound her arms around his neck. She lifted her face from his back, perked up her little ears, and turned her head this way and that to look around as he carried her.
The duke delivered his baby rabbit to the garden without incident.
“We’ve arrived.”
“Put me down! ‘Eiing,’ quickly, put me down!”
“Slowly. You’ll fall.”
The moment her feet touched the ground, Ivelina was off—like a child who refused to listen, like a foal set free. She darted about in every direction.
“Ivelina. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“‘Hmph!’ Mind your own business! It’s my body!”
The baby rabbit pranced and bounced all over the garden, impossible to pin down.
The duke folded his arms and watched at his leisure.
Today, Ivelina appeared to be committed to the concept of ‘tantrum.’
‘Let’s see how far she takes it, baby rabbit.’
He pressed his tongue gently against the inside of his cheek and watched the little figure bounding around the garden.
Ivelina had been sneaking glances at him the whole time—pretending not to—when:
“‘Aah!'”
‘Thump.’
She went down with suspicious grace, releasing an overdone groan. She was rubbing her ankle and peeking at him out of the corner of her eye. She was apparently going for a sprained ankle.
“‘Damn.’ Ivelina!”
He had seen through it immediately—and still felt his heart lurch.
He crossed to her, half genuinely worried, half happy to play along.
Ivelina’s face brightened. She opened her eyes wide and, conveniently positioned near a flowering bush, managed to squeeze out actual tears—her green eyes going glassy.
The baby rabbit rolled her glistening eyes pitifully and clutched her ankle with a grievous expression.
The duke pretended not to notice anything and crouched down before her.
“Let me see.”
He took her slim white ankle in both hands and turned it gently this way and that.
As expected: perfectly fine.
“‘Damn.’ I keep telling you to be careful.”
He muttered the curse through his teeth, putting on an appropriately irritated air.
Ivelina’s small, straight nostrils flared.
“‘H—huhng…'”
“…”
He was on the verge of laughing. He bit down on his lower lip and held it in with everything he had.
“‘Huhng,’ it hurts! It hurts so much right here! ‘Hueong…'”
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“Yes! ‘Hiing’… I can’t walk. Carry me quickly…”
‘Now.’
“Let’s go inside first.”
“I—inside? Where to…?”
The tears dried up instantly. Ivelina went wide-eyed and stumbled over her words.
The duke kept a straight face and slid one hand under her knees, the other behind her back, and lifted her in one clean motion. He kept his brow knit with the appropriate concern.
“The injury. We need to take a look at it. Bear with the pain a little.”
“Ah…”
He caught the earthquake trembling through those green eyes out of the corner of his gaze, and let one corner of his mouth curl upward.
He carried the scheming little rabbit inside and deposited her neatly on the parlor sofa.
Ivelina lay in perfect, anxious stillness, staring up at the ceiling.
The duke immediately dispatched for the physician and then returned to the parlor.
“I’ve sent for a doctor.”
“A—a ‘doctor’…?”
“Yes. My personal physician will arrive shortly.”
All color left Ivelina’s face. She clutched the fabric of her skirt.
The duke held his expression steady and watched the cold sweat begin to bead at her hairline.
“N—no, that’s really not necessary, I can just go home and rest and I’ll be perfectly—”
“Out of the question. We can’t let the injury worsen.”
“…”
The duke smiled pleasantly and gathered his pale, lip-trembling fiancée gently into his arms.
“W—where are we going?”
“The bedroom. You’ll be more comfortable lying down.”
“…Oh?”
Something has gone very wrong, Ivelina’s face said.
The duke pretended not to notice and carried her there. He laid her down carefully, and took the time to smooth her hair from her face with a sympathetic hand.
She continued, in a cautious and increasingly nervous tone:
“I—actually, I really am fine now, I think I could—”
“You were in enough pain to cry. Wait just a moment. I’ll make sure you’re not hurting.”
Throughout all of this, Ivelina’s eyes darted rapidly—left and right, up and down—clearly working very hard to find a way out of this bedroom.
“Just a moment.”
The duke soothed her and pressed his lips firmly to the center of her smooth, round forehead.
He stepped out into the corridor.
And then he let the laugh he had been holding in for the past twenty minutes escape all at once. He covered his mouth with one hand, knuckles visible.
“‘Truly.’ I’m going to lose my mind.”
The baby rabbit had been throwing jabs with her little front paws—and had finally stumbled into the trap. Now she was caught in it, thrashing to get free.
The duke laughed until his shoulders shook, and then let a slow, dark smile spread across his face.
‘Time to settle the score.’
* * *
