Chapter 38: I Can Only Keep You By My Side Like This

Sophia looked at her—her adorable, flustered appearance after being exposed—and finally couldn’t hold back a soft, delighted laugh.

All her jealousy, all her bitterness, dissipated in that moment.

So that’s what it was… She’d gotten it wrong.

That so-called “husband” didn’t exist at all.

She was still… someone who belonged only to her.

“So…” Sophia stood up, slowly walked over to Tulia, bent down, and gently hooked her chin with a fingertip, forcing her to look up.

“My little liar,” she murmured, her voice brimming with indulgence and amusement, “can you tell me, that child who looks seventy percent like you—just how did she come to be?”

Lies were pointless now.

Tulia looked at the face so close before her and suddenly felt utterly exhausted.

Struggling, resisting, pretending… none of it seemed to work on Sophia.

So she simply gave up, her tone almost like throwing caution to the wind, and briefly recounted that bizarre experience.

“…I was lying in my coffin, sleeping soundly. I don’t know which rotten elf was dying and just had to find someone to entrust a child to. So she dug me up from underground, stuffed something called a ‘Life Fruit’ into my belly, and then—bang—she herself turned into particles of light and vanished. After that, there was Lisbeth.”

She omitted all the details, including the crucial contract about Lisbeth only being able to separate from the Life Seed after coming of age.

Sophia listened in silence, the playful smile on her face gradually fading, replaced by a complicated expression—part disbelief, part dark, simmering anger.

She reached out, not to touch Tulia’s face, but instead pressed her palm slowly over Tulia’s flat stomach.

A gentle yet overwhelming surge of magic seeped from her palm.

Tulia’s body trembled slightly, but she did not resist.

Sophia could clearly sense, deep within Tulia, traces of an incredibly pure and ancient life energy. That power was distinctly separate from Tulia’s own Vampire magic, yet strangely coexisted with it.

It was real.

She hadn’t lied.

“So…”

Sophia slowly withdrew her hand, her voice icy, “while you were sleeping, someone else… used this method to defile your body?”

Her own most perfect “work of art”—belonging to her alone—had, without her knowing, been used by someone else as a “vessel” for a child?

An even deeper, more violent jealousy and rage exploded within her, surpassing even what she’d felt upon discovering the kiss mark earlier.

But she didn’t show it. She simply lifted her gaze, those unfathomably deep violet eyes fixed on Tulia, and asked the question that mattered to her most.

“And you?”

“How do you feel… about that ‘child’?”

The question left Tulia stunned.

How did she feel?

Her first reaction was “trouble.”

A four-legged gold-eating beast who’d appeared out of nowhere and upended all her plans to live a lazy, undisturbed life.

But…

Unbidden, images of Lisbeth floated through her mind.

She remembered the first time Lisbeth called her “Mom” in that soft, sweet voice; remembered how Lisbeth, always expressionless, would stubbornly clutch a pillow and wait for her at the door if she came home late; remembered the look of utter reliance in her eyes when she cut through the crowds at the academy gates just to see her…

The mocking, guarded expression Tulia always wore unconsciously softened.

She lowered her head, looked at her own fingers, and answered in a voice as light as a dream:

“She’s… the biggest trouble I’ve ever met in my life.”

“But…”

“…She’s also mine.”

Tulia spoke these words very softly.

But to Sophia’s ears, they were more earthshaking than any loud declaration.

Sophia watched her quietly.

Watched as she spoke of that child, her face unconsciously revealing a gentleness and warmth Sophia had never seen before.

Watched as those blue eyes—usually filled with mockery and wariness—now shone with a light called “motherhood.”

Sophia’s heart sank, little by little.

She’d spent so many years, used so many means, but still had not been able to truly, willingly win Tulia’s heart.

Maybe it was due to their circumstances when they’d met.

Yet this child, who had done nothing, had so easily obtained all of Tulia’s love, given without reservation.

She’d lost.

In this war for Tulia’s heart, she’d been completely defeated by a child she’d never even met.

Sophia knew well she had truly broken Tulia’s heart.

The more than forty years she’d spent searching had forced her to chew through endless regret and pain night after night.

If she simply tried to be good to her now, tried to make amends with tenderness, there was no guarantee Tulia wouldn’t run from her side again.

She didn’t want to—and couldn’t—endure the pain of losing Tulia again.

So…

She would have to use the strongest chains to bind her at her side.

Then, with all the time she had left, she would slowly, clumsily repair those cracks, until Tulia was truly willing to accept her again.

“I understand.”

Sophia spoke slowly, her tone devoid of emotion.

She sat back down on the sofa, elegantly crossing her legs, forcibly donning the high and mighty mask of the Noerstein Family heir.

“In that case,” she raised those deep violet eyes to Tulia, her tone that of announcing a foregone conclusion, “that child will call me mother as well, from now on.”

Tulia: “…Ha?”

She wondered if her ears were failing her.

“You… what did you say?”

“I said,” Sophia repeated, each word cold and clear, “from today on, I am her other mother.”

Tulia was utterly speechless at Sophia’s genius-level logic. Her mouth opened and closed before she finally found her voice, so angry she nearly laughed.

“And just who gave you the right?! She’s my daughter! What does she have to do with you?! You haven’t even met her!”

“She was born from your body.” Sophia’s reply was perfectly reasonable. “And your body belongs to me. So, by law, she also counts as… my property.”

Such shamelessly bandit logic made Tulia shake with anger.

“In your dreams!” Tulia almost shouted, “Sophia, I’m telling you, absolutely not!”

Watching her get so worked up over her child, as fierce and adorable as a mother beast protecting her cub, Sophia’s heart, though aching, was also tinged with sweetness.

“Oh? Is that so?” Sophia’s tone turned playful; she had to play this villainous role to the end. “Well, that’s not up to you.”

She stood up, slowly walked to Tulia’s side, bent down, and murmured in a near-whisper, devilish voice:

“Don’t forget, my little liar. You’re the Empire Capital’s famous ‘Empress Dowager’ now, living alone with an exceptionally gifted daughter. What do you think would happen if I were to ‘accidentally’ reveal your Vampire identity to the Empire’s Royal Family, or… the Church?”

Those words were like a basin of ice water, dousing all of Tulia’s anger in an instant.

She understood.

It was a threat.

The only—and most effective—chain Sophia had.

Sophia watched as Tulia’s face went instantly pale, but felt no satisfaction in her victory—only a bleak, frozen emptiness.

She repeated to herself, silently.

—Forgive me, Tulia.

—This is the only way I know to keep you by my side.

Tulia, powerless, slowly slumped back onto the sofa.

Looking at the woman who always had everything under her control, a deep and helpless despair engulfed her once more.

It was as if… she had never won.

“Very good.”

Sophia watched her desolate appearance and nodded in satisfaction.

“Then, starting tomorrow,” she straightened, regaining her graceful composure, as if announcing some trivial matter, “I’ll be moving in here. You’d best… explain to your ‘daughter’ in advance why she’ll be gaining an extra ‘mother’ at home.”