as yerniaâs beautiful face crumpled while sobbing, cassian became alarmed.
âitâs all my fault. how can i stop you from crying, huh? do you want to hit me? will that make you feel better?â
cassian wiped yerniaâs tear-stained cheeks while she kept crying.
he tried to get rid of her tears somehow, even though it was useless.
yernia shook her head in refusal because she didnât want to hit cassian.
it was true that she got embarrassed, upset, and a little bit resentful of his temper but she didnât want to hit him at all.
his apology eased the tension but she still couldnât stop herself from crying.
âyernia, donât cry anymore.â
âi hate you, cassian.â
âiâm sorry. please donât hate me, will you?â
yernia knew it wasnât cassianâs fault.
she was wrong in the first place.
nevertheless, her tears were out of control because she was overwhelmed with sorrow.
âwhy are you shaking so much? are you cold?â
âugh, yes.â
indeed, her body was trembling because of her uncontrollable sobs.
she wasnât covering her face so it made sense that it was cold.
cassian took off his jacket and put it on yernia, who still had her fur coat on, but the shaking didnât stop.
rather, yernia freaked out and immediately returned cassianâs jacket.
âyouâre cold. youâre cold, too.â
âyou should take care of yourself. not me.â
the fact that yernia cared about him even if she was shivering from the cold moved him greatly.
he shouldnât have been angry at yernia when she was innocent but he just couldnât control his temper for a moment.
feeling pathetic and sorry for himself, cassian grabbed his wifeâs cheeks and wiped away her tears.
this battle took longer than expected.
it was partly because the target they needed to defeat was a monster that he couldnât quite handle.
however, as the long battle progressed, the soldiers acquired all kinds of injuries, and a sense of foreboding circulated among the troops.
captain reward took advantage of that to instigate a small rebellion.
cassian could see everyoneâs secret fear every time they faced him and those already infected werenât being cooperative at all.
it was only natural that the longer this battle would last, soldiersâ morale would also decrease.
it was all his fault.
just because he assumed he had to deal with the monster quickly, it was true that he got a bit reckless and that delayed them for a while.
fortunately, the damage was minimized and since he hadnât seen yernia in the meantime, he couldnât wait to see her.
he even went straight to the barracks after everything was done.
âwhat? i heard she was going to see you, major.â
however, yernia wasnât in the barracks.
captain felix, who couldnât figure out his wifeâs whereabouts, Â could only apologize guiltily.
for a moment, his eyes bled into black.
as he searched the rest of the barracks like a madman, one of the unit members asked curiously if he had met her yet.
and almost at the same time, he also heard information that captain reward had left the military.
both captain reward and yernia were missing and a couple of suspicions had gathered in his head in an instant.
was this captain rewardâs revenge?
after all, she appealed for her guide to be saved, but he refused.
he felt himself going insane, thinking that captain reward had done something bad to yernia.
he didnât know where yernia had disappeared to despite searching the whole forest according to the words of the last witness, semin, but he did manage to find her.
it was his fault that he couldnât hold back his anger so he stopped himself from resenting yernia.
he was in such a hurry that he couldnât control his negative emotions.
âi was scared because you werenât there, yernia.â
she said that she came all the way here to meet him now.
he was sorry that yernia went through all of this because of his carelessness.
but he didnât know what to do either because yernia, who rushed to meet him as soon as she received a message that he wanted to see her, seemed lovely in his eyes that the fever inside of him had spread to his groin.
he wanted to take her every time he thought of her but it was almost midnight and it was snowing, so he didnât think it would be easy to get out of the forest with her.
most of all, he didnât want to.
there were many eyes and ears in the barracks and cassian wanted to have yernia all to himself.
âyernia, shall we sleep somewhere else?â
âhuh? somewhere else?â
when he saw her forcefully swallow her cries to repeat what he said, cassian wanted to kiss her lips right away but he put up with the burning desire.
he couldnât surprise her more after all she had been through.
it was a coincidence that he remembered there was small cabin around here.
âeveryone was alerted that you were gone. if we go back now, everyone will only look at you and gather around. it might bother you.â
âyouâre right. i donât want to be surrounded.â
âas expected, right? thereâs an old cabin a little further from here⦠do you want to go?â
as he controlled the heat that was hard to put off, yernia got fooled.
cassian firmly held yerniaâs hand as she wiped her tears with a nod.
he wasnât going to just put her to sleep tonight.