I will be the perfect wife this time-Chapter 106: A Madman’s Mercy

The silence in the corridor was no longer empty; it was a living, breathing monster.

​Mathias stood frozen, his mind a chaotic battlefield of conflicting thoughts. His grip on his sword-hilt didn’t just loosen; it trembled. Did she truly do it? He looked at Olivia’s profile—serene, pale, and terrifyingly calm. He tried to reconcile the woman he loved with the image of a cold-blooded liberator who had ended an Duchess. The truth was a bitter pill, lodged firmly in his throat, choking his ability to even breathe.

​But Roland... Roland was no longer a man. He was a rupture in reality.

​A jagged, manic laugh tore from his throat, echoing through the stone arches of the palace like the cackle of a hyena. "How exquisite!" he roared, his eyes wide and bloodshot. "My little bird has finally learned how to play the game! My blood truly does run through your veins, doesn’t it?"

​In a blur of motion, the direction of his lethal intent shifted. The tip of his blade, which had been pointed at Leon’s chest, snapped toward Olivia’s sightless eyes.

​"How about I open the cage for you as well, my dear?" Roland hissed, his voice dropping to a sibilant, deadly whisper. "How about I let you experience the ’freedom’ you gave your mother?"

​With those words, the air exploded. Roland lunged. It wasn’t a duel; it was an execution. He moved with a violent, unrestrained ferocity that aimed to erase her existence.

​"Olivia! Move!" Mathias screamed.

​He tried to spring forward, to throw his body between his wife and the steel, but his legs refused to obey. A strange, suffocating weight—a dark, unseen force—clamped around his ankles, pinning him to the spot like a statue of lead. He was an apex predator suddenly rendered paralyzed, forced to watch his world end.

​Olivia didn’t move. She could feel the displacement of the air, the sharp, metallic tang of the approaching sword, and the heat of her father’s madness. Yet, she stood like a marble saint, her chin tilted up, accepting the darkness. She looked as though she had already made peace with the blade.

​Clang!

​The sword didn’t find its mark. Instead, it buried itself deep into the stone wall where her head had been a fraction of a second ago.

​A pair of strong, cold arms snared her waist, yanking her out of the path of death with a proprietary force that was both a rescue and a capture. Olivia felt her back hit a broad, solid chest—one that radiated a power far older and darker than Roland’s.

​She didn’t need eyes to know who it was. The scent of ozone and expensive tobacco, coupled with that suffocating, possessive grip, told her everything.

​Then came the whisper—a low, velvet rasp against her ear that made the fine hairs on her neck stand up.

​"Hello... my little sugar."

A realization, cold and jagged as broken glass, pierced through Mathias’s mind. The invisible shackles binding his feet weren’t a lapse in his own strength; they were a calculated strike. His eyes snapped toward the silhouette behind Olivia. Cedric. That bastard had exploited the chaos, using a momentary distraction to paralyze a Duke of the Empire just so he could step in as the "savior." Mathias’s teeth ground together with a sound like crushing stone.

​Cedric didn’t spare Mathias a glance. His focus was entirely on Roland, his gaze a frozen void of violet fury. "It appears our last compact holds little value to you, Lord Tharon," Cedric remarked, his voice a low, vibrating hum of suppressed power. "Or perhaps you’ve grown tired of your head resting upon your shoulders?"

​Roland narrowed his eyes, the manic light in them flickering but not dying. He slowly withdrew his sword from the wall, the stone weeping dust. "I lost my temper for a heartbeat," he countered, his voice smoothing out into a chilling, aristocratic silk. "Of course, our agreement remains intact. You know how it is, Lord Cedric... children often insist on learning their lessons the hard way."

​Then, with a sickening display of paternal affection, Roland reached out. He snatched Olivia’s limp hand, his fingers like cold talons, and pressed a lingering kiss to her knuckles.

​Olivia felt a wave of pure, visceral nausea roll through her. It was the touch of a serpent—slimy, predatory, and lethal. She wanted to scream, to retch, to claw her own skin off where his lips had touched.

​"You must forgive me, my dearest," Roland whispered, his voice dripping with poison disguised as honey. Before she could pull away, he yanked her into a tight, suffocating embrace. He leaned into her ear, his breath hot and smelling of irony. "You are quite fortunate Cedric was here to play hero. But mark my words, little bird... the next time our paths cross, I will peel the skin from your very bones."

​Mathias watched it all, his blood boiling in a way that made his vision blur. He didn’t understand the depth of the game being played—the secret pacts, the invisible strings—but he understood one thing: Roland had just tried to butcher his daughter, and Cedric was playing the part of the knight in shining armor to claim her. Yet, in that moment of raw terror, Mathias didn’t care about the politics. He only cared that the woman in the center of the storm was still breathing.

​The moment the pressure of the embrace loosened, Olivia didn’t just step back; she shoved Roland away with every ounce of strength she possessed. The realization of who was holding her from behind finally registered through the haze of her senses.

​She spun around, her sightless eyes flashing with a fierce, independent fire. "I thought I made myself clear, Cedric," she hissed, her voice trembling not with fear, but with absolute disdain. "I told you... never touch me again."

The air in the corridor didn’t just vibrate; it screamed.

​Mathias felt the cold, invisible chains of Cedric’s magic biting into his skin, a humiliating tether that forced him to watch his wife’s near-execution. Every muscle in his body was a coiled spring, screaming for release. His vision went red—not from Roland’s madness, but from his own helplessness.

​"Mathias! Your leg!" Leon’s voice cracked with a rare, raw terror.

​Leon was pinned too, his eyes wide as he watched his brother do the unthinkable. Mathias didn’t hesitate. With a guttural roar of pure defiance, he reversed his grip on his sword. The steel flashed once before he drove the blade deep into his own thigh, piercing through the magical seal that anchored him to the stone.

​The pain was an explosion of white light, but it worked. The amethyst energy shattered like glass under the weight of his blood.

​"Mathias!" Olivia gasped, smelling the metallic tang of fresh blood in the air, her heart hammering against her ribs.

​He didn’t answer. He didn’t even flinch. Ignoring the crimson trail he left behind, Mathias limped forward with a terrifying, predatory focus. He reached Olivia in three strides, his hand snapping around her arm with a force that was desperate and bone-deep. He ripped her away from Cedric’s side, his chest heaving like a wounded beast.

​In one swift, violent motion, he kicked open the heavy oak door of their chamber. He shoved Olivia inside—not out of anger at her, but out of a frantic need to hide her from the monsters in the hallway.

​SLAM.

​The door echoed through the corridor, locking her away in the safety of the shadows. Mathias turned back, his back against the wood, his hand still gripping his blood-stained sword. He stood there, bleeding and pale, his silver eyes burning with a murderous light as he faced the two men who had dared to touch what was his.

​"Now," Mathias hissed, his voice a jagged edge of ice. "Let’s finish this without the audience."

Standing like a wounded god before the shattered remains of his sanctuary, Mathias held his ground. His back pressed against the oak door of the chamber—the only thing standing between Olivia and the vipers in the hall. Blood, thick and hot, cascaded from the self-inflicted wound in his thigh, pooling around his boots in a grim, expanding halo.

​He didn’t look like a Duke; he looked like a nightmare carved from silver and rage. His eyes, clouded with a manic shimmer, darted between the two men before him.

​"One of you sought to butcher my wife," Mathias hissed, his voice a jagged rasp that made the air bleed. He leveled his gore-stained blade, the tip trembling with the sheer force of his suppressed tremor. "And the other... the other shackled me like a dog just to play the gallant savior. Tell me, before the floor drinks the rest of my life—which one of you should I slaughter first?"

​He was a hair’s breadth away from a massacre. He didn’t care for the crown, the laws, or his own survival. He only cared for the scent of their blood.

​But the world outside didn’t stop for his fury. The frantic clatter of boots echoed from the grand staircase. Servants, drawn by the clash of steel and the haunting screams, began to swarm the periphery. "The Knights! Call the Imperial Guard!"

​Amidst the growing cacophony, Cedric remained an island of terrifying stillness. He stepped forward, the point of Mathias’s sword grazing his silken vest, yet he didn’t flinch. He leaned in, his shadow enveloping Mathias, and whispered with a voice like a winter wind through a graveyard.

​"Lower the steel, Mathias. For your sake, and hers."

​A cold smirk played on Cedric’s lips, devoid of any warmth. "If not for this hand you loathe, you would currently be scraping the remnants of your wife off these stones rather than defending her. Learn how to protect what is yours before you preach about possession."

​Cedric paused, his violet eyes locking onto Mathias’s silver ones, pinning him with a secret that carried the weight of a mountain. "And besides... do you truly wish for this rabble, for these guards, to learn the exquisite truth? That your delicate, saintly wife is the one who ended the Duchess ’s life? Let us end this here, Duke, before the secret becomes a noose for her neck."