The Mind-Reading Mate: Why Is the Lycan King So Obsessed With Me?!-Chapter 488: A Father’s Gentle Love (III)

When he reached the doctor’s house, he knocked hard on the door.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

"Please! Open up!" he shouted.

After a moment, the door finally opened, and before the doctor could even speak, Zarius rushed inside. "M-My daughter...!" he said with a trembling voice. "Please... please help my daughter!"

Daughter?

Even in her fever, Rose could still hear that word clearly. She had mixed feelings about it. All this time, she had never dared to think of Zarius as her father because she was afraid he wouldn’t like that idea.

Honestly, Rose didn’t even understand why he would take care of a child he didn’t even know. Why would he bring her home? Why would he protect her, feed her, and worry about her every day?

Why would he give so much kindness to a little girl who came from nowhere?

She couldn’t understand it. Just like she couldn’t understand why she now called herself Rose.

"You’re too lost in these memories, Your Majesty." A familiar voice echoed in her ears.

Faintly, she could see Leofric’s face. He stood right beside Zarius, but her father couldn’t see him.

Oh, right.

These were only fragments of her memories.

She wasn’t Rose anymore, but Primrose.

But it felt like she had been living in real time inside these memories, to the point that she forgot this wasn’t her real world.

"You should prepare yourself," Leofric warned softly. "What’s coming won’t be easy."

Prepare for what?

Her life felt so comfortable here. Zarius had promised he wouldn’t meet his dangerous friends anymore. He said he would become a farmer after winter ended.

He told her that they would move to a house in the village so he could go to the fields easily. He told her that she could have many friends there.

He had even said she might get a little puppy someday, so she wouldn’t feel lonely when he worked in the fields.

Zarius had planned so many things for their future. So why did Leofric warn her as if something painful was about to happen?

Was she going to die from this fever?

No, she didn’t.

After visiting the doctor, she got better after resting and taking medicine regularly for a week. The doctor even said that she only had a seasonal fever.

So, the fever wasn’t something she needed to worry about.

Then what was it?

"Rose! Look what I just brought!" Zarius’s cheerful voice suddenly rang out.

Rose was sitting on the couch, having a tea party with her dolls. She had carefully lined them up and poured "tea" into tiny cups.

When she heard his voice, her eyes lit up. She jumped to her feet at once and ran toward the door.

"Zarius!" she called out happily.

She threw herself into his arms without hesitation. Zarius laughed and easily lifted her up with one arm. With his other hand, he raised a basket in front of her.

"Look," he said proudly. Inside was a basket full of sweet, golden cookies.

"I went to visit Mr. Barker and his wife today," Zarius said with a bright smile. "They were baking together. When I told them I have a daughter at home, Mrs. Barker gave these to me just for you."

He lowered his voice playfully. "Do you want to try one?"

Rose nodded so fast her bangs almost fell into her eyes. "Yes!" she answered softly.

Her small hands reached into the basket. She carefully picked up one cookie, holding it like it was something precious.

She looked up at him with shining eyes. "Thank you, Zarius," she whispered.

Zarius smiled even more brightly. Seeing her so happy like this felt sweeter to him than any cookie in the world.

"Can you... call me something else?" Zarius asked softly as he sat on the couch, with Rose resting on his lap.

"What?" Rose tilted her head and looked at him with her big, round eyes.

He smiled and gently stroked her hair. "I always tell people that you’re my daughter, so..."

He didn’t finish his sentence, but Rose understood what he meant.

He wanted her to call him "Father."

Rose didn’t dislike the idea. In fact, she liked it.

But all this time, she had been afraid to cross that line. She worried that Zarius might not want her to call him that. After all, even her real father had never liked it when she called him "Father."

Her biological father—the cruel Cardinal—had always insisted that she call him "Your Holiness" instead.

He never wanted to be her father, but he only wanted to be someone above her.

That was why this simple request from Zarius made her heart feel warm, and a little scared at the same time.

"I—"

BANG!

Rose was about to say something when the door to their house was suddenly forced open, so violently that it came off its hinges.

Wooden fragments scattered everywhere, and without thinking, Zarius pulled Rose into his arms and covered her body, protecting her by instinct.

At first, Rose thought it might be Zarius’s bandit friends. But to her surprise, the people who burst in were wearing the uniforms of holy soldiers.

"I found the saintess!" one of them shouted.

At the same time, Rose heard a familiar voice shout right beside her ear. "Your Majesty, remember, this is only your memory!"

Primrose’s eyes widened. In that instant, she became more aware of everything around her. Every sound, every movement, suddenly felt sharper and clearer.

The young version of her father immediately stood up from the couch. He didn’t even think too much about it, but his body had already warned him that what was coming was a disaster for them.

"He’s trying to take the Saintess away again!" one of the holy soldiers shouted as he rushed toward Lazarus. "You filthy bandit! How dare you touch our holy Saintess!"

Holy Saintess? What a joke.

These were the same people who had locked a little girl in a tiny room next to a wine warehouse.

The same people who barely looked at her.

The same people who ignored her hunger, her fear, and her pain.

But now, when someone finally treated her with kindness...

Now, when someone finally gave her warmth and safety...

They came rushing in and broke everything. They destroyed the small, peaceful world she had just begun to build, all just to take her back.

"Kidnap her? My ass!" Lazarus snapped. "You let her live in that rotten place!"

His voice shook with anger. "Instead of kidnapping her, I saved her," he continued. "I saved her from you fake, cruel people who pretend to be holy!"