The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts-Chapter 657: Has Zyran infected you?

So she was just about to move toward one of the side chairs when Kian’s voice sounded low and steady beside her.

"My female deserves to sit on my throne."

The entire hall went quiet.

Actually, quiet was not enough.

It became the kind of silence where if someone had dropped a hairpin, everyone would have heard it hit the ground. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Isabella stopped mid-step and slowly turned to look at Kian.

For one shocking second, she genuinely wondered whether some spirit had crept into his body overnight.

This was Kian.

Cold-faced, reserved, serious Kian.

The same Kian who often looked as though even smiling too much would damage his pride.

And yet he had just said that with a completely straight face, as if offering her his throne in front of city visitors was the most natural thing in the world.

Isabella’s eyes widened.

Then, despite the cold, despite the heavy furs around her, despite herself, she felt heat rush into her face.

"What is happening," she thought in disbelief. "Has the winter finally frozen his brain?"

She stared at him so hard that even Kian, who usually held himself like a stone wall and did not bend for anybody, felt a strange pull in his chest.

However, his expression did not change. If anything, his gaze only became calmer, as if to say that he had spoken and meant every word of it.

Isabella’s lips parted. "Kian..."

Then, because her embarrassment could never survive long without turning into suspicion, she narrowed her eyes and asked, "Has Zyran infected you?"

Zyran, who had been standing there looking extremely entertained already, immediately made an offended sound.

"What do you mean infected?" he asked. "You’re acting like I’m a disease."

Isabella turned to him at once. "Your shamelessness is a disease."

A few of the nearby guards had to lower their heads quickly.

Luca’s mouth twitched.

Even Cyrus, who had remained quiet beside her in his altered disguise, had to look down for a brief second because the corner of his lips had already betrayed him.

Zyran pressed one hand dramatically to his chest. "Cruel. This female uses me when she needs entertainment, then insults me in public when I help improve the emotional health of the household."

"Improve?" Isabella repeated. "You make my blood pressure rise."

"That is called passion."

"That is called stress."

While the two of them were talking, there was a tiny movement near the side entrance.

Two heads appeared.

Ophelia and Shelia.

They peeked in so carefully, with their bodies half-hidden and their eyes sparkling so brightly with curiosity, that if they had been children stealing roasted meat from the kitchen, they could not have looked guiltier. The funniest part was that they clearly believed they were being subtle.

They were not.

Everyone could see them.

Even the city messenger, though he was doing an excellent job pretending his attention remained properly forward, definitely saw them.

Luca, who was standing not too far from the entrance, noticed them immediately. Since they were all friends anyway, and since this hall had long ago given up pretending to function with proper stiff royal discipline whenever Isabella was around, he simply tilted his head and motioned for them to come closer.

Ophelia lit up at once.

Shelia tried to look more composed, but she followed too.

Thankfully for them, Kian had not noticed them during their first guilty little peek. If he had, they would probably still have come in, but they would have done so with far more shame. Or at least Ophelia would. Shelia had the same blood as her brother and enough boldness to survive embarrassment without dying.

Isabella, still trying very hard not to think too much about what Kian had just said, glanced once more at the throne.

Then, because sitting sounded very good and because refusing now would only make the moment drag longer and make her blush more, she lifted her chin and walked toward it.

Or rather, she walked toward it with the dignity of a pregnant woman whose lower back hurt and who was trying not to look as if she had been emotionally attacked by one sentence.

When she sat, the hall changed.

That was the only way to describe it.

She was wrapped in thick winter furs, her belly rounded heavily beneath them, her hair falling over her shoulders, her face still carrying the faintest trace of warmth from embarrassment. She did not sit like someone asking permission.

She sat like it was right.

The city visitors were shocked.

That shock did not show in some wild open-mouthed way, because if a city messenger could not control his face, then he did not deserve to be sent anywhere important. Still, their eyes changed. The smallest delay in their breathing, the slight tightening near the corners of their mouths, the way the two men behind the messenger glanced once too quickly toward each other, all of it gave them away.

Women were loved in this world. Protected too, in many places.

But power?

Open power?

A pregnant woman seated on the ruling throne of a rapidly growing territory while its king stood at her side without the slightest sign of humiliation?

That was not common.

That was not even rare.

That was almost unheard of.

At that moment, all the rumors they had heard finally settled properly inside their minds.

So the stories were true.

This woman was beautiful.

She was pregnant.

And this village, which no longer looked like an ordinary village anyway, truly turned around her.

Now they understood why people whispered that the villagers called her a goddess.

The messenger’s gaze flickered once, very briefly, around the hall itself.

When they had walked through the village, he had already seen too much that made him uneasy. The wall structure was improved. Storage was organized. Pathways were smarter. There were work systems in place. Even the arrangement of the guards, the spacing of the patrols, and the use of tools and signals showed design, not mere habit.

None of the things he saw looked useless.

That was the truly dangerous part.