促銷資訊載入中...
The Billionaire's Filthy Regret
NovelMaster
new
已完結
I was a cat demon, bound by blood and magic to obey my master's every whim. A cat demon has nine lives. Each life can be traded to absorb a fatal misfortune for someone else. Nicholas, as my master, d...
章節（4）
第1章
I was a cat demon, bound by blood and magic to obey my master's every whim.
A cat demon has nine lives.
Each life can be traded to absorb a fatal misfortune for someone else.
Nicholas, as my master, didn't just use me as a convenient warm body in his bed to satisfy his lust. He squandered every single one of my lives without a second thought.
And every single time, it was for Chloe.
A mild fever, an annoying cold, or even Chloe feeling a little sore after they had sex—Nicholas would force me to sacrifice an entire life just to take her discomfort away.
Afterward, he would pin my hips, clinging to me in an exhausting display of passion.
"This is your reward for being so obedient. Don't worry, I'll let you keep your very last life."
Yet, the moment Chloe suffered from a complicated, agonizing labor, Nicholas broke his sacred vow on the spot.
"I command you to bear this birth for Chloe right now!"
"Mother or child, you bring them both back alive, do you hear me?!"
I agreed with a quiet smile. I took the agonizing butchery of the C-section onto my own ethereal flesh, slowly bleeding out and dying on that cold delivery table.
After drawing my final breath, my soul returned to the Underworld to serve as an officer in the halls of judgment.
Yet up in the mortal realm, Nicholas gathered a massive crowd and threw a lavish, high-profile funeral in front of my empty grave, putting on the performance of a grieving, devoted widower...
"Tsk, tsk. Your former mortal master sure knows how to spend money. Look at this spectacle—even the grandest saints don't get a send-off like this."
"Didn't he scatter your ashes to the wind back then? Where did he even find bones to bury?"
Minos, the judge of the dead, materialized beside me out of thin air, a mocking smirk on his lips.
A cold glint of hatred flickered in my eyes as I sneered, "What bad luck. I can't even get peace after dying."
"When I died, my soul shattered and my mortal vessel dissolved. Not a single whisker remained."
"Whatever is buried in that fancy tomb is just a bunch of torn-up scratching posts and old toys."
Through the magic mirror, I watched Nicholas kneeling before my headstone. He meticulously wiped the polished marble, his fingers tracing the engraved words Beloved Wife, Mia with tender, heartbreaking devotion.
His assistant rushed over, trying to haul him up by the elbow, and murmured comforting words.
"Mr. Hayes, please, torturing yourself like this won't bring her peace. If she saw you right now, she'd be devastated."
"She loved you so much during her life. She would never want you to suffer like this."
Behind them, a swarm of reporters buzzed like flies scenting rot, their flashing cameras and microphones clicking in a frenzied rhythm.
Nicholas's face was pale with grief, looking as though he might throw himself into the dirt and follow me into the grave at any second.
His eyes were bloodshot and swollen as he turned toward the blinding lenses.
"Mia may have had the spirit of an otherworldly creature, but she was the absolute love of my life."
"Three years ago, wicked rivals cursed me with a lethal blood hex. I was on the brink of death."
"She cast aside all regard for her own safety. Using her nine sacred spirit lives, she absorbed every single drop of that wretched calamity for me! I held her in my arms, watching helplessly... watching her slowly turn cold..."
Nicholas choked back a sob, his voice trembling with sheer agony.
"I tried everything. I even carved flesh and spilled my own heart's blood to prolong her days, but in the end, fate could not be swayed..."
I yawned lazily and twirled the tassel dangling from my Underworld robes.
Nicholas really was a phenomenal actor. If he hadn't been, I wouldn't have fallen into his trap so completely in the first place.
If I hadn't already died by his hands, I might have actually believed the epic, soul-stirring romance spilling from his lips.
Minos propped his chin on his hand, studying me with keen interest.
"Little kitten, looking at him now, you'd think he loved you to the depths of his soul! It truly makes me wonder what kind of hell you went through to die with such unquenchable malice. If I hadn't dragged you straight down into the Underworld the second you died, you probably would have painted the mortal realm in rivers of blood."
Devoted love? Ha.
He paved his road with my lives.
He built a monument upon my bones.
Now, this grand spectacle was nothing more than cheap theater staged to win over the living.
I watched in cold silence.
Even the cold stone carvings on that marble slab felt more genuine than his tears.
In the waters of the mirror, Nicholas answered the journalists' questions, his tone earnest, his gaze drenched in longing and profound regret.
"Mr. Hayes, you mentioned earlier that you and Mia shared an unbroken telepathic bond. Could you share a bit more about that?"
"Between the two of us, words were entirely unnecessary," he said softly. "A single glance, a slight shift in her posture, and we understood each other completely. What she had for me was absolute, unconditional trust and reliance."
Listening from the Underworld, all I felt was pure revulsion.
Unconditional trust and reliance?
Perhaps once, a lifetime ago, that had been true.
Back then, I was just an ordinary black kitten that Nicholas had rescued and raised from a tiny stray.
He named me Mia. Simple, sweet, and familiar.
Life was quiet and mundane, but to an innocent cat, it was the happiest existence I could have ever dreamed of.
Until that horrific car crash.
The screech of burning rubber and tearing metal was my last memory of the mortal world.
When my soul drifted free of my broken body, I saw Nicholas sprint over like an absolute madman.
He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight against his chest. For days on end, he refused to eat or sleep, clutching my stiff, freezing corpse and weeping until his eyes bled.
To the naive creature I was, his overwhelming grief felt so devastatingly pure that it shattered my heart.
My wandering ghost lingered in the mortal realm, refusing to cross over.
Minos, touched by his terrifying obsession, made an exception.
He bound my nine spirit lives to Nicholas in a master-servant contract, allowing me to take human form and return to his side.
That day, when Nicholas held me once again, he broke down and cried tears of pure ecstasy.
It wasn't until much later that I finally learned the truth.
Nicholas had brought me back for one purpose and one purpose only: to serve as a disposable shield for Chloe.
第2章
The first time I met Chloe was when she came over to the house to drop off corporate files.
The way Nicholas looked at her was filled with unmistakable admiration and tenderness.
"So this is Mia?" Chloe's voice sounded like it had been dipped in liquid honey.
She walked gracefully over to the couch, reaching out a manicured hand to stroke my hair.
"Nick talks about you all the time. He said you're sweet, gentle, and have an almost human intelligence. Seeing you today, you really are something special."
The heavy floral scent of her perfume made my stomach churn with unease.
I instinctively flinched, shrinking back into the cushions, a soft, low hiss vibrating in my throat.
Every animal instinct I possessed screamed that this woman was dangerous.
I turned to dart away.
Before I could even take a step, Chloe let out a sharp shriek and stumbled backward.
She cradled her hand against her chest, eyes brimming with pathetic, trembling tears. "Nick... does Mia hate me?"
Nicholas immediately swept Chloe into his arms. He tenderly rubbed the faint, nonexistent mark on her skin and glared at me with terrifying fury.
"Mia! This is Chloe, my executive assistant. Be polite and greet her!"
I looked at him, then shifted my gaze to Chloe.
Every fiber of my being rebelled, but I was terrified of angering him.
Clumsily using the human etiquette I had only recently picked up, I gave her a stiff nod.
Chloe covered her mouth with a soft, delicate laugh. "Oh, how adorable."
During dinner, Chloe sat directly between Nicholas and me.
Hearing her call him "Nick" rolled off her tongue with sickening familiarity.
Meanwhile, even though I had been granted a human body, my primal instincts still made me want to meow when I sought comfort.
A suffocating knot tightened in my chest.
Hoping to reclaim a shred of the closeness we once shared, I reached across the table to set a piece of his favorite roast chicken on his plate.
Suddenly, Chloe gasped. "Oh no!"
She deliberately knocked over the bowl of steaming soup beside her wrist, whimpering softly, "Nick... it burns so much..."
Nicholas's expression darkened instantly, his sharp glare impaling me like a dagger. "Mia! How can you be so clumsy?!"
I opened my mouth to plead, "It wasn't me! She did it on purp—"
"You dare talk back to me?!"
Nicholas cut me off with a deafening roar, his arm whipping forward as he struck me with a vicious slap across the face.
The blow sent me crashing to the floor, my cheek blazing with fire while my chest felt plugged with jagged ice—cold, bruised, and suffocating.
My ears rang loudly. Before my spinning head could clear, Nicholas's voice drifted down from above, chillingly detached.
"Mia, by the power of our pact, I command you: heal Chloe's hand right now!"
An invisible, monstrous force violently ripped into the depths of my soul, tearing away a fragment of my very life essence.
I scrambled up and fled to my room like a kicked stray.
Out in the living room, Nicholas's voice dipped into an impossibly gentle murmur as he comforted Chloe.
Late that night.
Nicholas stepped into my bedroom, the sickening stench of Chloe's perfume clinging to his skin.
"Does your face still hurt?" he asked softly.
I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to look at him or answer.
Through the heavy silence, I heard him ask, "Mia, do you like children?"
I froze. Children?
My instincts as a cat didn't give me much concept of noisy, unpredictable human babies.
But if it was a child born of him and me...
A tiny spark of joy bloomed in my chest. Just as I was about to nod, Nicholas seemed to read my thoughts.
His arms tightened slightly around my waist. "We... can never have a child together."
My entire body went rigid. I stared at him, utterly lost.
"Chloe consulted a seer who told her that since you're a spirit-cat, our bloodlines can never produce human life. But our family line needs an heir."
"Chloe has a rare, blessed constitution. The seer said that a child born from her womb will bring immense fortune and prosperity to my business empire. But her physical health is too fragile. She needs one of your lives to safely endure childbirth."
"Once she gives birth to the baby..."
Nicholas cupped my face in his palms, his eyes burning with an obsessive, terrifying intensity.
"The child will be officially registered under your name. By law, you will be the real mother! The three of us will finally be a complete family! You, me, and our child."
Looking into his pleading eyes, I buried my face into his shoulder and let out a muffled, trembling whimper of surrender.
Nicholas leaned down, his lips crushing against mine in a bruising kiss.
Curled tightly in his arms, the phantom ache on my cheek flared up with renewed agony.
Silent tears soaked into the cold pillow beneath my head.
"Good girl, Mia. I knew you were the most understanding. You have to bear with this for now. It's all for our future..."
Beside the magic mirror in the Underworld, Minos kicked his boots up, listening with wicked amusement. He let out a low whistle.
"Well, well, little kitten. Turns out you were a hopeless romantic after all."
The corner of my mouth twitched into a bitter, hollow smirk. Romantic? He had no idea how low I had fallen.
第3章
I watched helplessly as Chloe moved into the estate, carrying herself with all the grace and arrogance of the lady of the house.
Gradually, my domain shrank from the entire mansion down to the dusty, cramped attic on the top floor.
One afternoon, while Chloe was out running errands, I snuck down to the sunlit living room and curled up on Nicholas's lap, basking in the warm rays just like old times.
Suddenly, a cold shiver crept down the back of my neck.
Chloe stepped into the room, walking over to drape herself weakly against Nicholas's shoulder.
"Nick, I don't know what's wrong. I barely slept last night, and now I have this blinding migraine."
"A headache is nothing to take lightly," Nicholas replied casually, as if he were simply ordering a maid to pour a cup of tea. "Mia, go on. Make sure Chloe's head stops hurting."
The command snapped around my soul like an invisible iron chain.
A sharp, needle-like pain stabbed straight through my core, and a terrifying wave of weakness washed over my limbs.
I tried to scramble backward to break the connection, but Nicholas clamped his hand down on my scruff, forcing me down.
"Oh! It really stopped hurting! Nick, you're incredible!"
"As long as you're comfortable, nothing else matters."
The midday sun beamed brightly through the floor-to-ceiling windows, wrapping around my trembling frame.
Yet, I felt colder than if I were freezing to death in a winter blizzard.
That night, after Chloe fell asleep, Nicholas came up to the attic.
His hands gripped my waist, pinning my back roughly against the freezing brick wall.
Between heavy, ragged breaths, he bit down on my earlobe, his voice husky as he coaxed me in the dark.
"This is your reward for being so obedient... Don't worry, this will be the last time."
A reward?
I didn't want any twisted reward bought with my own dying flesh.
Yet, whenever I thought of the "family" he had promised, I bit my tongue and swallowed the bitter bile, desperately lying to myself that once Chloe gave birth, everything would go back to normal.
Back then, I was too blind to realize the truth.
From that day on, every furrow of Chloe's brow became an excuse to casually discard another one of my lives.
A slight cold. A sore throat.
Even when Chloe complained that her back felt stiff and uncomfortable after they spent the night together, Nicholas would invoke the pact and make me burn away another life to soothe her.
And afterward, completely ignoring my trembling, frail state and the tears streaming down my face, he would force himself onto me to give me my so-called "reward."
My heart felt like it was being sliced into bloody ribbons, day after day.
Then, Chloe finally got pregnant.
Nicholas's joy was impossible to hide; it bordered on a manic obsession.
He hovered around Chloe day and night, waiting on her hand and foot, while I was cast aside and forgotten entirely.
Sometimes, when I crept down to the kitchen just to find a scrap of food, the maid hired to wait on Chloe would kick me aside like a piece of garbage.
Just when I foolishly convinced myself that the nightmare was nearly over, Nicholas walked into the attic once again.
"Mia," Nicholas said, his voice flat. He wasn't asking; he was declaring.
I lifted my heavy head, a wave of dread washing over me.
"Chloe's morning sickness is too severe."
"Go downstairs and make her feel better."
"Nicholas..." My blood ran cold, and I desperately begged, "Please... just spare me this once."
"I only have two lives left."
Nicholas softened his tone slightly, but beneath the gentle facade lay a suffocating, ruthless pressure.
"Be a good girl! Chloe is carrying an heir. Nothing can be allowed to go wrong."
"You're only spending one life. You'll still have one left, won't you? It's not a big deal."
Those few, casually tossed words drove into my chest like an icicle, shattering the very last glimmer of hope I had clung to.
To Nicholas, my lives were nothing more than disposable pills meant to settle Chloe's upset stomach.
I stopped fighting.
The magical pact tightened violently around my spirit, ripping into my soul with agonizing force.
I stared at his face, which had become so monstrously unfamiliar, until my vision blurred into darkness.
The attic door remained cracked open, letting a sliver of pale moonlight spill inside.
I lay limp on the freezing floor, lacking the strength to lift a single finger.
My eighth life had vanished into nothingness, spent on soothing a woman's morning sickness...
"This will be the last time. I promise."
SLAM—
I snapped my gaze over to the side. Minos had slammed his staff against the stone floor in absolute fury.
"What a pair of vile, disgusting scumbags! After all that, you still didn't run?!"
Watching Minos look ready to cross into the living world to tear Nicholas limb from limb, I let out a weary sigh.
"Run? Of course I thought about running. But some debts can't be escaped just by hiding away."
第4章
As the weeks passed, Chloe's belly grew rounder and heavier.
I was forbidden from taking even a single step out of that dusty storage room.
Then came a day of torrential downpours.
Nicholas wasn't home. Without warning, his personal bodyguard kicked open the door to the storage room.
"Monster, Mr. Hayes has ordered you to the hospital immediately to give blood to Miss Chloe."
A blood transfusion?
My spiritual vessel was so weak and depleted that I barely had any physical form left. Where would I get blood to give?
This was a death sentence!
"No! I'm not going!" I scrambled backward into the corner, frantically curling myself into a tight ball.
"Nicholas promised he would leave me my last life! He swore it!"
The bodyguard didn't listen to a single word. He lunged forward, grabbed my arms with brutal force, and bound my wrists with a thick nylon rope he had brought along.
"Let go of me! You can't do this! Call Nicholas! Let me speak to Nicholas!"
My struggles were completely futile.
The coarse rope cut deep into my fragile, semi-translucent skin.
Rain whipped through the open doorway, chilling me down to the marrow.
Completely deaf to my screams and weeping, the bodyguard hauled me across the floor like a sack of garbage, dragged me down the stairs, and threw me into the back of a black SUV.
At the hospital.
I was marched down the corridor flanked by guards, looking every bit like a condemned prisoner.
Nicholas rushed over, out of breath. He didn't spare me a single glance, utterly focused on demanding updates from the doctor regarding Chloe's condition.
The doctor said she was hemorrhaging and needed an emergency transfusion, but the hospital's blood bank was critically low on her rare type.
Nicholas turned and pointed directly at me. "Take hers. Take as much as you need."
My heart plummeted into a freezing abyss.
"NO—!"
The sheer terror and despair that had festered inside me for months finally exploded.
With a surge of strength I didn't know I possessed, I snapped the ropes and hurled myself at Nicholas's feet, clutching the cuffs of his trousers.
"Nicholas! I can't give blood! I... I'm pregnant! I'm carrying your child! Our child!"
I knelt on the cold hospital tiles, sobbing and pleading, desperately hoping to buy myself a few minutes to find an opening to escape.
Yet Nicholas merely paused in his tracks, looking down at me with cold, indifferent eyes.
There was no joy. No surprise. Only a chilling, condescending disgust.
"Pregnant?"
Nicholas spat the word out, the corner of his mouth twisting into a mocking smirk.
"You're an inhuman spirit-cat. Chloe told me months ago that a creature like you can never conceive a child with a mortal man. Stop these pathetic, disgusting tricks!"
His gaze turned vicious as he barked at the guards, "Pin her down!"
The bodyguards surged forward, slamming me violently against the cold floor.
A nurse hurried over carrying sterile needles and collection bags.
The freezing alcohol swab rubbed across the crook of my elbow, sending violent shivers through my body.
The gleaming steel needle looked like the fangs of the Grim Reaper, creeping inexorably toward my exposed vein.
Just then, a frantic voice called out from the lab corridor.
"Wait! Hold on! This patient's blood panel is completely abnormal... The markers show that she's actually pregnant!"