A bitter smile touched Johanna’s lips as she lowered her gaze to the signature line.
A space was designated for a thumbprint.
“Oh, a thumbprint?”
After signing her name, she looked around.
Victoria, ever perceptive, produced a flat case from her pocket and set it on the table.
Inside was a pad saturated with a vivid crimson pigment.
Johanna pressed her thumb into the ink and then stamped it firmly onto the contract.
“All done?” Victoria asked.
“Yes.”
Johanna fanned the document until the ink was dry, then handed it to her friend.
Victoria accepted it with a troubled expression, straightened the pages, and tucked them under her arm as she rose.
“I will give this to the aide.
He is just outside.
Are you… feeling all right now?”
“Yes, I am fine.
Let us go.”
“Very well…”
Victoria still supported her as they walked.
Out in the corridor, they handed the signed contract to the aide, who then relayed the Marquis’s instructions.
“Miss Lucerne, you will be staying here at the Weimar Mansion from now on.
This is a precaution to prevent any… unforeseen incidents.
I ask for your understanding.”
It was a unilateral command: she had one week to put her affairs in order.
As a hollow laugh escaped Johanna’s lips, the aide continued in a flat, impassive tone.
“If you require anything, you need only ask.
The Marquis has stated that he will grant any request, so long as it is not truly impossible.”
Feeling her spirits sink to a new low, Johanna found her voice.
“I have a younger brother.
I am his only guardian.
Could you enroll him in the Bamberg Boarding Academy?”
This was the demand she had intended to make to Leonid herself, but his sudden pheromonal assault had driven all thought from her mind.
The Bamberg Academy was the finest secondary school in the kingdom.
It was a private institution whose graduates, upon passing their final exams, were granted direct admission to the Royal Academy.
The tuition was astronomical, far beyond the reach of any commoner, and they demanded hefty ‘donations’ each semester.
With Daniel’s grades, he would not only pass the entrance exam with ease but would surely excel there.
And above all, at Bamberg, Daniel would be safe.
The aide considered her request for a silent moment before giving a slight nod.
“That is possible.
Enrolling one student is a simple matter.
I will inform the Marquis.”
“…Thank you.”
His voice was so casual, as if discussing something of no consequence, that it left Johanna feeling hollow.
Attending that boarding school… it had been a dream utterly beyond their reach.
“And here is the down payment,” the aide stated, pulling a thick envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket.
Johanna hesitated only a moment before carefully accepting it.
Cash, not a bank transfer.
It was probably for the best.
There was no need to count it; any sum provided by Marquis Neuwitz himself would be exact.
*
It had been a long day.
She returned home clutching the envelope to her chest, but Daniel was out.
Johanna sat at the dining table and counted the money.
Eighty thousand Rubels.
Twenty thousand to repay her aunt.
Fifty thousand would cover half the loan shark’s debt, and the remaining ten thousand would handle the overdue interest.
After paying the immediate 2,700 Rubels, she would have enough left for about eight months of interest payments.
But the contract was for a year, which meant she would have to find the 3,600 Rubels for the last four months somewhere.
Once her calculations were complete, Johanna divided the cash into three envelopes and locked them in a small wooden box that was impossible to open without its key—a precaution she had learned to take after her father once rooted through her belongings and stolen money she had hidden in a pillowcase.
She intended to bathe, but just in case, she fastened the sterling silver chain with the key around her neck before heading to the bathroom.
Thirty minutes later, she emerged, the last faint traces of Alpha pheromones washed away, leaving her skin completely scentless.
As she sat on the edge of her bed, blankly towel-drying her hair, a thought struck her.
She opened the bottom drawer of her nightstand and retrieved a small, hidden treasure.
It was a single silver button.
Old as it was, it should have been tarnished black by now, but it still gleamed, a testament to how often she polished it.
The button had belonged to him.
Marquis Neuwitz.
Leonid Neuwitz Rinke Elderic.
She had met him for the first time four years ago.
*
At sixteen, Johanna Lucerne had been—predictably—far more naive.
With her father refusing to work, the family’s finances had grown increasingly dire.
The money her mother earned from translating was not enough to keep them afloat.
More pressingly, her younger brother, Daniel, was due to start middle school when he turned eleven, and they could barely afford the tuition.
Unlike her, Daniel was a Dominant Alpha and exceptionally bright.
He constantly spoke of becoming a magitech engineer when he grew up.
Johanna wanted to see his dream come true more than anything.
Her own aspirations had long been shattered against the wall of reality, but she prayed Daniel, at least, would have a different life.
The problem, as always, was money.
Her search for a high-paying job had led her straight into a trap.
“Are you sure you’re not an Omega?” a man sneered, his eyes raking over her.
“That skin is so soft.
You have to be.”
“I told you, I’m not,” she insisted, trying to wrench her arm free.
“L-let go of me!”
The men who had lured her in with promises of a fortune were violent criminals.
Johanna had barely managed to escape the building where they were holding people captive, only to be cornered in a deserted alley.
“Hey, how old is she again?” one of them asked.
“Sixteen?”
“She’s just a kid…”
“Sixteen’s not that young,” the first man countered.
“Plenty of places would buy her.
Especially with a face like that.”
“We’ll have to run a trait test first,” another added.
“What if she’s an Omega pretending to be a Beta?”
Johanna didn’t have the strength to fight off three grown men.
She was trapped.
She scanned her surroundings for a weapon, anything she could use, but saw nothing.
“Come on, little girl, let’s go quietly,” the man gripping her arm cooed, tapping her cheek with his finger before letting out a snicker.
“You’d rather stay in one piece, wouldn’t you?”
Damn them all to hell.
Johanna bit her lip, glaring daggers at them.
If she screamed, would anyone come?
Was she really going to be dragged away like this?
Her mind raced, desperate for a way out.
“Go get a carriage,” the leader ordered.
“Slip the driver some cash.”
“Shit, this little rat is costing us money,” one of them grumbled.
“What if he refuses and tries to report us?”
“Then we kill him.”
Johanna prayed for a righteous driver, but the thought of him being murdered for her sake sent a chill of dread through her.
As the man’s brutish hand dragged her forward, her eyes landed on a liquor bottle lying near a tin trash can.
To reach it, she would have to break free and run five steps.
How?
How do I get away?
Just as a carriage pulled to a stop at the mouth of the alley, she knew it was now or never.
“Aargh!”
She bit down on the man’s forearm with all her might.
He screamed, his grip slackening from the sudden, sharp pain.
A human jaw was stronger than most people realized; she had torn his flesh deeply enough to draw blood.
“That crazy bitch…!” he roared.
Dark red blood dripped from his arm, soaking his sleeve.
Johanna scrambled away, dodging his attempt to grab her again, and sprinted toward the trash can.
“Hey!
Grab her!”
“What the hell happened?”
“Shit, you need to stop that bleeding!”
The other two men, who had started toward the alley’s entrance, turned back.
Realizing what had happened, they gave chase.
Johanna reached the trash can, snatched the bottle, and smashed it against the brick wall.
It shattered with a deafening crash, sending shards of glass flying.
A sharp sting on her cheek told her a fragment had cut her.
“D-don’t come any closer!” she stammered, her limbs trembling uncontrollably.
She clutched the jagged neck of the bottle, brandishing it at the thugs.
They just snorted, their contempt palpable as they advanced.
Even with a weapon, she was just a sixteen-year-old girl.