The Fourth Life She Guarded Me Chapter 04
In the middle of the night, I woke up burning.
When I looked down, the little snow-white thing had somehow crawled into my blankets.
Her body was terrifyingly hot.
I threw back the covers and reached out to touch her curly fur.
“Are you sick?” I asked.
She made no sound.
She was still as a stone.
I picked her up and walked outside.
The night wind brushed past us, moonlight falling over her body. Her white fur glowed in the dim light.
I released my life force, letting it wrap around her, feeding it to her slowly.
Between the moonlight and my life force, the heat radiating from her body finally began to subside.
Her breathing deepened.
I stood in the courtyard and waited.
Sure enough, before long she started gasping harshly, as if she were choking.
I poured more of my life force into her, holding nothing back.
If Grandmother saw this, her heart would break for me all over again.
But this was how I had always been.
Whoever I chose, I raised with everything I had.
I had treated the previous three the same way.
Now that it was her, I had no intention of changing.
Everything I had given those three, I would give to her.
Everything I had once hesitated to give, I would find a way to give her, too.
With that thought, I pushed even more of my life force into her.
At last, she transformed into a human in my arms.
She was a small girl, curled against me with her face flushed red, sleeping restlessly.
I took off my coat and wrapped her in it.
Then I sat in the courtyard, holding her.
After a while, she stopped choking, and her breathing steadied.
She burrowed into me.
She kept trying and trying, but couldn’t seem to get comfortable.
She had probably realized she wasn’t where she had been before.
Slowly, she opened her eyes.
I saw a pair of violet eyes.
The color was as vivid as gemstones, gleaming with a faint, internal light, as if power flowed within them.
With that white hair, she didn’t look like any ordinary creature.
I felt a flicker of confusion.
Did mixed-bloods look like this?
She was looking at me, too, equally puzzled.
“Who… are you?”
I smiled a little.
“Guess.”
She frowned.
A moment later, she realized she was immersed in my life force.
“What are you doing?”
“Raising you.”
“With your own life force?”
“What else?”
She fell silent.
The more I looked at her, the more I liked what I saw.
“Do you have a name?”
She nodded.
“My name is Meredith. What’s yours?”
She paused, then said quietly, “Paloma.”
“That doesn’t sound like a simple name.”
“…”
She stopped talking again.
I brushed the white hair from her forehead.
“Will you form a contract with me?”
She pressed her lips together.
“Better not.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think you can afford to raise me.”
“Want to try? Do you eat a lot?”
“…”
She stared at me for a long time before speaking slowly.
“My name is Paloma. Do you really think that’s the name of something with a small appetite?”
“I’m willing to raise you.”
“…If you’re not afraid of trouble, then we can form a contract.”
“Alright.”
I bit my finger, about to draw the contract mark on her forehead, but she turned her face away.
“If you don’t want to, that’s fine,” I said.
In a low voice, she said, “It’s not that I don’t want to.”
“Then why are you dodging?”
“How can you offer me that lowest-tier contract? Are you looking down on me?”
I lifted a brow.
It was the first time I’d seen a guardian reject a contract because the level was too low.
The previous three had refused every high-level contract I offered. The stronger the bond, the harder it would be for them to break it.
All of them had only been willing to sign the lowest-level pact.
That way, the power remained in their hands.
Paloma was different.
She was strange.
“Then what kind do you want?” I asked.
“A heartbond.”
She turned her face back to me, her eyes carrying a faint, contemptuous smile.
“As long as the heartbond remains, you can forget about ever getting rid of me.”
I smiled, too.
“A heartbond requires blood from the heart. Aren’t you afraid it will hurt?”
She wasn’t afraid at all. She shot back immediately.
“If you’re scared, you can back out now. I already warned you—I eat a lot. You might not be able to afford me.”
“I’m good at handling trouble. I’ve raised difficult guardians before. Don’t worry. No matter how much you eat, I’ll do my best to feed you.”
She looked at me for a long time.
The trace of mockery in her eyes slowly faded.
“…Idiot,” she muttered.
“What did you say?”
“I said, if we’re taking blood, then hurry up.”