Chapter 2191

Yet, from Shannon, Thalia saw a different version of Louise. Shannon said that Louise might actually love Thalia. This time, Thalia wanted to take a chance to bet that her mother would finally feel something toward her. … The strange yet familiar warmth lingered at the tip of Thalia's nose. She went from initially stiff and cautious to letting go completely, eventually falling back into a quiet calm. Just when she thought her attempt at getting closer had failed, a hand suddenly and gently rested on her shoulder. What followed was the familiar presence of the nine tails, wrapping around her. She hadn't noticed when Louise's nine tails had appeared behind her. Now, the tails unfurled from behind her, moving forward in the way Thalia once embraced Shannon, enveloping her child in the warmth of their embrace. Above her, there seemed to be a silent sigh. As Thalia felt herself surrounded by her mother's fox tails, a sudden ache filled her chest. Tears, uncontrollable as they came, began to fall once more. If it had started as a tentative approach, now, she was completely immersed in this warmth. Then, the overwhelming sense of grievance flooded her, drowning her entirely. She felt wronged, yet the hardest part was that she couldn't understand why. Thalia's arms instinctively tightened around Louise. At that moment, she was no different than a kid. "Mother… Mother…" she sobbed. For a brief moment, Louise's heartbeat faltered at the sound of Thalia's unrestrained sobbing. All the years of her detached and carefree demeanor cracked, shattered by a single word. After a long silence, Louise led Thalia to the back of her room. With a soft flick of her tail, she wiped away the tears from Thalia's face. Then, she gently placed a delicate box into her hands. Thalia sniffled, opening the box. Inside, she found several old manuscripts. The scent of ink was familiar, but beneath it, there was something fainter—an old, long-lost presence. "These are the stories your father wrote." Inside the box were his manuscripts, bound into solitary volumes. When Thalia had been brought back to the clan all those years ago, she had asked Louise about them, but Louise had told her that those things were all burned. "Every time I go through them, I use spells to restore them to their original state. But after all this time, his presence has grown faint." As Louise spoke, there was a subtle softness in her eyes, a tenderness that seemed to belong only to those long-forgotten memories. Thalia stared at the carefully preserved manuscripts in her hands, then at Louise standing before her. For a moment, she didn't know what to say. After a long pause, Thalia finally spoke, her words heavy and awkward. "So, you were with him because you loved him." Her very existence was the result of that love. Louise sat down beside her, as if slipping back into her old self, casual, languid, but with an added depth in her demeanor. "At first, I really only needed a mortal man to bear a child with my bloodline, a half-demon offspring." It had been the clan's decision. Even as the Ruler of Foxes, she couldn't refuse. She had appeared on that mountain to find a suitable man to father her child, one who could be a worthy parent to her descendants. Edmund, however, had never been on her list of candidates. Even if she had to mate with a human, she disliked weak, frail men like him. Yet, somehow, that man, taking advantage of the life debt she owed him, insisted on offering himself to her. Between them, it was less about her choosing him and more about him relentlessly clinging to her until she had no choice but to accept him.