Ch.193Chapter 193 – Battle for Possession (2)

“Ugh, ugh…”

“……..”

Detective Inspector Lestrade, who had briefly looked around before carrying the unconscious Adler collapsed on the street to her home.

“N-no…”

“……?”

After several hours, Adler still showed no signs of waking up, just groaning in bed. As she watched him with worried eyes for a long time, she began to listen to the sounds escaping from his lips in his sleep.

“No… don’t… please don’t…”

“…Mr. Adler?”

“I-I’ll… really break at this rate…..”

Gradually, her complexion began to darken.

“S-stop… stooop… it’s my fault… hic.”

“……..”

“Ugh, eek? Haah, ah…”

Adler’s moans, as he began to twitch with his eyes closed, started to pierce her ears clearly.

– Swish…

After some time passed like this, Lestrade began to reach out her hand with a dark expression.

– Squeeze…

“Mmh?”

When her rough hand carefully took Adler’s, he briefly stopped convulsing and mumbled in his sleep again with a pale face.

“I’m… a married man…”

And then came the silence.

“…What on earth happened to you.”

In the silence, Lestrade wiped Adler’s sweat-covered forehead with a serious expression, then narrowed her eyes and lowered her head.

“…….”

Then, with a slightly flushed face, she pressed her head against Adler’s body and began sniffing him like a detection dog.

“Ugh…”

Suddenly she frowned, jerked her head back, and muttered in a cold voice.

“This smell…”

The somehow unpleasant and fishy smell permeating Adler was something she had never experienced before, so she couldn’t identify it.

But she could detect the sweet scent faintly mixed with it.

“…Holmes.”

Although she had the slight disadvantage of not being the quickest thinker, it wasn’t for nothing that she was called a specialist in arrests at such a young age.

Superior physical abilities unmatched in combat skills. And animal-like senses that matched those physical abilities.

Those superhuman abilities, normally used to track criminals, were now telling her who the owner of the faint scent on Adler’s body was.

“That’s Holmes’s childish perfume smell…”

Lestrade’s hand began to tremble quietly as she muttered this through gritted teeth.

“Why…”

Clearly, the person before her was a heinous criminal, someone who would be better off gone for London’s peace, a villain deserving no sympathy.

In contrast, Sharlotte Holmes was a great detective protecting London’s justice. Someone she herself had received help from multiple times, an undeniable pride and hope of England.

So there must be a reason why she had reduced Adler to this state.

Adler deserved whatever he got from her.

“Why did you do this…”

But why, when she imagined what Adler might have suffered at Sharlotte’s hands last night, did it make her so nauseated?

“…This is too much, isn’t it?”

That wasn’t all. Her chest felt burning hot, while her head turned ice cold.

“This is… a crime.”

As she muttered this, Lestrade suddenly realized she had fallen into extreme anger.

“Ugh…”

“….!”

But before she could think about the cause, her senses, amplified by anger, detected another female scent from Adler’s body as he began to moan softly again.

“…Professor Moriarty.”

Although it was fainter than Sharlotte’s, this time she could identify the owner more easily.

The only person who would deliberately mark every inch of Adler’s body with her scent and mana would be the Professor, his actual owner.

– Grind…

Suddenly recalling Professor Moriarty’s sexual exploitation of Adler, Lestrade began grinding her teeth with murderous eyes.

“He’s not your toy…”

And then, looking down at Adler who had somehow become a plaything for the professor and the detective, she muttered.

“My husband is…..”

Then the officer trailed off and opened her eyes wide.

“…my husband?”

Of course, she and Issac Adler were legally married.

But it was just a contract marriage for mutual benefit.

Adler to use the officer’s power, and she to prevent his wrongdoings against women—a show-window couple with no genuine affection from the beginning.

“……..”

That should have been the case.

“This is strange…”

Looking at Adler, who was moaning with a pale, frightened face, she felt her heart tighten.

‘…Is it sympathy?’

She briefly considered this, but soon shook her head.

Having sympathized with countless people in her work as a police officer, she knew well that the emotion pervading her now was not sympathy.

‘Then is it a sense of debt?’

Was she feeling indebted to Adler, who had cleared all her debts and was secretly sending donations?

But the emotion was becoming too intense for that.

‘If not that, then…’

Something more primal, more instinctive.

‘…Jealousy?’

Constantly questioning herself about what it could be, Lestrade suddenly reached a possibility she had never properly considered before.

“Huh?”

And then, she blinked with a stunned expression.

“…What, what ridiculous thoughts.”

Lestrade shook her head vigorously and muttered.

“How could I like a trash who plays with women… That’s impossible.”

“……..”

“He’s the type I hate most in the world. Such a jerk…”

But contrary to her words, her gaze began to waver.

“I’m sure I hate him, but…”

Although there hadn’t been any reports of him harassing women since he made his promise to her.

Although his appearance, which she had thought annoying, sometimes looked slightly handsome when he smiled at her with his eyes.

Although despite being prepared to have her body defiled when making the contract with him, he had never treated her sexually as rumored, except for that one incident, which sometimes made her feel a confusion close to attraction.

Although when she saw his haggard expressions and mutterings when alone, she had sometimes worried that there might be dark traumas or circumstances hidden behind his bright facade.

Although when he proposed to her, choosing her over Sharlotte and Professor Moriarty, her heart had fluttered a bit, as if she couldn’t help being a woman.

Although she liked his words about wanting an equal marital relationship rather than a one-sided one, and that she didn’t need to take his surname during their marriage because he liked the name Zia Lestrade, which sounded slightly romantic.

‘…But that doesn’t mean I like you…’

Having somehow enumerated all the reasons why she might like Adler, Lestrade bowed her head and continued to deny it with a flushed face.

‘This is just… well… you know…’

“Home…”

‘….!?’

But at that moment, Adler’s sleep-talking.

“…I want to go home.”

Hearing that almost tearful murmur, Lestrade’s eyes began to waver quietly.

“Please send me home now…”

As far as she knew, Adler didn’t have a special residence.

He had left the academy dormitory, and calling the back alley hideout a home seemed a bit much.

Then, there was only one place he could call home.

“I don’t like overtime… Team Leader…”

Only this newlywed home where he and she were now.

– Thump, thump…

“…Mmh.”

Quietly pondering this fact to herself, Lestrade suddenly frowned as she became aware of her rapidly increasing heartbeat.

“No, this is…”

And then, deliberately bringing her face close to Adler’s, she muttered.

“It’s just a coincidence… It has nothing to do with Adler…”

– Thumpthumpthumpthump…

“……..”

But when she experimentally brought her face close enough that her lips almost touched Adler’s, her face turned bright red like a radish and her heartbeat began to race uncontrollably.

“Ugh…”

Frozen in that state for a while, Lestrade faced Adler with a helpless expression.

‘…I like this person?’

Covering her mouth with her hand lest her rough breath touch him, she muttered inwardly with a dazed expression on her heated face.

– Ring ring ring…!

‘….!!!!’

Suddenly, the mechanical telephone in the living room, which she had bought with great determination, rang loudly.

“Pu, puha…”

“Mmm…”

“…Eek?”

Startled, she exhaled sharply, and Adler, frowning at her breath and shifting his body, accidentally wrapped his arm around Lestrade’s waist.

– Squeeze…

Then, holding her in his arms, Adler fell back asleep.

“Um, excuse me…”

With a flustered expression, Lestrade tried to escape from his embrace, but seeing his now more peaceful face, she began to hesitate.

– Swish…

Then, covering her face with both hands, she buried her head in Adler’s embrace.

“I shouldn’t be doing this…”

This scene, too sweet for a show-window couple, didn’t last long, however.

– Ring ring ring ring…!!!

“Mmm…”

The telephone ringing again from the living room made Adler stir again, naturally breaking the embrace with Lestrade.

“…Haah.”

As Adler turned his back to her, leaving Lestrade alone in the corner of the bed, a cold sigh escaped from her lips.

.

.

.

.

.

“Hello?”

– Officer Lestrade? It’s Holmes.

About a minute later.

– But I’m not sure if I have the right number? Is this really your home…

“It is, so get to the point.”

– Ah, yes. Actually…

Lestrade, who had come out to the living room with a dark expression, frowned and answered irritably to the call from 221B Baker Street.

– I was just wondering if Adler might be there…

“He’s not.”

– What?

Before Sharlotte’s question could even finish, Lestrade immediately gave a direct answer.

“Adler is not here.”

– Really…?

Her trademark snow-white eyes were very slowly changing to a different color.

“…Why would I lie?”