Chapter 384: Endless Nightmares

Leon thought back to when he was searching the kingdom. He met her.Leon stood at the entrance, his eyes locked on a woman standing by the tables. Theresa. He noticed how the woman from his dreams was living a completely different life now.

She was married, visibly pregnant, and clearly not better off financially than she used to be in his memories. From the quiet gossip he had picked up, she was completely cut off from her family. She had become a disgrace to them, practically disowned.

But despite that, she seemed to be doing fine for herself, steadily rising in the ranks at her regular, mundane job. She wore her work attire with a stubborn sort of pride.

Then, she shifted her weight and turned her head. She caught him looking at her.

Her brow furrowed in mild confusion, just a stranger noticing another stranger staring for a little too long. She didn't recognise him at all. She gave him a brief, polite nod before looking away.

All Leon felt was a sudden, blinding rage. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached, and his hands curled into tight fists at his sides. He wanted to march over there and tear her life apart. But what could he actually do? Walk up to a pregnant stranger and scream at her in public? Hate her for something that happened in his... Dream?

How surprising that she could not recognise him. He used to be the King... She had to have been cut off from her family before he was crowned, then... There were still people who didn't recognise him? He decided to leave before he got recognised.

It sounded completely insane. But it was far too realistic to just be a nightmare. Leon was absolutely sure he had never crossed paths with this woman in reality. Yet, as he watched her awkwardly adjust her posture and tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear, her mannerisms and her face matched exactly with the ones burned into his mind. They were spot on. Every little movement was familiar. It was terrifying.

He could not stand being there any longer. He felt physically suffocated just sharing the same air as the person who killed Riven.

Leon took a step back, his chest heaving as the burning anger suddenly dissolved into a cold, sickening wave of guilt. He closed his eyes, the memory flashing behind his eyelids in vivid, gruesome detail.

He wanted to blame her. God, he needed to blame her to make himself feel better. But the truth was, she wasn't the one who actually killed Riven.

No. The one who killed Riven was him.

Theresa was the one who had manipulated the entire situation. She was the architect of their ruin, the one who had smiled coldly and handed him the knife, but it was he who finished the act.

Leon slid deeper into the water, but the heat of the bath was no longer comforting. It wasn't peaceful anymore. His safe haven had been breached by his own mind. Too many thoughts haunted him. Ever since he had that first dream, he simply could not sleep in peace.

Every time he closed his eyes, his brain tortured him with a different version of events. And in every single version, Riven died.

Sometimes Leon killed him directly, and sometimes it was indirectly because of his own selfish choices. He couldn't tell anyone about this. Who would understand? But keeping it bottled up meant he hadn't had a single moment of peace since it all began.

The worst part wasn't just watching Riven die. It was the fact that he was watching himself. He was so incredibly cruel in those dreams. Seeing himself torture, berate, and demean Riven with such cold indifference made him sick to his stomach.

It forced him to face a terrifying reality: if he had continued down his previous path, if he hadn't changed, he really would have turned out exactly like that monster in his nightmares. He wished the dreams would just stop, but he knew they weren't going away anytime soon.

In one, he had given Riven back to Ronan just to secure a better trade deal. He had been desperate. Sahira had played him completely, leaving him humiliated. He had to recoup his financial losses, and Riven was just... Convenient collateral.

He handed the half-wolf over without a second thought. Not long after, Riven was murdered, and Leon hadn't even been allowed to attend the funeral. He had just sat in his castle, rich and completely alone.

Then there was the other time. The time he ordered the beheading.

In that reality, Riven had committed the supposedly treacherous act of leaving him and simply moving on. Riven had found happiness elsewhere, and Leon's pride couldn't handle it.

When that bunny Riven loved so much fell severely ill, Riven had no choice but to come back to the Lion Kingdom, fully knowing he was a wanted criminal. He was betting on the fact that he would get caught by the guards and dragged directly in front of the King. Riven was ready and willing to exchange his own life for the life-saving medicine.

Leon felt completely weirded out watching it all unfold in the third person. He hovered in the dream like a ghost, watching his alternate self sit comfortably on the throne. The King Leon in the dream looked down at the kneeling half-wolf as if he were nothing more than an insect on the floor.

"Ironic, a healer that cannot cure himself. Who should I feel bad for? The bunny who trusted you of all people, or you who will die soon?"

He watched himself agree to hand over the medicine and save the bunny. But there was no mercy in it. Agreeing to the trade meant he got exactly what his bruised ego wanted: he got to take Riven's life.

He saw so many scenarios just like that one play out, night after night. The sheer volume of his own cruelty was driving him mad. Leon roughly ran his wet hands down his face, wishing he could just scrub the images out of his brain.