Riana, standing in front of the door, thought it was a bit of a predicament.

She had intended to just change the water and towels early in the morning, but she heard a presence inside.

Riana took a deep breath and parted her lips.

“…Your Excellency, I’ve brought water.”

Riana quietly waited for a response, but there was no sound from inside.

She was sure she had heard something, but had she heard wrong?

“Your Excellency…”

“…Come in.”

As an answer came from the quiet interior, Riana’s fingertips trembled slightly.

She composed herself once again and carefully twisted and pushed the doorknob.

Then, through the opened door crack, a faint sweet scent and deep musk scent mixed and wafted in strongly.

It was an intoxicatingly thick and strangely alluring scent that she had never smelled before.

Had he lit a scented candle for a change of mood?

Strangely, her heart started beating rapidly.

Riana wondered a little curiously as she carefully stepped inside.

Sched was standing by the window with his back turned, wearing a thin robe.

The air filling the room somehow felt hot.

Broken and shattered objects were strewn about the floor.

The atmosphere emanating from his back figure in the long robe somehow felt different from usual.

It gave her a somewhat chilling feeling.

‘…It must be because of yesterday’s incident.’

Even though she had entered, he didn’t turn his head or give her a single glance.

That was rather fortunate.

Riana quietly watched his mood as she slowly stepped forward.

As the sound of her footsteps drew closer inside the room, the figure by the window flinched.

“There. …Leave it there and go.”

Sched spoke at a faster tempo than usual, with his back still turned to her.

Riana looked around, holding the water bottle and towel.

There… where?

Since he hadn’t pointed anywhere with his hand, Riana didn’t exactly understand what his order meant.

So understanding it to mean put it on the side table as usual, she headed towards the bed.

“Don’t come in any further, just leave it and go!”

Suddenly Sched shouted, turning to look at her.

Riana froze in place, startled.

And she noticed that his gaze was different from usual.

The purple pupils inside his bloodshot eyes glowed unusually.

Riana felt a chill at the abnormal color.

Soon his increasingly rough breathing filled the room hotly.

The elastic, huge body repeatedly swelled and shrank with labored breaths.

Riana instinctively stepped back.

The moment he saw her frightened expression, Sched’s desire burst forth like rising nausea.

He knows.

That if he follows this impulse now, he will surely regret it.

But then, when?

When can I have you?

Terrible possessiveness filled his mind.

And then.

“Ugh!”

His body moved before his thoughts.

Crash! The water bottle Riana was holding shattered, wetting the floor and scattering sharp fragments.

But he paid no heed and grabbed Riana’s wrist.

Desire he had never seen before was reflected in his brightly shining eyes.

“Your Excellency, I…!”

Sched twisted his lips as he looked at the woman in his grasp.

As soon as he saw those eyes, that nose, those lips, his complicated thoughts finally simplified into one.

“Come to think of it, we have nothing more to regret.”

A cold yet hot sneer flowed from the corners of his twisted lips.

What had he been afraid of?

We already hate each other to the fullest.

Finally, impulse overwhelmed reason.

As he was completely swallowed by passion, he roughly kissed Riana’s lips.

“Huh…!”

Hot heat wrapped around her lips and his deep breath dug into her mouth.

Everywhere he touched burned as if on fire due to his excessively high body temperature.

His body scent flowed deep into her lungs and seeped into her.

Riana felt strangely heated by the sweeter than usual scent.

The unfamiliar sensation was bewildering.

So she couldn’t push him away in time.

Just like the feelings she had harbored years ago had awakened.

Sched savored her scent in his mouth.

Only then did it feel like his burning thirst was being quenched.

But one sip was far from enough.

Sched indulged in her like someone intoxicated.

“Your Excellency…!”

Riana’s body fell onto the white bedsheet under his impatient touch.

His large, strong body pinned down her arms and looked down at her.

Hot heat poured down from him.

His heavy, dense musk scent pressed down on her suffocatingly. It felt like she was sinking, trapped in his scent as if submerged in deep water.

Her heated body tingled.

Emotions she couldn’t even understand herself crashed over her like a tidal wave.

Riana became breathlessly afraid.

“Haa, Louise.”

Sched lowered his body over her.

He who had been exploring her lips was now desiring something more.

She was sweeter and more fragrant than in his dreams.

“Your Excellency, please…”

Riana was scared of her own abnormally rapidly beating pulse.

At her trembling voice, Sched buried his face in her neck, inhaling her scent deeply as if to wear it away.

Don’t make such a voice. It makes me want to hear more.

His whole body shudders every time her trembling breath brushes his ear.

When he lifted his head, thoroughly intoxicated by her, he saw tears pooled on Riana’s pale face.

The moment their eyes met, tears like glass beads flowed down her cheeks.

You only cry like this when I approach you.

You, who didn’t shed a single tear even when bitten by hunting dogs or stabbed by heretics’ knives, burst into tears at my kiss.

Sched stole her precious tears with his lips.

Then Riana turned her head away.

Sched tasted her tears on the tip of his tongue.

It should have been salty, but had the taste of hatred always been this sweet?

It was so sweet that he wanted to possess all of her tears.

Sched gazed at her wet eyes shining like glass beads.

Louise’s smiling face from his dream overlapped.

But in reality, there was only Riana dropping teardrops.

You will never smile at my kiss.

From now on, there will be no you smiling at me.

At that fact, Sched explored her even more deeply.

Under his touch, she bit her lip hard and exhaled intermittent breaths.

And as he grabbed her waist and pulled her closer, Riana trembled and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Ugh…!”

A voice soaked in pain flowed out between her tightly clenched teeth.

At the same time, Sched felt a damp sensation wetting his hand.

When he removed his hand that had been holding her waist, his hand was soaked with blood.

Blood had also seeped through Riana’s black maid uniform, even staining the bed sheets red.

At the bright red mark, Sched’s head cooled down.

Her wound that had been healing had burst open again under his rough touch.

Only then did reason slowly return.

The blood that had been boiling hot gradually cooled down.

‘What have I…’

He backed away from Riana, looking at the blood on his hand.

His heart was pounding. At a different temperature, a different rhythm from the excitement earlier.

Riana curled up her body with the reopened wound and sat up.

She looked at Sched with reddened eyes.

Tears fell one after another from her eyes.

Sched hesitated, his hand reaching towards her tear-stained cheek.

Riana’s blood was wet on his fingertips.

Sched hid his blood-stained hand behind his back and turned his gaze away in confusion.

“…Get out.”

As the order like a hiss escaped through his teeth, Riana fled his room.

The blanket stained and crumpled with blood, sharp fragments scattered on the floor, objects strewn about.

But in contrast, the air was spotlessly clean and quiet, and cold as ice.

Sched, left alone in it, clenched his trembling hand.

He had thought there was nothing more to regret.

He believed there was nothing more to be broken.

He was certain there was no deeper abyss.

But… Louise Ideana, as if mocking him, became an even deeper abyss and dropped him.

Riana, who had fled into the hallway, collapsed to the ground after just a few steps.

Her body, slumped in the pitch-black corridor, trembled.

She clutched her lower abdomen where the pain had worsened.

“Why…”

Her head was spinning.

She couldn’t understand why Sched had done such a thing to her.

She couldn’t even fathom what the hot desire in his eyes had been.

Why he looked at her with such longing when he didn’t even like her…

“The way you are punished is for me to decide.”

The words he had said yesterday echoed in her mind.

Tears she thought had stopped fell onto her disheveled clothes.

Did he have to push her this far? Did he really have to shake her like this?

What made her even more miserable was her heart responding as if tamed by his very breath.

Her mind clouded over at his thick body scent, and her body heated up as if responding to his desire.

She had clung to him with pale fingertips, unable to resist properly.

Without uttering a single word of refusal.

In that moment, she recalled.

A very old and worn-out fantasy.

The days when she had dreamed of kissing him in bed together, making love, and sharing a warm blanket.

Sched’s touch seemed to mock her ugly desire.

Saying, look how easily you’re responding after betraying and abandoning me.

Saying, look how you’re submitting to just one of my kisses.

Every moment she became aware of that emotional contradiction, it felt as if her heart was being torn to shreds.

The pain from the day her father stabbed her in the chest had been better than this.

“No, Louise. You shouldn’t…”

Riana bit her lip.

Don’t dream.

Don’t even think about a happy future or love.

You’re Louise Ideana.

Riana constantly reminded herself of who she was.

Just then.

“Miss Riana?”

A familiar voice was heard as light approached in the darkness.

Riana lifted her head and hurriedly got up.

But her weakened legs failed to properly support her on the floor and staggered.

“Are you alright?”

A gentle hand supported her.

Eclas looked at her, holding a lantern.

His gaze confirmed her reddened eyes, and soon discovered her reopened wound at the waist.

“Your wound…!”

Riana wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and shook her head.

“I’m fine.”

As Riana stepped back, Eclas furrowed his brow.

His red eyes stopped at her neck.

Riana covered the mark left on her white neck with her fingertips.

However, it wasn’t just her neck that needed to be hidden.

The large handprint left on her wrist, her disheveled hair and clothes.

After confirming the series of evidence, his gaze turned towards Sched’s bedroom.

“Don’t tell me… Did Duke Lester do this?”

Eclas’s voice, having grasped the whole story, somehow lacked its usual gentle warmth.