Ian ran frantically. He raced madly through the night-fallen forest.

Occasionally sharp branches scratched his skin, but he didn’t feel it.

The unsettling fever consuming his body was devouring all thought and sensation. He had to wash it away, even physically.

Whoosh-.

Before long, the sound of cool water struck his face. The untimely night escape finally stopped at the foot of a waterfall.

Ian threw himself into the ice-cold water on the verge of freezing. The fierce stream poured down over his head.

At the same time, the afterimages of the atrocity he dared commit poured down as well. They stabbed at his conscience like daggers.

‘What have I done? What on earth have I done…!’

If I had known I would crumble so easily, I shouldn’t have accepted that medicine in the first place. Even if I did, I should have entrusted it to Gelda.

The medicine Plum gave a few hours ago was the kind that had to be dissolved and taken without mixing with other liquids.

However, the times when Helena was of sound mind during the day were extremely rare, and to bring down her fever as quickly as possible, it had to be absorbed immediately somehow.

It couldn’t be helped. Clinging to that meager excuse, Ian pushed his finger between Helena’s lips.

As if testing him, the slightly thick pill did not dissolve easily.

After a brief yet long deliberation, Ian slowly moved his finger from side to side. The medicine, rubbed by the warm tongue, began to dissolve little by little.

It was then that Helena’s upper and lower lips enveloped his index finger as if sucking on ice.

‘…!’

The cat-like tongue slid over his fingerprint.

From that moment on, Ian’s reason began to melt faster than the medicine. His muddled thoughts clung to and stretched across every nerve in his mind.

The patience he had built up layer by layer over years of endurance was uselessly crushed by that one soft, moist sensation.

The hesitant finger moved again. The worn-down medicine was now small enough to swallow.

Yet he did not remove the finger that was rubbing against her tongue. As if trying to perfectly examine the inside of Helena’s mouth, he thoroughly stroked and rubbed.

It was only after more than ten seconds, even after his fingers had increased to two, that Helena’s mouth became empty.

“Hngh…”

A groaning sound immediately flowed out, as if to fill the space where his fingers had been. Ian looked down at Helena without unclenching his gritted teeth.

Already on the third day with no sign of improvement despite various attempts.

Seeing her continue to suffer, a sinister solution raised its head in his chaotic mind.

You know a shortcut. Are you just going to stand by and watch this woman’s pain? What if she dies?

Typically, when overloaded like this, one had to endure the aftereffects alone.

However, in Helena’s current case, there was a way to halve the pain.

A method possible and necessary because of him.

It was to absorb her aura into his own body.

Moving the still raw, rampaging energy to a larger body that could handle it. It was a method to eliminate the rejection reaction.

Only.

‘The problem is that the method is too intimate.’

Ian’s gaze fixed on the lips that were half-parted, exhaling heated breaths. The skin, reddened further by the raging heat, glistened with moisture from the previous act. His mind was in extreme turmoil.

What would it taste like to bite that temptation? Was this how the first humans felt when they couldn’t resist the forbidden fruit?

Then would this moment become his sin?

“Mmm…”

The densely spread eyelashes trembled finely. Helena made another pained sound. With a small toss, her pale neck stood out. The contrasting color of her red hair pierced his retina with an almost violent vividness.

Ian’s last thread finally snapped.

‘I’m sorry, Helena.’

He could no longer hesitate and leaned his upper body over her. He couldn’t bear it anymore. It was an irresistible force.

For the sole reason that it was her, this immoral act even felt like a noble mission that must not disobey God’s command.

In a desire mixed with a sense of blasphemy and guilt, their lips finally met.

Ian first bit her upper lip and blew in his cool energy. Their breaths mingled, indistinguishable. Thick breaths exchanged, bringing their lips to the same temperature.

Helena’s brow, which had been furrowed and stiff for three days, was gradually relaxing. Ian slightly tilted his head to change the angle.

The lips that should have stopped at just touching finally began to explore within.

He brushed against the soft mucous membrane and clashed with her teeth. He sucked in Helena’s raging aura as if swallowing sweet fruit. He delved in relentlessly and yearned shamelessly.

He now filled with something else every corner he had checked with his fingers. He coveted without knowing his place.

“Hah…”

As if short of air, Helena occasionally let out uncontrolled breaths. Even that was sweet enough to make him dizzy.

Ian changed angles once more and pounced. Around that time, Helena’s fingertips scratched his back over his shirt. Not knowing what she was clinging to, she desperately clung on. It was a thrilling sensation that made him shudder involuntarily.

The moment her nails dug into his spine, Ian suddenly came to his senses.

‘What am I doing.’

His head, which had been consumed by an unsettling heat, rang a bright red alarm. He had to stop before crossing an irreversible river.

Thinking it was the last time, he mustered all his willpower with desperate strength. Barely biting down on it, he separated from Helena. The small sound of water painfully clawed at his heart.

And now. He was praying that his sin would be washed away by the waterfall baptism in the middle of the night.

‘To harbor lust towards a woman who can’t even open her eyes from pain, there’s a limit to insanity.’

But if that was all, he wouldn’t have blamed himself so much. He wasn’t condemning himself for arousing his body against a woman who wasn’t even of sound mind. Rather, it was the opposite.

‘I wish you were in your right mind. I wish you could fully remember all the time we shared.’

Ian wanted her to know it was him who had imprinted warmth on her lips. He wanted her to hold him in her tightly closed eyes and cherish this moment forever.

He didn’t want it to remain as a sensation felt by him alone. He wanted to immerse her completely within him, without leaving even a single drop.

That was what was unbearably pathetic and intolerable. He himself hadn’t known his affection of unknown depth would be this severe.

Of course, even if he had known…

‘You had no intention of stopping, did you.’

How was this any different from being a beast? Ian engraved a self-reproach bordering on despair upon himself.

He did not leave the foot of the waterfall until his lips, which had committed sin recklessly, turned blue.

Behind him, a figure quietly approached. As Ian turned around, a short exclamation flew first.

“Wow, so you were interested in the opposite sex after all.”

“…Eli.”

“I doubted it sometimes, you know. Of course, I respect all of Your Majesty’s preferences.”

Eli smirked as he raised a meaningful gaze from Ian’s lower body. Ian let out a long sigh with sunken shoulders.

“When did you get here?”

Ian waded through the water currents reaching his calves and staggered out to the shore. As he did so, he pointlessly struck the surface of the lake hard. Water splashed up to the rock Eli was standing on.

He paid no mind and extended his hand to Ian.

“Long enough to know who my lord’s woman is.”

Ian used the hand he offered as a foothold and leapt nimbly onto the rock. At the same time, he used the pulling force to push Eli down.

Splash, a not-so-small spray of water shot up.

“Cough, cough!”

Eli regained his balance, staggering, and wiped his face drenched with water. Looking down at him, Ian asked.

“Where are the rest?”

As soon as his coughing subsided, Eli answered readily.

“They’ll move as soon as the southern army joins with the central army. We’ll probably hear from them within this month, so it would be good to prepare in advance.”

“…We can’t postpone it any longer, can we.”

“If we’ve stirred up the hornet’s nest, we should burn it before they attack. We might be the ones to suffer otherwise.”

“…Right.”

Contrary to his words of agreement, Ian’s expression became dubious. Eli climbed up onto the rock, plopping down. After spitting out the last of the water in his mouth, he wore a grinning smile.

“By the way, I gave you this grace period, but you’re still at square one?”

“…”

Ian sat down next to him wordlessly. The dry rock formed small puddles from the water dripping from the two men.

Eli glanced at Ian’s face, faintly visible in the moonlight, and casually threw out words.

“Why are you agonizing so much? It’s unlike you not to just push forward.”

“What if she runs away?”

“Then catch her again.”

“And push forward again?”

Eli nodded as if it were obvious. Ian let out a deep sigh and turned away from Eli.

“Forget it. What am I trying to hear from someone who can’t distinguish between hunting and love…”

The gesture of brushing back his drooping silver hair was complicated. He rested both elbows on his bent knees and rubbed his brow with one hand.

He could still feel the red hair he had just grasped slipping through his fingers.

And the gap between her parted lips exhaling breaths redder than that, her two cheeks glistening with sweat. The eyelashes spread densely like a veil woven by angels, tickling his nose bridge, and the protruding collarbone that clung to his palm.

Just thinking about it, Ian felt himself heating up again. It was pathetically ridiculous. There was nothing he could do about it.

‘It’s always you, not me, who shows the bottom, Helen.’

Why is it that he always ends up being a pathetic and pitiful man to the one he wants to look best for?

Now even the way of retreat was gone. Perhaps it had been a foregone conclusion from the moment he decided to find Helena.

Just as Eugene’s existence was a stake for her, her existence was that for him. It was a life he willingly drove into his heart.

The center that made him throb, flutter, and feel alive.

If forcibly pulled out, he would crumble without leaving even a form. Like her at the moment of their reunion.

‘I wish… I could be that for you too. Is that too much to ask?’

Couldn’t such a day come, anytime would be fine?