Delphine glared at the man hazily visible through the veil, silently mouthing small words.

‘Who… are you exactly?’

Surprisingly, one corner of the man’s red lips curved up crookedly.

Startled, her eyes widened, but the man turned his gaze back to the nobles surrounding him as if nothing had happened.

Could he have read her lips? At this distance, and through the veil?

‘No, I must be oversensitive.’

Given what had happened to her recently, it wasn’t unreasonable.

Just two days ago, hadn’t her father’s head been cut off right before her eyes?

At that thought, her fingertips began to tremble and her eyes burned hot.

Delphine bit her lower lip hard, holding back the tears that threatened to fall.

I am Delphine Pembrook.

The sole heir to the honorable Pembrook family.

So even beneath the veil, Delphine Pembrook must not shed tears in front of people.

After the wedding, Delphine headed to the Pembrook mansion, or rather, what was now the Pryde mansion.

The moment she stepped out of the carriage.

Delphine’s face turned as white as the wedding dress she wore.

Memories of that day, wading through pools of blood searching for survivors, came crashing over her like a wave.

“Ugh…”

“Please enter quickly.”

The imperial messenger brusquely urged her as she stood trembling.

His attitude was closer to that of a guard escorting a criminal rather than a bride.

Delphine crossed the mansion’s threshold with unsteady, faltering steps.

But as soon as she entered the hall, she found herself frozen in place once again.

The mansion that had been a sea of blood had perfectly regained its original appearance in just three days.

The carpet that seemed beyond repair from being soaked in blood, the antique furniture.

Even the chandelier on the ceiling where her father’s blood had splattered. Everything.

It was exactly as it had been before.

As if it had all been a dream.

Delphine stood in the hall in her wedding dress, murmuring vacantly.

“A dream…? Yes, was everything I saw just a dream?”

Perhaps she had mistaken a terrible nightmare for reality.

Or maybe she was still in a dream.

Haha, the imperial messenger led her to the inner chamber like an escort, as she laughed with a distorted smile.

“Lord Pryde will be here soon.”

With those words, he closed the door and left the room.

The sound of the messenger’s footsteps passing down the corridor could not be heard.

The reason he was guarding the door was obvious.

A noble’s marriage is only recognized after the wedding night is consummated.

So that doll-faced messenger will be the witness to prove that man and her slept together?

When that man enters the room, he’ll stand by the canopied bed claiming to be a witness to the sacred union, and in the morning he’ll take away the bloodstained white sheet.

Delphine collapsed onto the bed still wearing her wedding dress.

The bridal veil felt as heavy as an iron crown.

Delphine roughly tore the veil from her hair and threw it forcefully into a corner.

Ioan.

“Are you… happy, miss?”

The slave boy who looked up at her like a dog, and the man who gracefully mingled with the nobles.

The same brown eyes. The same color hair. The same name.

…But were they really the same person?

And her father, who had always been loyal to the imperial family, suddenly committing treason? None of it made sense.

“I need to think… think…”

She tried to concentrate, but it felt like her mind was shrouded in fog.

Her hands and entire body had been trembling uncontrollably since earlier.

As she anxiously clutched the blanket, trying her best to gather her thoughts, the door to the chamber opened with a thud.

“…Wife.”

It was that man. The man with Ioan’s face.

Wife?

Delphine was shocked at being addressed that way, and for the first time, she examined the man’s appearance closely.

Dirty blonde hair with some brown mixed in, and light brown eyes.

Unusually pale skin.

A face with such light pigmentation that it gave a strangely sensual impression, as if wet.

…He was a beautiful man.

Beautiful enough for her to notice even in this situation.

Delphine continued to stare at the man’s face as if entranced.

A face very similar to that of the strangely beautiful slave boy she remembered.

However, the appearance of a fully grown man, his large, thick body neatly covered in a white uniform, was also subtly different from her memories.

Hesitating, Delphine carefully opened her mouth.

“…Ioan?”

The man closed the chamber door with a thud and walked towards her.

“My. Calling me by name already, wife? No.”

His red lips drew a gentle line.

“Delphine?”

After pronouncing her name in a low voice, he closed his eyes for a moment.

As if moved by the mere act of saying that name.

“Delphine… To think that you are my wife.”

Delphine raised her head in surprise at the dangerously lowered voice.

The man approached her, slowly unbuttoning his uniform one by one.

Her heart fell with a thump along with the sound of his uniform jacket hitting the floor.

Was she really going to consummate the marriage tonight?

With the man who had beheaded her father just three days ago?

The nausea that suddenly welled up overwhelmed her momentary shock at the man’s devilishly beautiful appearance.

Delphine cried out in a rushed, irritable tone.

“Ioan? It is you, isn’t it?”

The man, on the other hand, murmured softly, still maintaining his composure.

“My name is indeed Ioan, wife.”

“You know what I mean! Why are you pretending not to know your master?”

“Master? …Ah. I didn’t know your tastes ran in that direction. Of course, I’ll gladly oblige that as well, wife.”

He replied smoothly as he loosened the tie that had been choking his neck.

Unlike his eyes, which had deepened with dark passion, his demeanor remained calm and smooth.

His large, solid body stood before her.

Delphine felt a sense of powerlessness, as if facing an enormous wall.

“No, I mean…”

She couldn’t finish her sentence.

Because his thick fingers slowly caressed her bitten lips, then entered and probed deep inside her mouth.

His other large hand languidly stroked her nape.

Delphine gasped for breath, overcome by maddening tension and anxiety.

Ioan. If it were him, he would never have done this to her.

That slave boy didn’t even dare to look her in the eye.

‘Who is he? I don’t know a man like this.’

So was he really a different person from Ioan? Despite having such a similar face, and even the same name and surname?

…Could they be twins?

Even so, they would still be of lowly birth.

The Empire never granted noble titles to those of slave origin, no matter how great their achievements.

When she looked at the man with trembling eyes full of confusion, his brown eyes burned even hotter, as if set aflame.

His large hands cupping her face tightened their grip.

Though the touch was as careful as caressing a feather, the sensation was too rough and firm.

These were hands unlike those of nobles, who never held anything but jeweled ornamental swords.

Were these really the hands of a nobleman?

Delphine desperately tried to recall her memories from three years ago.

What were Ioan’s hands like?

“What are you thinking about, wife?”

Had he noticed that she was comparing him to someone else?

Delphine flinched at the low voice tinged with danger.

For a moment, she recalled the blood that had spurted from her father’s neck up to the chandelier.

The original Ioan, that slave boy, would never have done this to her, his master.

But what if this man really wasn’t Ioan?

What reason would a man who so easily killed her father have not to cut her throat as well?

He was the Empire’s hero and the Emperor’s closest confidant, while she was now just a noble from a fallen traitorous family.

But it was hard to believe that such an identical person could exist in the world.

Moreover, there was something oddly dissonant about this man’s demeanor.

As if someone who wasn’t a noble was wearing the mask of one.

Or as if something inhuman was wearing a human disguise…

Gnawing on her lower lip, Delphine stared at him intently and blurted out.

“…Is this why you were in such a hurry to rush the marriage?”

Trying to hide her flinching, Delphine deliberately stared at him as she murmured.

“Were you looking not for a wife, but… a whore to satisfy your lust every night?”

Like your mother?

She had heard that Ioan was sold cheaply to the Pembrook mansion by his mother, who was a prostitute in the 3rd district.

The boy had been most sensitive to mentions of his mother among his many inferiority complexes.

Once, during an argument, he had beaten a servant who brought up his mother to a bloody pulp and was locked in the storehouse to starve for ten days.

Though she didn’t say it out loud, the man clearly understood her implication.

His gentle brown eyes instantly blazed like dry kindling set aflame.

But only for a moment.

Soon his eyes sank colder than extinguished embers, as frigid as ice.

His lips curved upwards.

The man pressed his large body, radiating heat, close to her in her wedding dress.

At that moment, Delphine felt the courage she had barely mustered crumble to dust.

Despite his cold and elegant expression, he was terrifyingly aroused.

Thanks to the bridal education she had received from her nanny, Delphine could quickly recognize that fact.

The man looked down at her pale face from close range, a hint of a smile playing on his lips.

“Do you wish to annul this marriage?”