I need to think.

What should I do.

Whether I should really accept this man as he is.

“Wait……”

Delphine, who was about to stop him, momentarily held her breath at his sudden action of diving into her.

A strange sensation she had never felt before was spreading from the tips of her toes.

Her mind drifted far away, and her judgment blurred.

All distracting thoughts and worries disappeared, and only he before her occupied her mind.

“Wait……”

Soon, something massive like a tidal wave engulfed her.

Surprised by the unexpected situation, Delphine collapsed into Ioan’s arms, pitifully calling his name.

“What, what is this……”

Frightened, she unknowingly teared up.

But before she could even think about what she had just experienced, her body was lifted up.

“Del……”

Her heart stirred again at that touch, as if handling a fragile being.

After that, she couldn’t even utter words like ‘wait’ or ‘stop’.

The heat rising throughout her body made even her hesitation about whether this was really okay evaporate.

“Ioan……”

Her voice calling his name mixed with an unfamiliar nasal sound that even she found strange.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Del……”

His voice, lower and gentler than ever before, made it feel like every cell in her body would melt.

No, such a mild expression was inadequate to describe the sensation he gave her.

Looking down at her as if he would devour her, he took off the shirt he was still wearing and threw it aside.

The beautiful man’s upper body, filled with muscles without a trace of fat, was revealed.

Delphine suddenly recalled the memory of him not taking off his shirt completely to hide the scars on his back.

How far had she, and he, come since then?

“Del……”

He whispered softly and embraced her.

The momentary relaxation from that seemingly gentle act was short-lived.

Delphine gasped in shock at the unfamiliar sensation she was experiencing for the first time in her life.

Any doubts about his identity had long since disappeared far away.

The shock of experiencing such closeness with each other was tremendous.

“Del……”

For a while, he gently stroked her hair or licked away the falling tears.

The unfamiliar sensation that made her whole body tingle only lasted for a moment.

As she twisted her head this way and that, listening to his coaxing voice, a strange sensation began to bloom somewhere, like a flower bud opening.

“No, I don’t like it……”

I’m scared. This, I don’t know this.

Ioan, who firmly embraced Delphine as she tried to struggle, whispered in a voice boiling with excitement.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Del……”

Delphine burst into tears.

However, the man, as sensitive as a beast, couldn’t miss the subtle change that had occurred within her.

Soon after, Delphine was surprised again by the realization that he had been waiting for her all this time.

While clinging to his firm body that seemed like it wouldn’t even be scratched by her nails, not once did any other thought cross her mind.

It was simply impossible.

He pushed her to the very limit, approaching relentlessly without rest.

“Del.”

Even as he behaved like someone who had lost his mind, he urged her.

“My name. Call my name.”

“Ioan……!”

Without realizing it, Delphine called out his name like a scream.

At this moment, it didn’t matter if he was an enemy, or some demonic being.

It felt like she could willingly take his hand and follow him even if they were to fall into hell.

The unfamiliar experience she was having for the first time in her life was that overwhelming.

Ioan, Ioan.

Delphine clung to him and called his name over and over again, crying.

For an unknown amount of time, until her voice became hoarse.

He leaned on her, calling out her name as if spitting it out.

“Del……”

As the moment when everything turned white passed, their eyes met in the blurry vision as he looked down at her.

Even after taking her like that, he still had a thirsty expression.

As if he couldn’t be satisfied unless he possessed every part of her.

Then what about herself? What kind of face was she making now?

Embracing the neck of the man who had deceived her and restrained her comrades, lying defenseless against him.

As that fact dawned on her, unbearable guilt and self-loathing began to flood in where the pleasure had passed.

“Sob……!”

But at that moment. He pressed his body against her again.

As if he wouldn’t give her a chance to think.

Without exception, her consciousness began to blur.

But even as her reason drifted further and further away, Delphine could clearly feel just one thing.

A line had been crossed.

Like the River Styx, a line that once crossed, could never be returned from.

She had a feeling that after today, everything would irreversibly change.

This man too.

……And herself as well.

Pryde gently stroked the chin of Delphine, who had fallen asleep as if collapsing from exhaustion.

His woman, his wife, who slept with a face like a saint, bearing the marks he had left all over her body.

“……Really, to think you were a saint.”

Pryde sneered quietly as he gazed at that beautiful face.

The feeling when he found out she was a descendant of the saint.

“……If you could? What would you be willing to do?”

The whisper he heard when he was desperately wishing for just one thing.

At that time, he had answered without hesitation.

“Anything.”

Not once since then had he regretted his choice.

Even as he abandoned his humanity, sold his soul, and walked a path of blood.

As long as he could protect her, nothing else mattered.

But who would have thought that she, of all people, would be a descendant of the saint.

How could this be.

Why, of all people.

Among all those people, why her?

Could this really be called a coincidence?

He, who had made a contract with the demon who burned the saint to death.

It felt almost as if it might be God’s arrangement to punish him.

‘No.’

If this was someone’s intention, it would be the demon’s doing, not God’s.

What else but a demon would play such a cruel joke with human fate?

It was a power obtained by staining his hands with the blood of a thousand people.

With that power, he erased the memories of his past from the minds of all the people in the empire.

Yet the brainwashing didn’t work on her alone. Because she was a descendant of the saint.

“Mmm……”

At that moment, she stirred with a faint sleep-talking sound.

The traces of anguish had vanished from Pryde’s face as he looked at her sleeping face.

Regardless of how it came to be, he had ultimately protected her and even had her in his arms like this.

The woman who had been his only saint since that day he encountered her in that blood puddle when he was the most wretched being in the world.

Having obtained her like this after a lifetime of only being able to look at her, what else could be so important?

Pryde caressed the cheek of the sleeping Delphine with a satisfied expression.

She had felt all of him so thoroughly that she had turned back with this face that felt almost holy.

However, occasionally, that is, whenever he gave her even a slight break, guilt would soon seep into this pretty face.

Like someone doing something they shouldn’t with someone they shouldn’t.

That made him anxious.

Even though he had finally taken the woman he thought was a saint in heaven, the ecstasy-filled pleasure was only momentary.

As soon as he separated the body pressed against him, an urgent anxiety would cover him again.

That’s why he couldn’t let go of her crying from exhaustion and kept holding onto her body.

……I want to be attached to you forever.

But if I do that, you’ll cry and resent me again.

Pryde looked down at her sleeping form, his face contorting in pain.

How can I fill this hole that feels like it’s been drilled into my chest?

It was certain that she was the key to that hole.

But no matter how much he pressed and rubbed that key against himself, they only scraped and cut each other.

The key didn’t fit into the hole to fill it.

Eventually, unable to endure any longer, he began to wedge himself into her warmth again.

“Mmm……”

After stirring for a moment, she woke up with a start and groaned.

“Wait. ……Again?”

I feel at ease when I’m pressed against you like this.

Although their fates are as far apart as God and the devil, in moments like this when their bodies are pressed together, it feels like they are connected.

“Ah, Ioan……”

Only when we’re sharing each other’s breaths like this……

“Del.”

Hugging her and burying his face in her neck, Pryde barely swallowed the rising passion.

I’d rather become one with you.

Even though I no longer have a soul to offer you.

If only we could stay together like this forever, just holding each other……

But instead of saying that, he whispered into her ear as she finally burst into tears.

“You are mine now.”

So you just need to be happy in this mansion.

Was it he or she who was eternally bound to this tranquil hell-like mansion?

At that moment, he didn’t know the answer to that question.

It was much later that Pryde came to know the answer.