“Adelheit.”

She barely opened her eyes at the sound of someone calling her name.

She thought she had just closed her eyes for a moment while sitting in a chair, but somehow she was now on a bed.

Waking up in a different place than where she fell asleep was no longer surprising, but today was different from usual.

Adelheit slowly realized that someone was looking down at her.

Is this a dream? But it felt too real for that…

“Wh-who…”

Due to the darkness in the room, she couldn’t make out the intruder’s features.

When she grabbed the hand gently placed on her throat, his body trembled slightly.

The man seemed to be crying, yet also laughing at the same time. He slowly tilted his head and put his lips to Adelheit’s ear.

“My wife.”

In that moment, a leisurely breath spread over her delicate skin. Adelheit knew the owner of this voice.

In fact, she had vaguely guessed even before he opened his mouth.

Everything was ‘him’. His scent, his body shape, her…

Valentin.

‘He’ opened his eyes in the darkness. Strangely, it felt like he was opening them for the first time in a very long time.

The darkness was light to him. There was no discomfort in looking around.

However, before seeing with his eyes, he first recognized his surroundings by smell.

It was an intoxicating scent, like flowers blooming profusely in season. A scent he had smelled before.

Ah, he knew that taste.

He moved silently like a beast that had found its prey. The woman was sleeping defenseless.

Pitifully, she didn’t even notice him casting his shadow over her. He reached out and grasped the woman’s fragile neck.

He knew the woman’s name.

“Adelheit.”

Let’s just kill her. And end all this pain.

The impulse was strange.

The ‘foreign substance’ that had peered into his abyss urged him to do what he couldn’t bring himself to do even when the woman was closest to being a sinner.

Wasn’t it all for this moment that he had put on a harmless face and slowly unraveled the woman’s defenses?

To get closest when the woman let her guard down…

Kill her. That wench stabbed you first. Remember the blade stuck in your tattered heart.

Yet for some reason, he couldn’t move a finger even when facing this hateful face.

Perhaps it was because the woman’s sleeping face looked too peaceful. He slowly examined her.

Her round forehead, cute lips and cheeks, the fragile peace clinging to her thin eyelids.

He stared at her, forgetting even to breathe.

“…”

At that moment, the woman suddenly opened her eyes.

Her eyes blinked slowly, as if not recognizing reality, then suddenly widened.

He could see unrecognized fear slowly creeping into the woman’s pale face.

As if she couldn’t understand the situation at all, tears soon welled up in her round light green eyes. Ah. He clicked his tongue.

Adelheit’s tears inevitably, sometimes excessively, grabbed his attention.

“Valen…tin?”

Once. The memory of her bending to his grasp and taking what he gave was still vivid.

That long-ago night. It felt like not even a day had passed since then.

Especially when looking down at the woman nestled in his arms like this…

Suddenly, the hunger was too much. He licked the woman’s cheek where tears were falling drop by drop with his tongue.

The woman’s tears tasted like they were crumbling on the tip of his tongue. It was exquisite, but not enough. He had held back for too long.

“Adelheit.”

Someday.

He would trap this fragile breath in his arms, chew every bit of soft flesh, and fill his stomach with tears flowing like a river.

He would put shackles on her legs and drape a curtain over her head to block even the light.

So that she could never again utter abominable lies, never again think of betraying him.

So that those lovely lips would forever curse only his name.

“My wife.”

So Adelheit. You should rather pity me.

“Valen…tin?”

She gasped and grabbed Valentin’s strong hand.

Was it a seizure? Or was he wandering in a terrible nightmare?

Valentin’s golden eyes, fully revealed in the bright moonlight, looked hazily unfocused, yet also terribly pained.

He seemed not to even recognize who was in front of him.

“Adelheit.”

Even as her neck was held, her efforts to try to understand him were trampled in an instant.

“Adelheit.”

The voice repeatedly chanting her name was chilling.

Not like whispering a lover’s name, but as if towards an enemy, or something hateful.

The moment she realized this, a pale blue terror suddenly rushed in. The hand clumsily grasping his collar trembled.

“Ah, uh…”

When she thought it was something he did because he didn’t recognize her, it was at least bearable.

That he did it because he was suffering from a terrible nightmare. That he did it because he wasn’t in his right mind.

If she thought that way, she could forgive even if he inflicted worse harm.

After all, he couldn’t even bring himself to strangle her.

“…”

Even as they looked into each other’s eyes, Valentin’s large hand was still carefully grasping her neck.

Valentin’s fingers were just resting like feathers, but Adelheit knew what he wanted. What he intended to do.

The pulse throbbing in her neck felt like a vibration against his palm.

In that moment, Adelheit pleaded without realizing:

“I want to live…”

“…”

“Please spare me.”

Even at her tearful plea, Valentin still stared at her with calmly sunken eyes.

The target of his malice was so clear. Realizing that, tears inevitably welled up.

‘Why.’

Why her? Why now of all times?

If the demon had hoped for her to let her guard down, it had succeeded.

If it had hoped for her heart to be torn to shreds, it was a terribly perfect victory.

Even as he held her neck, it was horrifying that she was preparing excuses for him, wondering if there hadn’t been some misunderstanding, if she hadn’t imagined wrongly.

Something like betrayal or who knows what welled up from inside. Her eyes burned as if they would fester.

“Wh-why…”

Adelheit stared into Valentin’s empty pupils.

She realized then that she knew nothing about Valentin.

His demonic nature or abilities that he might be hiding, or even his name other than ‘Dragon of Bittleben’ or ‘Shadow’.

Had all her judgments about Valentin been wrong from the start?

That he wouldn’t commit such a cruel act, that there might have been a misunderstanding.

That although he was a demon, his heart wasn’t demonic. That above all, he might be pure…

‘This is punishment for my mistake.’

The price has finally come for turning a blind eye even after seeing what happened to Grita with her own eyes.

After silently looking at Adelheit for a while, he suddenly lowered his head.

His dry lips traced Adelheit’s soft cheek, wet with tears.

At the gentle touch of his lips, Adelheit felt both excitement and fear. Her head felt like it would explode.

“…”

It looked both satisfied and thirsty at the same time.

It was a cruel gaze, as if gauging whether more tears would pour if he twisted her neck.

She whispered with trembling lips.

“Do as you please…”

“…”

“If you’re going to kill me anyway, at least without pain…”

Because if he had decided to kill someone, no amount of pleading would change anything.

“…”

Adelheit completely gave up all resistance and let her hands go limp.

She tried to respond calmly, but tears kept pouring out.

He was looking at her with a very strange gaze. As if her reaction was overly sensitive when he had merely rested his fingers on her neck.

“Aha…”

He even let out an exclamation and tilted his head.

Looking down from such a high place, the plea to spare her life seemed so trivial it was curious.

Suddenly, the shadow’s movement stopped.

“Ugh…”

Then he clutched his head and staggered.

It seemed like a sudden headache had hit him. With his brows deeply furrowed, his whole body stiffened.

He blinked his eyes very slowly.

Adelheit watched as light gradually seeped into his pupils.

The moment their eyes met, with her in a mess of tears, Valentin seemed to immediately realize what he had been doing.

“Ah…”

He quickly removed his hand that had been resting on Adelheit’s neck, his face turning pale in an instant.

As if just putting his hand on her neck was enough for him to realize what situation had occurred.

“…”

And his reaction stabbed Adelheit even deeper.

How shallow her firm belief that he would never harm her had been, how little she knew about his true nature…

Valentin rubbed his face with his dry hand. A terribly tired face was revealed beneath that hand.

“Adelheit.”

When Adelheit flinched back from the anxiously outstretched hand, the expression disappeared from Valentin’s face.

It was chilling, as if he had become an inanimate object incapable of feeling anything.

“I’m, sorry…”

“…”

“I wasn’t, in my right mind. A very old… dream, no, because of the ‘foreign substance’…”

“Was the woman’s name in that dream also Adelheit?”

The voice that came out of her mouth sounded too cold even to her own ears.

He who had lowered his eyes as if avoiding eye contact, finally slowly raised his gaze.

The unusual bewilderment pooled in his golden eyes was no longer welcome.

“How…”

“What kind of dream it was, why you grabbed my neck.”

“…”

“If I ask, will you answer honestly?”