As soon as he got out of the carriage, Admund quietly took Clea’s hand and headed for the bedroom.

Clea noticed that reason had disappeared from Admund’s eyes.

For the first time since last night with Admund, she felt something akin to amusement.

‘To think that pure crown prince would fall into depravity.’

Admund.

Unlike his appearance, he was truly a pure man.

If there was a man who knew nothing of pleasure and entertainment, it would be this person.

But soon Clea shook her head.

It’s not that he didn’t know, but that he was enduring.

And Clea found it intriguing that she was completely breaking down his patience.

“Your Highness!”

Oberon was calling him from behind.

Clea turned around and met Oberon’s gaze.

He acted as if trying to somehow hold Admund back.

At the same time, he didn’t forget to fill his gaze toward Clea with disgust.

Others might have wet themselves at Oberon’s glare, but Clea instead had an even bigger smile on her face.

As she did so, she spoke silently.

‘You’re not scary just because you frown. So smile instead.’

Smile? A smile?

How could one smile in such a dreadful situation?

Oberon wanted to shout that at Clea if it weren’t in front of his lord.

However, it was difficult for him to go against Admund’s mood.

Just today, he thought he would hear praise, but instead had to hear bitter words for sending Clea Odoi away on his own.

He wasn’t ignorant enough not to know why Admund was showing such an attitude.

Moreover, it wasn’t something a servant should do to shout at his lord.

On the other hand, Clea completely ignored Oberon and turned her gaze to Admund.

As their eyes met, Admund looked down at Clea and said.

“If you do this with me, your honor will plummet. Have you not thought about that?”

A final worried question.

She clearly thought all threads of reason had been cut, but was there still one left?

Thinking this, Clea pointed out to him.

“It’s ‘Clea’, not ‘you’.”

“Is that important right now…”

“Clea.”

Since she had abandoned Odoi, the title to call her was Clea.

Recalling what happened on the bridge, Admund thought for a moment and then answered.

“Clea.”

Clea felt pleased at Admund calling her by name.

If it were someone else, they would have snorted and shown their displeasure without hesitation, but he was acting like a shy teenage boy who didn’t know what to do.

Clea found this man amusing, feeling happy just looking at him.

Even while thinking it might be nothing more than filling each other’s amusement, she felt cheerful.

Not knowing how much of her lifespan remained, she ignored the presence of the mark on the back of her hand and raised the corners of her mouth.

“What use is honor? This moment is more important to me.”

With those words, Clea linked her arm with Admund’s.

For a moment, Admund was flustered and tried to distance himself from her, but Clea held on tighter so he couldn’t escape.

Admund’s body stiffened.

Finding his appearance cute, Clea reached out and gently stroked his hair near his ear.

It was an act of daring to touch the crown prince’s body at will. There wouldn’t be a single person in the empire who would dare to do this so boldly.

But for her, waiting for death, such things were not worth worrying about.

“I’m more curious about Your Highness than those things.”

What kind of being he was, what kind of person he was, what he liked, and so on – she began to take an interest in Admund.

Clea wondered. Why did the Clea in the novel fall for someone like Lloyd instead of Admund and cling to him?

‘If she had clung to Admund instead, she probably wouldn’t have had such unfortunate days.’

He was truly pure.

A person who seemed like he wouldn’t even glance at another woman if he had a wife.

Honest and upright, yet not seeming like he would be swayed by others.

But Clea thought.

Even for someone like him, it would be different if the ‘other woman’ was Aria.

‘Because Aria is a being loved by everyone in this world.’

When her thoughts reached that point, she tasted bitterness in her mouth, but recognizing she was in front of him, she put on a smile.

However, that wasn’t enough to deceive Admund.

Admund, who didn’t miss the other person’s expression, saw her appearance and called her name.

“Clea. I’m curious too.”

“About what?”

“What you’re thinking about with me in front of you.”

Admund pulled Clea’s arm more towards himself.

Finding herself completely embraced, Clea was surprised and opened her eyes wide, then snorted and placed her hand on his cheek.

From then on, Clea’s gaze was directed solely at Admund.

“Are you afraid I might be thinking of Lloyd?”

“What if I am?”

“My, my. Aren’t we nothing to each other yet for that?”

“That’s true. For now.”

Admund’s appearance of not just taking it but retaliating seemed cute.

Clea completely erased her thoughts from just a moment ago.

Anyway, when she dies, the rest will be up to Aria Hersher to figure out.

And there’s no reason for her to hold him back when he said he could leave anytime.

What difference does it make between a day or a few nights together?

Thinking like that, she hurried her steps.

‘Yes, it doesn’t matter if I enjoy it now. Everything of his will eventually be taken by her anyway.’

Thinking this, the two entered the room and met a burning night.

If before they weren’t in their right minds due to alcohol, now they met their first night together in a sober state without a drop of alcohol.

* * *

Though full of fatigue, Admund couldn’t fall asleep in the end.

Clea, perhaps because she had been in a cold place for a long time, quickly fell asleep after separating from him.

Admund also wished to sleep by her side.

But remembering her disappearance while he was asleep, he simply couldn’t.

He desperately stayed awake while also delighting in the lingering sensation that hadn’t yet faded.

“At this rate, I won’t have a neck left.”

Moving from the bedroom to his office, he found the pain in his neck ridiculous.

The woman who seemed insensitive to everything on the outside sparkled her eyes as if she became a different person only in bed.

The sight of her biting into his neck was like a fierce beast.

Admund could have easily pushed Clea away.

She probably would have fallen off easily if he had just pushed her slightly.

But he didn’t do that deliberately.

It was the first time he had lost so much self-control.

While finding it strange, he also became interested in the person called Clea.

‘A woman who doesn’t harbor other intentions even in front of me.’

The crown prince who was already confirmed to ascend to the emperor’s throne.

People had some thoughts and emotions in their eyes as they looked at him.

Hostility, goodwill, anger, joy, resentment.

It was truly varied.

There were those who approached to have a good relationship with him, and those who held hostility to keep him in check.

Wherever he went, the gazes that followed Admund were like that.

Admund was already accustomed to the gazes that had followed him since he was too young.

Even at the recent banquet, he received the same gazes as usual.

But Clea was different.

‘What was in her gaze as she looked at me?’

The emotion that could be read in her gaze that day was very unfamiliar. It was something that didn’t exist among what he had encountered so far.

That stirred Admund’s interest.

Admund somewhat impulsively approached her, who had no connection with him except for the academy.

And he accepted the proposal offered to him on the spot.

Even looking back now, it was hard to distinguish whether it was compassion, curiosity, or desire.

“Your Highness, you must not get close to her.”

While thinking about her, someone roughly opened the door to his office without permission and entered.

Admund, whose lingering sensations had completely disappeared due to the sudden intruder, frowned and looked at him.

“You keep making that assertion.”

“It’s not just words. There were people from the Odoi family scattered near that bridge. They must have been aiming for something.”

“Are you saying they were waiting knowing I would appear there? Say something that makes sense.”

Admund thought it didn’t make sense when considered logically.

How could they have known when he would appear and kept waiting there?

Even if they were waiting, they would have been waiting for someone else, and moreover, her words didn’t seem like lies.

‘She said she abandoned the Odoi family.’

The Clea he had seen in his childhood was a somewhat timid child.

Someone who looked like she was being chased by something despite sitting in the position of princess that others looked up to.

Hearing Admund’s words and acknowledging that he had foolish thoughts, Oberon said something he shouldn’t have said in front of him.

“Then they might have been there to meet Young Lord Lloyd.”

Recalling a figure he had forgotten until now, Admund frowned as if in a bad mood.

Perhaps because it was the middle of the night with darkness fallen, and the distance between the two was quite far, Oberon couldn’t read Admund’s expression.

“There was said to be some commotion at the Odoi ducal residence anyway.”

“Oberon.”

Admund called Oberon.

His voice was tinged with a coldness that had never been heard before. Oberon flinched.

“I want to be alone now.”

“I apologize for the rudeness of visiting late at night. But please reconsider once. She is…”

“Leave now.”

At the final warning, Oberon left the office.

Left alone, Admund recalled one being.

Namely, the existence called Lloyd Percy.