It was a dawn when only the moonlight in the sky was brightly revealing its presence amidst the dark curtain.

In the quiet room, Dalia rose with the sound of rustling blankets.

“I can’t sleep…!”

She couldn’t sleep at all because of what happened in the dining room earlier.

‘That sight from earlier was indeed…’

She traced Clayton’s pale face in her mind.

Clayton, who had been staring at his blood-stained fingers, soon fled from there as if escaping.

Later, someone named Cadison came to fetch her, but even after arriving at the mansion, she couldn’t meet Clayton.

After briefly reminiscing, Dalia looked at the wound on her right finger and then shook her head.

“This won’t do. I need to get some fresh air.”

Judging that she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight anyway, Dalia got up.

She opened the terrace door leading to the back entrance of the mansion and leaned on the railing.

The cold night air gently combed through her hair.

‘Much better.’

The fresh scent of grass carried by the wind brushed her nose.

Just as Dalia, feeling clearer-headed, was about to take a pleasant deep breath,

A carriage passing through the back entrance in the distance caught her eye.

‘Who could it be at this hour?’

It wasn’t a cargo wagon for delivering groceries.

Those usually came in early morning, and anyone could see that carriage had nothing loaded on it.

As that thought crossed her mind, Dalia quietly hid herself and observed the carriage carefully.

Carriages usually have emblems or such things engraved to indicate the status of the person inside. Yet that black carriage showed no such insignia.

As if trying to conceal the identity of the person inside.

Feeling something strange about this, a memory from the garden party flashed through her mind.

‘But I heard a strange rumor. They say every night, a black carriage of unknown origin comes and goes to the Duke’s mansion…’

A black carriage. It was exactly the carriage that Duke Chamberg had mentioned that day. And soon Dalia realized the cause of the déjà vu she felt then.

[Although it was a black carriage with nothing engraved or attached, Dalia knew who was in that carriage. A woman with red hair that involuntarily evoked a base sense of inferiority when seen…]

The content from the original work that didn’t come to mind at that time.

‘No way.’

At that moment, the carriage door opened and a person appeared.

Although her face wasn’t clearly visible due to the dark cloak she wore, Dalia knew who she was.

“Rose Hertz.”

[…She was her husband’s mistress.]

While Dalia was momentarily stunned by the appearance of an unexpected figure,

Red hair spilled out from under the hood that had fallen back in the wind as soon as she got out of the carriage.

Despite the darkness, the red hair shimmering in the moonlight was so vivid it seared into her mind.

Dalia unknowingly stared blankly at the woman’s face illuminated by moonlight.

A woman resembling a red rose, called the queen of flowers.

The woman, boasting striking features even from afar, was quite beautiful at first glance.

After staring blankly for a while, Dalia’s eyes followed the woman as she began to move.

“That place is…”

Although she naturally expected her to enter the mansion, the woman was heading not towards the mansion but to the forest behind it.

And as far as Dalia knew, in that forest…

Ah.

Finally realizing why the mistress was heading to the forest, Dalia let out a short breath.

She was now heading to the cabin in the forest. To meet Clayton.

And Dalia already knew why the mistress was heading to a remote cabin instead of Clayton’s bedroom.

The secret of Clayton and his mistress.

The two weren’t actually in a romantic relationship.

They were merely in a contractual relationship for ‘that purpose’, and Clayton was just using the mistress.

But the female lead, who had no way of knowing this fact, misunderstood that the male lead’s true love was not herself but the mistress, and when the mistress died, she felt severe inferiority thinking she was a substitute for the mistress.

That misunderstanding was cleared up near the very end of the novel, but until then, the female lead suffered greatly because of the mistress.

[I’ll never be able to surpass a dead person, probably for my entire life.]

Dalia repeated the inner thoughts of the female lead mentioned in the original work.

Dalia, already knowing all the circumstances, rather felt sorry for the mistress.

Watching the retreating figure of the mistress disappearing into the forest, Dalia tilted her head while crossing her arms.

“…Should I follow her?”

Going to the cabin now meant that the two would be doing ‘that thing’. This wretched curiosity was whispering to her to secretly peek at it.

Chewing her nails as if conflicted, Dalia raised her head. Her deliberation was brief.

[This is the timeline separator]

Dalia was feeling her way through the trees that stretched straight up as if reaching for the sky, relying only on moonlight.

“I’m sure there was a cabin somewhere around here…”

A few days ago, Dalia had accidentally discovered the cabin while taking a walk here.

There were no dangerous elements in the forest where at most small herbivores lived, and the path to the cabin wasn’t particularly treacherous.

But navigating through the forest at night, relying only on moonlight, was not as easy as she had thought.

Only when even the sound of leaves rustling in the wind began to feel chilling did Dalia curse her wretched curiosity.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have followed after all…”

She looked back several times, wondering if she should return to the mansion now, but realizing that even going back wasn’t easy, she continued on.

What great sight did she think she’d see to be wandering in the forest at this hour? Just as regret began to creep in,

A faint light appeared in the darkness, bringing color to Dalia’s face.

‘The cabin!’

Finally breathing a sigh of relief, Dalia ran towards the light with quicker steps than before.

Then the familiar cabin came into view.

And warm light was leaking from the cabin, as if proving that someone was inside.

Certain that the two people would be inside, Dalia hid her smile and quieted her footsteps.

Then she bent down and carefully approached the cabin.

The clear glass windows weren’t as clean as those of the mansion, but they were good enough to peek inside.

Delighted at this fact, Dalia carefully peered inside through the window.

Two people were facing each other over a robe strewn on the floor.

As Dalia raised her gaze from bottom to top, she saw Clayton with his face buried in the mistress’s exposed white neck.

No, more precisely…

“Ugh…”

The sight of Clayton drinking the woman’s blood with sharp fangs embedded in her neck.

That’s right.

The curse passed down through generations in the Sayer family.

It was that the Sayer family members had to regularly drink human blood.

In simple terms, they were a kind of vampire.

Of course, they were different from vampires as commonly known.

They were far from the popular notions of burning in sunlight, dying from holy water or stakes.

They were no different from ordinary people.

They weren’t exceptionally physically capable, nor could they fly.

They just needed to drink a little blood for nutrition along with regular meals like humans eat, and were somewhat weak to sunlight.

And the mistress that the original female lead knew about wasn’t actually a mistress, but someone who provided fresh blood to the male lead, a so-called blood bag.

Rose Hertz.

The fate of Rose, the daughter of the Hertz Count family, was decided from birth.

The Hertz family, serving the Sayer family, had been enjoying wealth for a very long time by offering their daughters as blood bags to the head of the Sayer family.

To provide fresh and healthy blood, they strictly managed their diet and exercised from a young age.

They always thought of themselves as no different from livestock raised in a farm.

That’s why Rose eventually ended her own life in the original story.

‘In a way, she might have been the most pitiful character in the original work.’

While living under the guise of a mistress and enduring people’s scorn, she was actually the most pitiable existence.

Briefly recalling Rose’s life from the original work, Dalia returned to reality and stared at Clayton.

The sight of the male lead biting the mistress’s neck was truly…

‘Fucking sexy.’

Thanks to his strikingly handsome face, even the sight of him drinking blood was sexy enough to stir one’s heartstrings.

‘To actually see in person what I had only imagined in my head.’

Just as Dalia was feeling proud that following them here had been worthwhile and was absentmindedly admiring the male lead,

Clayton’s closed eyes slowly opened. Blood-red eyes, as hot as blood but somehow chilling.

‘Oh…?’

Those eyes were facing straight ahead. More precisely, towards Dalia who was in front of him.