The moonlight was obscured by clouds, deepening the darkness where the two were.

Only the sound of wind rustling through tree branches and birds’ flapping wings occasionally echoed.

Clayton raised his head.

As focus gradually returned to his eyes, he realized Dalia was limp in his arms and stiffened.

“…Dalia?”

At a glance, Dalia’s condition was not good. The ruined dress and bloodstains below her neck.

It was a state believable even if she had been attacked by a wild beast. His body holding Dalia began to tremble.

Because he realized what he had just done to Dalia.

The frightened Clayton hurriedly checked Dalia’s breathing. Steady breaths tickled his fingertips.

“Haa.”

Clayton exhaled in relief after confirming Dalia was safe.

At the same time, the tension left his body, but he did not release his arms holding Dalia.

As time passed, his mind, foggy and opaque, cleared like the sky after rain. And the events that had occurred began to come back one by one.

‘The thirst got worse, so I came to the forest and then…’

He met Dalia.

Fearlessly, Dalia told him to drink her blood. That it was fine, he could drink her blood.

Clayton savored Dalia’s blood still lingering in his mouth. It was incomparable to any blood he had consumed before.

Setting aside the sweetness that made his tongue tingle, the change in his body after drinking the blood was also dramatic.

Clayton examined his other hand.

The prominently raised veins and skin glowing in the moonlight showed that his body was different from before.

‘Why is only Dalia’s blood so different?’

It must be somehow related to being able to move during the day when touching Dalia.

Clayton looked at Dalia’s face as she slept soundly. Would she know what she had done?

Her sleeping face, unaware of where she had stepped into, looked so innocent it left a bitter taste.

‘She knew my true identity.’

When Clayton appeared, unable to resist his thirst and biting his own arm, Dalia did not try to run away, readily offering her blood.

It was the action of someone who already knew he was a monster that drank blood.

‘Since when?’

When did she learn that secret? Questions he hadn’t thought of due to the terrible thirst that felt like it would carve out his flesh began to emerge little by little.

Perhaps she had seen something in the cabin in the past? Or maybe…

‘Loyd could have told her.’

Since they were meeting secretly, keeping it from him, they could have shared their secrets with each other.

That Duke Sayer was actually a monster who needed to drink human blood to survive. Or the secret that she was not a woman but actually a man.

“…”

Then Clayton stroked Dalia’s cheek, cold from the outside air.

“Dalia, tell me.”

What are you hiding from me?

He was afraid. Afraid this mysterious woman who kept hiding things from him would suddenly disappear like a mirage before his eyes.

So he wanted to know Dalia’s secrets, but also wanted to remain not knowing anything, just like this.

His fingertips gently caressed her lips as they stroked her cheek.

Then suddenly a thought flashed through his mind.

‘Perhaps rather than uncovering what you’re hiding…’

The thought that it might be better to clip her wings so she couldn’t escape.

Clayton’s eyes darkened as he gazed at Dalia’s sleeping face.

* * *

In the room enveloped by deep silence.

With a rustling sound, Dalia, who had been lying like a corpse on the bed, slowly opened her eyes.

Dalia looked around, barely overcoming her still heavy eyelids.

“This is…”

Recognizing that the usual things she saw upon waking were not there, Dalia soon realized this was not her room.

But it didn’t feel completely unfamiliar, there was an inexplicable sense of familiarity. Was it because she wasn’t fully awake yet?

Dalia sat up, trying to regain her senses quickly.

And just then, with a click, someone entered the room.

“Oh my, you’re awake?”

It was Samantha. She had apparently come to check if Dalia had woken up, greeting her in a bright voice.

Samantha, who had entered unhesitatingly, opened the curtains with familiarity, as if starting an ordinary daily routine.

“This is the Duke’s room.”

“The Duke’s room…?”

No wonder it felt familiar. Only after hearing Samantha’s words did she realize it was definitely a place she had been before.

But that was brief. She tilted her head, wondering why she had woken up here.

“Last night the Duke brought you in his arms.”

Samantha began to recount what had happened yesterday, as if she knew Dalia would be curious.

The Duke, who had gone to the Imperial Palace leaving his mistress behind, came to the mansion carrying her and spent the night together in the same room.

Samantha’s face looked elated, as if all the sorrowful things had been resolved, as she relayed this.

Dalia, who had been quietly listening to the maid’s words, raised her hand to touch her neck. Someone must have treated her during the night, as she felt the surface of gauze under her fingertips.

And that reminded her once again that yesterday’s events were not a dream but reality.

‘I told Clayton to drink my blood…’

And then what happened after that? With the feeling of all the blood draining from her body, her mind began to grow hazy and she fell into sleep.

She couldn’t remember anything about how she got here last night or what happened to Clayton afterwards.

All she remembered was the unfamiliar sensation of her blood being sucked.

Samantha, who had been watching Dalia recall yesterday’s events, continued speaking.

“Come to think of it, when you arrived yesterday, your dress was very dirty. There were signs of it being torn here and there too. I heard the Duke found you lost in the forest. He said the wound on your neck happened then as well.”

“…Is that so?”

It seemed Clayton had made up a plausible excuse.

Well, from what she remembered, her dress had been in a mess yesterday. Since her appearance wouldn’t have been intact for simply losing consciousness, it must have been unavoidable.

While she was thinking about what happened, still in a daze from not being fully awake, Dalia suddenly raised her head as if remembering something she had forgotten.

‘Wait. If I came here unconscious yesterday, did a doctor examine me?’

Judging by the bandage around her neck, someone must have treated her.

And there weren’t many people in the mansion Clayton would show this wound to.

As that thought occurred to her, cold sweat trickled down her spine.

“By any chance, the person who treated me yesterday…”

“Ah. It was the butler! You see, Mr. Selman happened to be away on business, so the butler treated your wounds as an emergency measure.”

Selman was the Duke Sayer family’s physician.

He was one of the people who knew about the Sayer family’s curse, and she had vaguely heard that even the Imperial family highly valued his medical skills and occasionally summoned him to the palace.

It had been a precarious moment where she could have easily been discovered to be pregnant.

‘From now on, I must never lose consciousness.’

She absolutely could not let her pregnancy be discovered until she had completely won Clayton’s heart.

Dalia calmed her startled heart with a short exhale. But Samantha, interpreting it differently, replied.

“Don’t worry. Mr. Selman will be back soon, so you can get an examination then…”

“No. I’m fine. I won’t be getting an examination.”

“Pardon?”

“So could you please relay that to the butler?”

“Ah, well…”

Samantha thought it strange that Dalia was refusing a doctor’s examination, but soon lost interest.

Samantha tried to stop Dalia as she attempted to get up from the bed.

“Where are you going? Shouldn’t you rest at least for today?”

“I’m going to my room. I can’t stay here forever.”

“It would be better not to go to your room right now…”

“Why?”

“There are people coming and going right now. They’re saying they’re redecorating the entire room.”

What is this now? Redecorating the room? Does she mean changing the interior?

As Dalia blinked in confusion, Samantha added.

“They’ve called in experts and are thoroughly renovating your room. Well, it’s work that should have been done long ago, so it’s good they’re doing it now, isn’t it?”

Normally when a new mistress of the house arrives, it was customary to redecorate the room, but Dalia had been using the previous Duchess’s room as it was.

But until now there had been no mention of it. Why suddenly say they’re redecorating the room?

Puzzled, Dalia asked again.

“Suddenly? Why?”

“Well, I suppose the Duke must have been quite concerned about you after yesterday’s incident? Plus, you even got hurt at the palace yesterday.”

Dalia scratched her head at Samantha’s cheerful answer.

Well, she didn’t know the exact reason, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad sign.

Glancing out the window, she saw the mansion was indeed crowded with unfamiliar people, as Samantha had said.

‘I guess resting in the room isn’t a good idea…’

Looking out the window, the clear sky particularly caught her eye.

“Shall I go for a walk?”