His two hands, holding my waist, were becoming tense.

“How can I pretend I don’t know? Right now, blatantly…”

“Blatantly what?”

He raised an eyebrow and smirked.

“I don’t want to say.”

I said tersely, looking at him out of the corner of my eye.

He laughed. And a warm vitality began to spread across his cool face.

From his increasingly hot breath, I felt love.

“If you don’t want to say it, you can show me with your actions.”

“Since it’s Your Majesty’s command, I should follow it, right?”

In response to his slightly teasing tone, I bravely moved my body.

“Ah…! Zelda?”

Rinel’s neat, deep voice broke and sensuously seeped into my ears.

It was a deep night.

We were also getting deeper.

Moments of being hopelessly lost in each other continued endlessly.

Even moments of separation were nothing more than a preparation for greater joy.

Every look, every breath, every action was nothing but love.

Rinel, true to his word, sweated as much, no, even more than I had.

Only after pouring out all his energy did the tranquility come.

I didn’t even have the strength to voice out.

But he was constantly reaching out to me with his seductive touch.

Eventually, he must have not even had the strength to move his arms, as he used his legs to keep me held close to him.

He seemed desperate to keep me in his arms no matter what.

“You said there’s a meeting from tomorrow morning, you should sleep.”

“I will sleep. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

Although his body was already tired, his blue eyes looking at me were still bright.

The gaze of him longing for me didn’t seem to extinguish easily.

“Did the fever really go down now?”

Rinel asked, placing his hand on my forehead.

“Yes, unlike someone, I wasn’t that uncomfortable.”

“That’s a relief. But now I’m the one who’s messed up. I feel like I’m going to be uncomfortable every day.”

“Hmm, then what do we do?”

I pretended to be worried and put on a sad face.

He glanced at me and ran his big hand down my back in reply.

“What to do. You’re going to have to make me feel better every day.”

“I’ll do that.”

I want to do that.

At the same time as responding to him, I remembered the words of Duke Martins.

‘If you can’t control your feelings for His Majesty, don’t get caught. That’s it.’

At least in a space where only the two of us were, there were no watchful eyes, so I didn’t need to control my feelings, right?

Thinking this way, my heart felt a lot lighter.

“I’ve resolved my discomfort, now it’s your turn.”

“My turn?”

“It’s time for me to heal where you’re hurting.”

Rinel sat up from the bed.

“Where are you going?”

“Just wait.”

He dressed again and opened the bedroom door to go outside.

In the time he was gone, I put on the robe that had fallen on the floor, sat against the head of the bed, and waited for him.

A moment later, he opened the bedroom door again, something in his hand.

What’s that?

In his hand was a silver healing box.

“Why do you suddenly have that…”

“Suddenly someone came in hurt.”

Rinel climbed onto the bed, whipping the blanket I was covering up.

“Oh my! What are you doing?”

In the blink of an eye, my legs exposed outside the blanket were placed on his thighs.

“What on earth have you been doing?”

“What?”

“Where did you get this from?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your knee.”

He held my ankle with one hand and opened the lid of the first aid box with the other.

It was only then that I looked down at my knees.

“…Ah.”

It looked like a wound I got when I tripped and fell in the middle of the field while running mindlessly.

Both knees were scraped in harmony.

I had completely forgotten about it, but when did Rinel see this wound?

“Even though she’s not a commoner, what reason could the empress of a country have to scrape her knees like this… I’ve been thinking about it.”

He said, disinfecting the wound himself.

“When did you think of that? Ah, it hurts…”

“Throughout our shared love.”

“……”

The wound area stung, but his response stung more.

“If you had fallen while wearing a dress, it wouldn’t have been scraped this badly, would it?”

His gaze was fixed on my knee, then suddenly met mine as if interrogating me.

Should I say I came from horse riding?

No.

Lying that could be easily exposed by asking the servant managing the horses was dangerous.

How should I evade?

“Did you fall in the bathroom?”

Ah, I hadn’t thought of that!

I quickly asked the question Rinel had posed.

“Yes! I slipped while coming out of the bathtub.”

“Didn’t you say you didn’t shower earlier?”

“……Ah, that.”

Oops, I forgot.

Wait, did he deliberately test me just now?

I was speechless at his surprise question.

It seemed like he threw the bathroom as bait and was watching my reaction.

Did he already suspect that I was hiding something and was asking about it?

I should say that I rolled down the stairs like Melanie.

“Rinel, actually, on the stairs earlier……”

“That’s enough.”

Rinel interrupted my words while applying a healing potion to my knee.

“Hoooooooo.”

He placed his lips close to my knee and continued to blow air from his mouth so the healing potion could dry quickly.

When his cool breath touched the wounded knee, it felt like new flesh would sprout immediately.

“Zelda.”

“Yes……”

“When I need you, be in front of my eyes. That’s enough.”

Seeing him speak as if requesting, I just nodded.

Rinel placed the first aid box on the side table and sat across from me again.

“In return, don’t come making these. It makes me angry.”

He said firmly, his brows furrowed.

“Asking you to be in front of me is a request, not making these wounds on your body is an order.”

“I understand. From now on…… I will be careful.”

“That’s good, that’s enough.”

He smiled affectionately.

Before his smile disappeared from his face, I quietly opened my mouth.

“Rinel, I have a request too.”

“What is it?”