“Leon, I want to have your child.”

“……”

He stood in blood-soaked armor and said nothing for a long while. He only stared at Adela, brow furrowed savagely, like a man hearing things.

Only after a long silence did Leon finally part his lips.

“A child?”

He grabbed Adela’s chin roughly and lifted it. His gaze, blazing with hatred, swept down her pale face.

“You’d bear the child of the man who killed your parents. To survive?”

His rough voice carried a sneer, and Adela’s shoulders flinched on instinct.

A wretched sight for the noble princess of Valent. To throw herself at the enemy who destroyed her family and beg for her life.

But she did not look away. She met Leon’s fierce eyes head-on.

‘Yes. Anything, if it means keeping you alive.’

In her past life, Leon forced himself on her when she refused, and demanded she bear his child without fail.

She didn’t know then that bearing the child of the victorious general was the only way to escape the emperor’s threat.

‘I never once dreamed you were doing it to save me.’

The memory of hating Leon Fershtein with every fiber of her being was so vivid that the boundary between her past life and the present kept blurring dizzily. A wave of nausea rose with the pounding in her head, but Adela held onto her senses with effort.

‘Get a grip.’

To keep from losing Leon again, she had to focus on this moment, right now.

Her resolve set, she climbed off the bed in nothing but a thin chemise. Adela stepped in front of him as he stared past the terrace at nothing.

She drew close enough that he could feel her breath, yet Leon remained indifferent. Without so much as a glance at her, he silently removed his armor.

The clang of metal hitting the floor tore roughly through the silence. When it was done, he stood in only a white shirt over his solid frame and turned his back on Adela completely.

Adela held his gaze and took one more step forward.

“Look at me.”

Her eyes found him straight through the disheveled strands of his hair.

From the moment he entered the bedroom, Leon had shown nothing but fierce hostility, yet he never once looked directly at her.

Leon exhaled at her commanding words and seized her chin hard.

“You still seem to think you’re some noble royal highness.”

Watching Leon spit that murderous taunt, Adela felt a rush of something she couldn’t quite name.

Her eyes grew hot. She carefully ran her hand down his arm.

The moment she touched him, he twisted his shoulder away like a brand pressed to skin.

Adela watched him go rigid with his head turned aside, and smiled bitterly.

Why, in her past life, had she been so certain he was the enemy of the Kingdom of Valent and her parents, and hated him so fiercely?

She pressed her head against Leon’s chest and quickly hid her tears. Now was not the time to cry.

“Just like you said, I’m nothing but a princess in name from a fallen kingdom. So now, you’re all I have.”

“…Ha.”

Leon’s broad chest heaved sharply at Adela’s mournful voice. The corner of Adela’s mouth curved faintly as she listened to his heartbeat.

Adela pressed a brief kiss to Leon’s shirt, and Leon, unable to hold back any longer, scooped her up like he might shatter her and carried her toward the bathroom.

He lowered her roughly into the steaming bathwater, and her thin chemise soaked through in an instant.

Looking down at her, Leon said with cold mockery.

“You could use some cooling down.”

Flatly refused, Adela forced herself to hide the awkward smile that tried to surface.

‘I can’t give up now.’

Cold as he was acting, the arms that carried her had been trembling ever so slightly.

“Want to wash up together, Leon?”

“What?”

Her thin wet garment clung to her body, and the seductive whisper made Leon flare up with fury all over again.

Watching his anger rise, Adela felt relieved instead. The more fiercely Leon reacted to her, the closer her plan to keep him by her side came to succeeding.

“You are nothing but my slave now.”

He left those cold words behind and turned away. Adela immediately ducked her head beneath the bathwater. Less than a second later, he came back and hauled her up by the waist.

“Are you out of your mind!”

Adela shook the wet hair from her face and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Why, do you not want me to die?”

The brief flash of alarm faded quickly, and Leon recovered his blank expression and answered in a cool voice.

“You are a prisoner necessary for governing the Kingdom of Valent. You are not permitted to die without my leave.”

“Leon, you’re all wet too.”

Adela rose, dripping, and pressed herself flush against Leon’s chest.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and breathed warm air against his ear. Leon swallowed a suppressed groan and muttered.

“I really want to kill you. How long are you going to keep testing me with this kind of deception?”

His lips, which had been grazing her ear, now pressed roughly into the nape of her neck. Leon’s lips were so hot that everywhere they touched seemed to catch fire.

“…Ah.”

While Leon lost himself in her, Adela watched his eyes. The cold in them gave way to a fierce, burning heat. Wet breaths slipped from between lips that had been held shut in rigid self-restraint.

The warmth coming through his shirt was abnormally hot.

But he still made no move to hold her.

“Leon, this isn’t enough.”

Leon’s gaze darkened as he took in the marks plainly visible beneath Adela’s chemise.

Instead of answering, he lifted her chin and kissed her roughly.

It was a relentless kiss, breathtaking in its intensity.

Water splashed everywhere in the bathroom until both their clothes were a complete mess.

“…Ha.”

Adela caught her breath and pulled back from his arms, then slowly began undoing the laces of her chemise. Leon’s eyes tracked her hands moving against his body in a slow drag. The corners of his tightly pressed lips trembled faintly, like he was fighting something back.

Adela stepped toward him and slowly sank to her knees. Leon’s shoulders twitched visibly.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

His voice came out lower and more strained than usual, as though he was trying to hide his flustered state.

Adela held his gaze with a provocative look and placed her hand on the metal buttons at his waist.

Click. The small sound broke the silence of the bathroom. The moment one button came undone, Leon’s rough breath swept hot across Adela’s cheek.

“Don’t test my patience.”

“You said it yourself. I’m your slave now, so there’s nothing strange about attending to my master.”

Leon’s eyes burned with a savage heat at Adela’s mocking words.

As Adela moved to reach for the next button, Leon snatched her slender wrist and held it. His rough grip tightened slightly, but he still refused to look at her.

Adela pushed through to the last button as though laughing at his attempt to stop her, and Leon’s patience finally ran out.

“Adela Valent! You really…”

The hand wrapped around her throat trembled. For all the ferocity that looked ready to cut off her breath at any moment, the set line of his jaw shook in tiny tremors.

Adela simply let herself rest in his grip and lowered her lashes quietly.

‘You can’t even bring yourself to choke me.’

Adela let out a pained-sounding cough, and he startled, snatched her up, and rushed with her to the bedroom.

He dropped her onto the bed, turned away, and murmured low.

“I’ll send someone to attend to you.”

He moved to leave the bedroom just like that, and Adela grabbed him by the waist.

“Leon, I’m cold.”