As if bloodlines, which the Empress Dowager and her ladies-in-waiting cried out about so much, weren’t even a slight blemish to him. Was it simply enough if they looked pleasing to his eye? Then why did he regularly purge the rear palace?

But it didn’t matter anymore. The heart to understand him…. no, more precisely, she had no energy left.

“You must have gone mad too.”

The hand that had been holding her neck grabbed her br*ast. Her white br*ast was crushed between his long fingers, highlighting the hollow between her br*asts. Jeanne rolled her lips inward to prevent herself from making a nasal sound.

The front of the man’s robe loosened as he mounted her, revealing his taut chest followed by clearly defined abdominal muscles. She shook her head as she saw the man’s protruding center.

“Six is enough. I’ve done my duty.”

“So you won’t even act as a woman anymore?”

His smooth face twisted for an instant. The touch on her lower abdomen was moist. Hot breath touched her closed lips. A pointed tongue licked her lips, and her slender legs were lifted. As she resisted by pushing his chest, her lips were blocked. He slightly bit the plump flesh, causing her mouth to open. Though she hadn’t let her guard down, she thought her resistance was truly shallow.

She frowned as she felt his tongue exploring her mouth. The shameless man was persistent. The blunt sensation touching her lower abdomen made the space between her thighs tremble. The scattered noise of their tongues intertwining was terribly frivolous. She opened her eyes that had been tightly closed. His sharp eyes were as cold as an ice wall. She traced the lust lurking within them.

Unrefined desire writhed like a snake.

“Haah……”

Her teased lips were freed. Though she knew it was meaningless, she pushed his chest. She was taking contraceptive medicine. The effect wasn’t very long, so she had to take it twice a day at specific times…. She had secretly met with an apothecary who prescribed that she should take it divided between day and night for it to be effective. But she had missed the time to take it at midnight. Being held by the emperor like this, she hadn’t had the presence of mind to remember her medicine.

“Is it enough to just play the role of a woman? Can I stop having children?”

He looked down at her piercingly as he slipped his hand between the folds of her translucent negligee. His flawless gaze was stubborn. She tried not to make a nasal sound as she felt the moist touch on her groin. He untied his waistband. His er*ect member touched her entrance. A ticklish sensation made her toes curl. Physiological tears welled up.

“Ah, huhh…!”

Her breath was blocked by the sensation of him pushing in. What was this…. They had done this during the day too. Shouldn’t he be tired of it by now? Even for someone who craved women so much. If it were her, she would be beyond tired, even disgusted.

“……There’s a limit to my tolerance.”

He murmured in a low voice as he mechanically moved his hips while gripping her moon-like br*asts. Unless it was the moment he decided to pounce on her, it was clear that he was embracing her with a mechanical attitude now.

His aroused feelings had subsided. Yet he showed no sign of stopping. It made no sense. What purpose was he continuing this for?

She knew that s*x meant more to him than simply satisfying desire. The way he pounced on her from time to time was the same. At first, she had tried to observe him and analyze his motives for tormenting her. But after a round of lovemaking like this, she had no energy left to do so.

How much worse must it have been during pregnancy…. She couldn’t even say “stop” anymore because it sickened her. At least on this issue, he was like a wall. Completely regardless of her will….

“Huh…. Hng, aah!”

The gl*ns repeatedly crushed deep inside her, reaching an extreme. Suddenly, his hand grabbed her shoulder and changed her position. Jeanne supported herself on the bed with her arms, knees raised. It was a humiliating position. She had told him she disliked this position. But he was choosing to do only what she disliked, as if punishing her.

She bit her twisted lips and let tears fall. He hadn’t originally been like this. He must know that too. That they had once been affectionate…. That they had precious times just like any other couple….

So he was spouting nonsense about her going crazy from pregnancy. Because he was trying to find the reason for her change in the children. That’s why he hated the children. That much was clear.

“Ah, ha! Huh……”

She felt him as she gripped the headboard of the bed. The scattered sounds of her cries echoed against the ceiling. The heat consuming her was terribly sweet. This was why she hated it. Because in the end, she would cry from pleasure. Just as she knew him, he knew her. So nothing could be easier for him than heating her up.

“When you’re this out of your mind, talking about divorce. Jeanne……”

“Ah, huh! Haah! Aah!”

“Even a passing dog wouldn’t laugh.”

His low murmur, without a trace of excitement, was cruel like a blade. After crushing her insides, he swept her hair away from her shoulders and kissed the white nape of her neck. She cried at his seemingly affectionate lips.

“How could you think of leaving me?”

His low voice, without even a laugh, echoed in her ear as if he was amazed that she would dare think such a thing. He turned Jeanne over and laid her flat. She forgot to pant and looked at him. He slowly approached, appearing in her blurred vision.

His lightly touching lips were fresh. A kiss without lust was rare. He wiped her eyes and kissed her lips once more. He was cunning. No, cowardly and petty. He knew what she was weak to. So after teasing her, he acted gently.

She stared at the man looking down at her with a face resembling her son. The man who had passed down all his features, including his facial features, to his eldest son sometimes looked at her with his son’s face.

His beautiful face, with its coldness and indifference erased, resembled her eldest son so terribly that he could sometimes easily get what he wanted from her.

But…. if he truly thought so, it would be a tremendous misjudgment. Jeanne didn’t become weak because he resembled her son.

She wasn’t so lacking in discernment that she couldn’t distinguish between the man violating her and her lovely son’s biological father, no matter how much they resembled each other.

“……Jeanne.”

“Are you satisfied?”

He frowned at her listless question. She thought of the beginning. Though they had been twisted from the start, they still had a time when they were affectionate as a couple. So Jeanne brought out the him from that time in every moment she couldn’t forgive him.

The fifteen-year-old boy who was now hazy in her memory and the twenty-five-year-old man who was as hard as a rock….

Jeanne ruminated on her once-sweet husband. It was part of her effort. It was a mechanism to protect herself from her husband’s incomprehensible violence and anger.

‘Don’t forget my love.’

Memories with bluntly worn edges…. hazy from erosion, flew at her like shattered glass. Jeanne felt for the small box she had buried in a corner of her heart. She seemed to feel at her fingertips the old fragments she had buried without even knowing.

She wondered why things had turned out this way. Where it had gone wrong. Once, Jeanne had waited for him every day. Even when she couldn’t remember him, she waited for him. In the Empress Dowager’s palace…. Locked in an old room not even used by maids…. She had been beaten and tormented without knowing why.

“Jeanne.”

She raised her wet gaze at the whisper, fragile as a soap bubble. His dark gaze bit into her persistently. It was terrible.

* * *

The morning at the imperial palace was busy but never noisy. Even the maids doing menial tasks worked with restrained movements in the imperial palace.

Jeanne rolled her eyes as she watched a maid drawing the curtains without any bustle. Seeing that everywhere except the bed was clean, the maid in charge of cleaning must have come by.

Though it wasn’t the first time others had seen evidence of their lovemaking, she still couldn’t suppress her shame. The maid who had been drawing the curtains and cleaning the windows turned around at her stirring. The maid, with a neat and polite face, put down her towel and folded her hands neatly.

“Did you cough, Empress Consort?”

The maid asked. Jeanne covered her chest with the blanket and slowly got up. The maid asked if she would like some water. Jeanne turned her gaze and nodded. Though maids never showed emotion before their masters, they weren’t beings incapable of having private feelings.

No matter if she wasn’t an empress, she was the mother of princes and a princess. She was the emperor’s official wife and the only primary consort he acknowledged. For such a woman to be sprawled in bed until midday, and then to face servants in such a state…