All of it was familiar to a painful degree.

“Behaving this way is no different from telling me you are not on my side.”

He knew what the man wanted in this moment. At the sensation coming back to life, Valentine clenched her fist tightly.

From the moment she had begun coming and going from the bedchamber, she had known a day like this would come before long.

Amaryllis had said she used the man’s guilt against him. Right, that fool had not succeeded, but it was a reasonably clever scheme.

That was why she had been nibbling at the bait Lucifer threw her. Pretending not to be caught, pretending to run, pretending to refuse and turn away. With a man like this, that method worked far better than charging at him directly.

So right now she had to tremble and pretend to flee.

“Ask your own heart, Your Majesty. You don’t actually want that from me either. It was words you wanted to hear from someone you’ve lost forever.”

“I don’t know how many times I need to say otherwise before you’ll believe me. Outside of your belief, I have no way to prove it.”

At some point she was beneath him, looking up at him. Violet eyes clear enough to be transparent. He felt he might fall straight into them.

“But Belle, you.”

In that moment, a terrible self-mockery bloomed inside Cassian.

Wait forever to win this person’s heart, keep making endless efforts?

What a laughable notion.

“Even if no one in the world understands me.”

This woman before him,

“Even if they condemn me as harsh.”

Simple seduction did not work on her,

“You, only you, would understand the path I walk…… would say at any time that I am right…… that I am not walking a wrong path.”

Direct conversation was refused without hesitation,

“You said you would accept all of me like that.”

She had even threatened to run to his arms and flee.

“So, as you promised me.”

“……”

Even so, letting her go was simply not something that could exist,

“No matter what happens.”

He had to take her now.

“Please remain as my person.”

Savage thoughts filled his head, his heart entirely.

He lowered his head. He pressed his lips to her nape. The woman’s scent filled his lungs. Sweet sensation spread across his lips. Her slight body trembled, as though frightened.

This warmth, this fragrance.

He simply wanted it.

“Your Majesty, Your Majesty……”

Sensing danger, the woman who had been quiet finally opened her mouth and called to him. A voice that seemed on the verge of tears paralyzed his reason.

“Please…… protect my honor.”

The woman pleaded from beneath him.

At any other time he would have willingly let her go. He would not have been this greedy.

But right now, in this single moment. Some impulse whose cause and reason he did not know ruled him.

“I swore to God, to Father. That I would not learn any indecency before marriage. So please……”

At the words saying she did not yet know a man, the desire he had been suppressing exploded. The pure white dress like a lily that had been covering her beautiful body was stained red.

“Before marriage, you said.”

Cassian murmured, turning her words over. He gripped her shoulder, gentle in manner but forceful in act. A voice filled with only one thought was dark.

“Then the only opportunity permitted to me is now.”

“An opportunity, you say……”

“If this time simply passes.”

A small sneer followed. He had already openly revealed his desire, so he had crossed a river of no return.

“There will be no chance you will give me the place by your side.”

Of course, being Emperor, there would be people who would come to him even under such coercion. But that did not apply to the woman before him.

Right now, turning back as though nothing had happened was impossible. Her guard was already fully raised.

That was precisely why he had to take her without hesitation. With someone who held such convictions, after today she would not be able to escape him.

“Did you not say you would marry someone other than me?”

“Of course, that was……”

She could not produce a proper answer. Right, that was the primary problem. Words that would drive a man intoxicated by feeling out of his mind.

A soft voice wound around the trembling woman’s ear.

“Did you perhaps think I would simply stand by and watch?”

“Your Majesty……”

“Then you were mistaken.”

Pretending to be gentle, Cassian Pendragon was at his core a usurper. An invader and conqueror, a skilled hunter who never lost his prey. True to his imperial blood, the most savage instinct was hidden within him.

Cassian smiled as though pleased. He pressed a soft kiss to a single strand of golden hair wound around his fingertip.

“It will be a marriage without wedding vows.”

“Don’t…… don’t force this. I…… never gave my consent.”

The body caught between his legs struggled. The woman, unable to move under the weight of him, could only grip the bedding tightly. Red veins stood out against her trembling white hands. The violet eyes looking up at him glistened.

That pitiable gaze spoke of refusal. She said to let her go, but everything she was ensnared him. Like earth cracked after a long drought, his reason split apart.

If he took her now, possessed her now…… Would rain fall on that cracked reason? Would he be able to step back and see everything clearly?

Right now, her white dress looked only red to him.

“You said it with your own lips. That you had sworn not to learn indecency before marriage.”

It was close to an excuse. He knew he was being unreasonable. There were many ways to force a point.

“Then conversely, does learning the pleasures of the flesh not make one a married person?”

His hand had already moved on instinct and invaded beneath the dress. Hot fingers slid along the delicate line of her back. She trembled faintly. The body he had imagined and pictured countless times could not possibly feel this way, and yet strangely, it felt familiar.

“It is only a matter of sooner or later.”

The beloved woman bit down on her lip. A voice close to sobbing reached him, full of fear.

“Is Your Majesty…… someone who repays kindness with cruelty?”

It was strange. Even this small whisper was fatal.

“I am deeply grateful for the care you have given me. But calling it kindness seems a stretch. You were simply faithfully carrying out Sister’s command.”

The woman blinked her large eyes. Pitiful tears gathered between those long lashes, drop by drop, provoking something in him.

“I should not have……”

A tear at the tip of her lashes fell. He pressed his lips to the wretched thing rolling down her cheek. Something uncomfortable spread across white skin.

“Even under the imperial princess’s command, I should not have……”

Every single word she threw at him was provocative.

Long golden hair spread in disarray across the bed. The man who had looked down at the world with such proud composure was, in the end, only a human being willingly surrendering to desire. There was no more patience.

The dress covering the woman’s body was removed. White flesh raised its head into the world.

A soft body. The first step taken into a pure white snowfield that no one’s hands had touched. Only his footsteps left red traces on that v*rgin snow.