Rather than reaching out to touch him, Marie studied the traces left by heat and iron. The slash wounds and lacerations scored across him were all brutal and rough. She thought of the blades that had cut into him. But the only image that came back vivid and whole was his face as he brought his sword down without mercy on the throat of a man charging at him.

Marie knew war. She knew what a battlefield was. Because he was a knight, and she was a knight’s bondwoman. She turned her gaze sideways. The long fingers that had gripped a sword now traced softly around her entrance. Marie swallowed a m*an and let half of it escape.

“……Hah.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. His fingers teased her with lazy mischief. She clenched around the fluttering emptiness.

She had to think of the baby. She was a mother. If not her, there was no one to look after the child. No matter how desperately she wanted to take him inside her, she was a mother. A mother of two sons, no less.

Marie wiped the sweat beading on her chest and turned fully around. His face, parched with desire, was fierce.

“S*ck me there. No fingers, so use your tongue and put it inside……”

The words came out half-finished. She watched the face of a man who looked like he might drown in want from being unable to thr*st, and opened her eyes to slits. She thought the br*ast milk still beading at her n*pple would stir him further.

Whenever he looked at her with that wild, frantic expression, Marie would gently guide him. She only had to lie back on the bed and part her legs slightly and he would growl like an animal and harden. So a half-spoken sentence was…… between the two of them, it was nothing that needed finishing. Marie sometimes called him “Endi.”

She knew better than anyone how far he would allow things to go. When it came to his desire…… was there any woman who knew what kind of man he was better than she did.

He was a man of wild moods. He had no fixed preferences. Something could be good and then terrible dozens of times in a single day. Whether it was a person or an object, he had no particular tastes, so it was natural he had no real preferences. What was good yesterday he might judge today as too worthless to even look at. He was the same way with people.

Even a beast’s life had value sometimes, but he was unfailingly harsh to everyone without exception. Whether it was the mother who had carried him for ten months or the wife he had taken a month ago. He was cruel and rough with Marie too, but in truth, to everyone except her, he was like a demon.

“……Born to it.”

Endymion curved his lips into a slight smile. A bewitching smile spread across his beautiful face. He pushed her legs apart roughly and bent his head. His lips closed around her cl*toris and sucked it like a n*pple. The stubbled jaw scraped roughly against her s*x. The strange sensation made her thighs tremble.

“Ah, hng……hh!”

The sensation was fierce. Tingling from her toes to the crown of her head. Just the press of soft lips against her cl*toris was enough to undo her, and his tongue would not stay still. The supple tongue circled the small nub of flesh and moved in a steady rhythm. Slick wetness trickled from her fluttering entrance.

Marie tried to think of other things. Getting too aroused was not good for the baby. Endymion knew this. He was a man who treated his own children like they were made of gold. So he probably would not push her too far.

That meant it fell to Marie. Keeping her arousal in check. Her entrance was already clenching with a desperate, aching need. She was going mad wanting something, anything inside her, but she could not take him.

Endymion would do what he always did, press himself between her thighs and move his hips. But that was never enough for Marie.

“Hng, hh……”

Wet, breathless sounds spilled out tangled with ragged breathing. The man who had been flicking and circling her cl*toris with the tip of his tongue licked a long stripe up her inner lips. Marie arched her back and twisted her hips.

Large hands gripped her thighs hard. The tongue that had been licking her l*bia pushed noisily against her entrance, rubbing and grinding before pressing into the narrow opening.

“Ah!”

It came out like a cry torn from her. Marie’s back bent completely as she shuddered and grabbed fistfuls of his hair. That seemed to excite him further. Endymion bit at the soft inner flesh and worked her harder. Marie writhed and twisted her limbs, breathing in rough, ragged pulls.

She tried to think of something else and let her eyes drift. She drew a woman’s face on the high arched ceiling. His wife. Dark, curling hair. A prim expression set into a dusky face. A woman burning with impatience to be rid of her husband’s bondwoman……

“How dare you.”

The sharp crack of a hand striking her backside. Marie looked down at him with wet eyes. His set face was beautiful. His disheveled golden hair was always breathtaking. Smooth wax-colored skin, darkened a shade by the harsh sun of the battlefield, made him look all the more like a man.

A nose that swept clean and straight, even brows. The soft contours of a face that looked as though it might murmur sweet verse like a court troubadour, and laid over it all, the face of a butcher. It was a strange beauty. All those mismatched things came together at times with uncanny precision.

Marie reached out and traced his nose. His face, shadowed somewhere between reason and savagery, carried the raw smell of a beast.

Then, with a sharp knock, the man slapped her hand away and seized her jaw. He seemed unable to bring himself to grab her throat while she was pregnant. Before, he would have pressed her throat down and dragged her by the hair long before now. He did not tolerate inattention when he was in front of her.

“You have no sincerity in serving your master.”

His lips, cold as he spoke, were red. Marie thought of the woman who suffered wanting this man. She had always wanted to give that woman what she wished for. It was not even an unreasonable desire. That woman had every right, and Marie had been born from an unjust union between a man and a woman, so of course she should disappear.

And someday, without fail, she would……

“I’m sorry.”

Crack. The hand that had gripped her jaw slapped her cheek lightly. There was no real force behind it, but his hand was so large and thick that it hurt. She watched his expression, worried it would bruise by morning. It didn’t matter. She had long known his hands were rough.

Marie was by now accustomed to everything about him, so a slap or two did not shock her. Every time he turned sweet and then went savage without warning she would weep, but that was intentional. The weeping, the heaving shoulders, all of it was to torment him.

Endymion hated seeing Marie cry. He hated it so deeply that every time she showed tears, his face went as though he were the one dying. And yet he was the most relentless when it came to tormenting and wearing her down.

He would not know why Marie wanted to die. He probably did not even know that she wanted to die at all.

What expression would he make when Marie was gone. Would he shed even a single tear. Would he apologize and say he was sorry for making her life so miserable.

“Marie.”

“Ugh, hh, hh……”

She burst into tears. The tip of her nose stung and her vision blurred white. Through the blur she could see Endymion’s face. She waited without wiping her tears with the back of her hand. Waiting for him to crumble and reach for her. For him to cup her small face in his hands and let himself be consumed.

“Marie.”

The fierce man called her name in a softened voice. Tears fell in drops at the quiet sound of her name. The hand that had struck her cheek now lifted her up. Marie rose limply at his touch. The firm hand was gentle, coaxing. It had always been this way. The same thing every time, and still she never tired of it.

Before she buried her face in his chest, Marie looked up. Long fingers wiped her eyes. Through her clearing vision, his fourth finger came into focus. The finger where a wedding ring should shine was bare.

Marie thought back to not long ago. The day she had been told she was pregnant. He had lifted her high into the air and spun her around. Then he had pressed his lips to her forehead and nose over and over, showing his joy.

And two weeks later, he held his wedding.

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