Reinhardt Helares looked down from above at Princess Sienna, who knelt with her head bowed, bound in chains.

The positions had been reversed. Their circumstances, completely changed.

A fallen royal and the commander of the revolution. A bound criminal and a victorious general.

Stepping down from the platform with a cigar in hand, Reinhardt crouched before her, tilting his body carelessly. He reached out, gripped her chin, and forced her face upward.

“Hello, Princess Sienna.”

Her head lifted against her will. Despite her ragged appearance, she still shone—golden, beautiful, and unyielding.

“No… just Sienna, now.”

But she looked… unwell.

Had her body weakened from imprisonment? A woman raised in luxury, now wasting away in a cell.

He should have felt pleased. Vindicated.

Yet something in his chest ached faintly.

“How does it feel?”

He asked it deliberately to humiliate her.

It was a simple question, but it carried countless meanings.

‘How does it feel to be the only royal left alive?
How does it feel to fall all the way to the bottom?
How does it feel to kneel beneath a lowborn general you once looked down on?’

‘You should have accepted me back then.’

‘It’s not too late. Say it now.
Say you’ll be mine.
Say you’re sorry for rejecting me.
Cling to me.
Say you love me.
Beg me to spare your life.’

As he stared into her softly flickering golden eyes, Reinhardt repeated the words in his mind like a prayer.

And yet, it felt as though he was the one begging.

“You…”

After a long silence, Sienna finally spoke, a faint smile touching her lips.

“In the end… you were never suited to me.”

Something inside Reinhardt snapped.

Even at her lowest, she did not grovel. She did not cling to him, begging for her life.

‘This woman… truly cannot be possessed.’

He had done all this, gone to such extremes that the world itself had been overturned—and still, she would not come to him of her own will.

He alone had struggled to reach her. He alone had been consumed.

And not once—not even for a single moment—had she ever truly looked back at him.

He wanted her to be miserable. He wanted her pride shattered beyond repair.

And yet… even so, he still wanted to make her his.

This couldn’t be love. There was no way something this petty, this filthy, could be called love.

Reinhardt secretly funneled funds to factions that supported Princess Sienna and deliberately loosened crackdowns on their gatherings—quietly lending them his strength to prevent her execution.

Then, at the state council, he argued forcefully that leaving Sienna alive as she was would only incite unrest, stirring controversy over a possible restoration of the monarchy.

It was a convincing claim. Intelligence had already confirmed that remnants of the royalist faction had fled to the Adelaid Empire and were working to restore the crown.

If they could not execute her due to public opposition, then there was only one option—Marry her into the revolutionary faction and sever that tenacious royal bloodline.

And, he argued, the most suitable candidate for that role was himself, the man who despised the Beatrix royal family more than anyone.

Reinhardt Helares, who had refused thousands of jewels and tens of thousands in gold as spoils of war, had made this his one and only demand.

The government had no choice but to grant it.

It was already widely known, though unspoken, that Reinhardt had proposed to Princess Sienna multiple times—and had been firmly rejected each time.

Many assumed that, out of spite, he would treat her as nothing more than a passing amusement.

But contrary to those expectations, Reinhardt Helares married her.

And so, ten years later, Princess Sienna finally fell into his grasp.

Even so, her position remained unstable.

Whenever royalist factions rose in rebellion or protests demanding the restoration of the monarchy broke out, hardliners within the government would once again insist that Sienna should be purged.

Each time, Reinhardt personally led the suppression—and made sure it was merciless.

In truth, it was meant as a warning.

A message to those loud-mouthed fools: Don’t even think of taking what belongs to me.

But more than anything, what Reinhardt feared most was Sienna herself.

Despite losing her family in the revolution, despite watching members of the royal family and nobility executed one by one in prison, she remained calm. Composed.

Even during her trial, when a death sentence had been entirely possible, she had shown the same quiet resolve.

It was almost strange that she had been called the Witch of Beatrix.

He had finally taken her into his hands and yet it felt as though she might vanish at any moment.

That was why she needed to bear his child.

He had lost his mother young and knew little of such things, but he had heard that no ordinary mother could abandon her child.

If she had his child, then she would have no escape—not through death, nor by any other means.

He would cut off every path of retreat.

And perhaps… by planting his seed within her, he could quell this unbearable thirst—the feeling that even in possessing her, he had gained nothing at all.

He had tried not to force her too harshly into pregnancy.

But his obsession—his desire for Sienna—had been building for far too long.

Restraint was no longer something he could maintain.

The first time he took her into his arms, a violent thrill ran through him—an ecstasy he had never known before.

He wanted her again.

And again.

It felt as though he could spend entire days doing nothing but taking her.

In the end, the compromise between his hatred for her and his desire for her became this—visiting her room two or three times a week.

He did not kiss her like a lover.

Because he did not love her.

He repeated it to himself again and again, this was nothing more than an act to make her conceive a child.

He was merely severing the bloodline of the royal family he despised. Merely delivering punishment to Princess Sienna.

So her feelings meant nothing to him.

After all, a predator never considers the feelings of its prey.

***

Lately, Sienna’s frequent nosebleeds and bouts of fever had begun to catch his attention, but Reinhardt dismissed them as insignificant. A woman raised like a greenhouse flower could hardly have anything seriously wrong with her.

On the day of the Estantian Republic’s first anniversary celebration—

Seeing Sienna adorned from head to toe in the things he had given her made his heart pound violently, like an inexperienced youth.

He stared at her for a long moment before finally regaining his composure enough to take her hand and help her into the carriage.

Through the silk of her gloves, her hand felt small, delicate, and soft.

In that instant, he was seized by a raw, instinctive urge—to tear her clothes apart right there in the carriage, to claim her completely, to mark her from head to toe as his.

‘You have no idea what I’m thinking, do you?’

Even as he forced himself to look out the window, trying to quell the heat rising within him, Reinhardt did not let go of her hand. Instead, he toyed with it idly, teasing her.

At the venue, when Sienna excused herself to fetch a drink, he scanned the crowd, searching for her.

And then he saw it—

Her, smiling beside a young, handsome officer.

Something hot and violent surged up from within him.

Jealousy.

Sienna looked… comfortable.

At ease.

Happy.

Nothing like how she was when she was with him.

‘I shouldn’t have brought her here.’

He couldn’t keep her confined in the estate forever, and he had thought it was time to present her to the public.

But it had been too soon.

More than anything, he wasn’t ready.

Because he still didn’t feel as though he truly possessed her.

And that made him uneasy.

“That captain said he’s one of the people I saved. He’s from Saint Rufina Orphanage. He wanted to thank me for saving his life.”

Unaware of what churned inside him, Sienna spoke with quiet emotion—unwittingly scraping against his nerves.

‘I’m one of the people you saved too.’

To think that she had saved others as well—that he was not the sole recipient of that miracle—was something he found himself unable to endure.

It made him feel petty.

Small.

“Perhaps Lady Helares would honor us with a few words for the Founding Day celebration?”

And so—when Sienna needed help, he did not move to save her.

Even as he burned with the urge to shoot that insolent reporter for daring to speak so disrespectfully to his wife, Reinhardt held himself back.

He wanted her to learn her place.

To understand the difference between them.

He watched her—her entire body trembling, on the verge of collapse. Or rather, he pretended to watch her with cold detachment.

He forced his expression into stillness.

If he hadn’t clenched his fists so tightly they nearly bled, his face would have surely twisted into something ugly.

‘Look at your position.’

‘You are beneath me now. Something in my hands.’

‘Without my help, you’d shatter and die without resistance. You can’t even protect yourself from a single whim of mine—so why provoke me?’

‘Beautiful Sienna. Still shining, even now.’

‘Feel it clearly—how powerless you are without my protection.’

Sienna did not cry.

But it seemed she had forgotten how to breathe.

He had thought it would feel satisfying.

But something about it felt… wrong.

Seeing her like that, a dull ache spread through his chest.

‘D*mn it. That’s enough.’

After carrying her down from the stage, he issued a press ban to ensure no improper reports would be published. He even smashed the camera of the reporter who had demanded that she give a speech.

Whenever he looked at Sienna, anger surged within him.

He hated her. He hated the royal family.

And yet—when he saw her mocked, helpless, and suffering like that—his chest tightened with something painfully close to hurt.

On the day of their wedding, she had asked him—

“Do you… love me?”

“…No.”

This—this could not be love.

“Then why did you marry me…?”

“Because I wanted to drag you down into the hell I live in.”

A twisted, vile desire to possess someone—even if it meant dragging them to the ground and breaking them—there was no way that could be love.

To quench this thirst, the answer was this woman.

He had to make her his. Completely. Permanently.

As things were now, it wasn’t enough.

She needed to bear his child.

Not some hollow imitation of a family but a real one.

A binding that could never be undone.

So she could never escape.

Not through death. Not through anything.

Until she broke her own wings and chose to bind herself to his side.