【 Lady Greyhound’s One-Night Mistake 】

When heartbreak meets alcohol, an irreversible accident happens. This is an unchanging truth regardless of continent or era, and divine punishment falls upon those who take it lightly.

And Misha Grey was experiencing that divine punishment firsthand.

‘Please don’t come this way.’

A tall man in a black uniform was approaching.

Dazzling blonde hair and blood-red eyes. Arrogant lips that suited a sneer perfectly.

The lion of the Empire, Grand Duke Chatrud Saverhagen.

Today was an event held in this man’s honor. It was entirely thanks to him that the exhausting war with the heretics had finally ended.

But Misha kept backing away slowly toward the wall.

Seeing that man made her lower back tingle.

She desperately wanted to believe it was her imagination that the area between her thighs, hidden beneath her purple dress, was throbbing.

Yet that man was walking straight toward Misha. With eyes flashing as if he were angry.

Well, he had every right to be angry if his one-night partner had fled at dawn without a word.

But Misha prayed desperately, clinging to her last hope.

‘Don’t come! Don’t come! Please……!’

But there was no god for Misha.

The man dismissed everyone offering him congratulations and finally stood before her.

“Lady Grey. I believe this is our first meeting.”

The word ‘first’ seemed particularly forced. Almost as if he were grinding his teeth to the point of breaking.

Misha smiled with difficulty, grasped the hem of her dress, and bent her knees slightly in greeting.

“Y-Your Grace. It’s an honor that you know my name.”

“Of course I know it……. I should certainly know the only daughter of Viscount Grey.”

“……”

The man’s tone was light and friendly. But that mocking tone sent chills down Misha’s spine.

Eventually, the Grand Duke took another step toward her.

Misha felt dizzy from the pressure emanating from this man.

She had handled countless dirty jobs for the imperial family. But even she had never experienced such intense pressure before.

Her entire body was going weak, and the area between her legs kept tingling. She remembered all too well how desperately this man had made her cry out.

And back then, Misha had begged him to thrust harder. She had even cried as she spread herself, begging him to put it inside.

‘Ah, ahng! There, ah, no, deeper inside, ah!’

‘Here……?’

‘Hic, yes! Haahh, wait……!’

‘There’s no waiting.’

The man growled with his disheveled bangs as he bit her swollen n*pple.

‘Don’t provoke me any further.’

…And now the Grand Duke narrowed his eyes, leaned in close, and whispered to her.

“Are you going to pretend you don’t recognize me after spending the night with me?”

“Your Grace—”

“Surely you’re not daring to deny it.”

The man tilted his head and glared at her as if he would devour her.

That gaze swirled with disbelief, anger, and despair.

Nevertheless, when he called her name, his voice was subtly gentle.

“Lady Misha.”

“Hic……!”

At that moment, Misha closed her eyes. She firmly resolved to go home, fill a washbasin with water, and drown herself by submerging her head.

Misha Grey, twenty-one years old.

She was the daughter of the impoverished Viscount Grey family, which was on a downward slope. And her other name was the Baskerville Imperial Family’s hound, ‘Lady Greyhound.’

And she had made a terrible mistake with the imperial family’s number one target.

With this very man.

The ‘undefeated lion,’ Grand Duke Chatrud Saverhagen.

***

“I don’t want to marry a woman like you.”

It was the day after she had returned from completing a particularly difficult mission.

The mission to identify and dispose of the Empire’s ‘dissidents’ was exhausting no matter how many times she did it. Killing and hurting people always was.

But Aldrin Dartmouth, Misha’s fiancé, chose that exact moment to deliver his cold farewell.

The reason for the breakup was obvious.

Taking responsibility for the impoverished Viscount Grey family was honestly burdensome. And she couldn’t even provide a dowry.

But his final insult left a crack in Misha’s heart.

“Above all… why do you leave so frequently?”

“Aldrin, that’s—”

“Do you know there are rumors that you’re seeing other men?”

At those words, Misha clenched her fists.

‘That I’m seeing other men?’

Since her engagement at twelve years old, she had never been with another man in that way.

But how could she explain why she was absent so often?

How could she explain that she hurt people on secret imperial orders?

‘I should make an excuse about the estate. If I say there was trouble in the countryside—’

As Misha opened her mouth to make excuses, her fiancé shook his head as if disgusted.

“I… want a wife who will stay consistently in our mansion.”

“……”

“Not a woman whose activities outside are unknown.”

And so, their engagement of about nine years came to an end.

***

Misha had always been the type to keep her mouth shut when things were difficult, preferring to swallow her troubles alone in her room.

Through countless experiences, she knew well that saying “I’m having a hard time” was useless.

But the mission she had been handling at that time was quite difficult, and her fiancé’s criticism stung more than she had expected.

So Misha ran to her fellow ‘hounds’ to vent.

“Sob……! This isn’t something I can control on my own……!”

Her colleagues, who had been together with her for years because of their ‘abilities,’ looked at the sobbing Misha with bewilderment.

In the glorious land of the Cambion Empire, though rare, people were occasionally born with ‘abilities.’ These typically manifested in early to mid-adolescence, and the varieties were truly diverse.

From the ability to float slightly above the ground to types that could brainwash minds…….

However, most couldn’t manifest their abilities well, and those with any capacity mostly served as soldiers.

But where there is light, there is shadow.

Crown Prince Theodore of the Baskerville Imperial Family turned those with ‘special abilities’ into his ‘hounds.’

This was likely why he had become Crown Prince, surpassing countless other imperial descendants.

After all, all the imperial descendants who opposed him died.

Misha also became a hound called ‘Lady Greyhound’ after her ability was discovered at thirteen.

And now Misha was at the Ruby Clubhouse, run by her colleague ‘Madam Frieze,’ who operated the Empire’s red-light district.

As the red-haired madam sighed, her voluptuous figure wrapped in a golden dress trembled seductively.

“So what do you want to do, Misha? What’s the use of crying like that?”

“But, Madam……”

“If you want to quit being a hound that badly, you should speak to His Highness.”

“……”

At those words, Misha felt more hurt and closed her mouth.

Once you became a hound, retiring was impossible without considerable merit.

She had wanted sympathy, but the response was blunt.

But perhaps thinking Misha had agreed with her, the madam continued.

“Otherwise, haven’t you saved up quite a bit of money by now?”

“That’s… I do have some.”

“You could live well on your own with that. Without a man, like me.”

“……”

“They say the rich take a long time to go bankrupt, and being from a noble family, you’re better off than us.”

Misha grew increasingly depressed and lowered her head.

Madam Frieze, coming from a commoner background, had achieved great success in this entertainment district through her beauty and business acumen. So a crying noble woman probably seemed trivial to her.

‘But… I’ve never told the madam.’

How many times she had to mend this one dress before wearing it. That after paying the servants’ wages, there was almost no budget left for her.

…And that all her hazard pay went to cover her parents’ gambling debts.

‘The colleagues who have been in tougher situations than me since birth probably can’t understand anyway.’

They probably all thought she was complaining from a position of privilege. But Misha, who had been assigned missions since childhood, didn’t even have noble female friends her age to confide in.

Instead of sweet tea parties, she devoted herself to grueling training.

Instead of evening balls, she tracked ‘dissidents’ in dark alleys.

By the time she realized it, she had no close friends of her own class.

‘I couldn’t talk about the ‘hound missions’ in the first place though……’

Madam Frieze, perhaps realizing she had crossed a line, offered her an expensive drink.

“Anyway, forget it. Forget that guy. You should try to catch another decent man.”

At that moment, her colleague Lulu Pyrenees, who had been quietly listening from the side, clicked her tongue.

The delicate teenage girl with pink hair usually just slept, but occasionally woke up to blurt out statements about the future.

“Hmph. Looking at how you act, that’s impossible.”

“……”

And she was also good at making barbed comments.

“You’ll grow old and die hesitating, saying you can’t do it because you’re embarrassed or feel guilty.”

“…No.”

With even Lulu acting like this, Misha looked down and muttered.

She had wanted sympathy for her painful experience, but the responses only hurt her more.

This wasn’t the first time this had happened. But today, for some reason, she felt a strange defiance.

‘I’m not always hesitant.’

When given a mission, she followed the Crown Prince’s orders faithfully, no matter how difficult. Wasn’t her strength that she persevered diligently despite the hardships?

Misha bit her lip and spoke up.

“I can t-talk to other men too, you know.”

At that, Madam Frieze and Lulu exchanged glances.

The madam smiled slightly and pointed to a side room.

“Grand Duke Saverhagen just returned victorious from the border. The soldiers from his side are drinking and making a ruckus right now.”

“Madam, are you saying……?”

“Go see if there’s anyone decent. If you like someone, you can take a room here.”

“B-but… if they find out I’m a noble—”

“Oh, change your clothes and go! Then who would know?”

And so, Misha changed into a shiny black silk dress and was pushed into the corridor. It was a provocative design that the noble lady ‘Misha Grey’ would never have worn.

But Misha was already dizzy from the high-proof alcohol, and she had already decided to try something rebellious.

‘Ugh… but is this the room Madam mentioned?’

The alcohol must have been too strong, as her steps were unsteady.

She had only intended to check the soldiers’ faces, but she wasn’t even sure if she was going to the right place.

‘This room, should be right, urk!’

She tried to peek through the crack in the door or the window attached to it. But as her body swayed, Misha ended up pushing the door open and stumbling into the room.