25

She pressed down with a sharp canine until a drop of blood finally welled up.

She licked it clean, and only then did she speak, the anger finally drained from her expression.

“Give me information on the connection between Vergeus and Cretus.”

“I can do that, but……”

“But?”

“There’s still a bit of unfinished business between us.”

Elia looked at Zayed’s playful red eyes and understood, even through the haze of drink.

Ah. Tonight is the night.

The night to fulfill the contract.

A night blurred with wine.

She reached for the tie at his waist.

“A kiss would be enough for me.”

Zayed calmly caught her wrist.

Elia looked at him with mild exasperation.

“Does rubbing lips together make a baby?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Hold me. I’ll fulfill the contract. But you give me everything I want in return.”

To Elia, the cup Zayed held out was poison, and she had no choice but to drink it.

Carrying a child for ten months, for a man she didn’t love, at the cost of her body. That wasn’t easy.

But it didn’t matter.

If it meant getting out of this, and getting her revenge.

For a brief while…… she had stepped out of her cage and tasted something like real freedom and happiness. Lying around without a care, doing nothing but listening to the sound of waves. She had loved that time.

A floating feeling, like reality had been set aside and her soul was drifting through a distant sky.

She was grateful for those precious hours.

But the moment she came face to face with Jeremy Cretus, Elia was yanked back into reality.

The unkempt, tangled hair. The hooked nose that took after his mother. The dull, unfocused eyes and the hunched shoulders.

That pathetic wretch had mocked her and tried to *ssault her.

Nausea rose alongside the fury.

To think he had been so utterly unremarkable.

For the sake of the girl she had been then, young and kind and wounded for so long by someone so worthless…… she would see this revenge through to the end.

Elia made that vow to herself.

“If you won’t, I’ll pin you down and get on top.”

“That works too. I won’t do a thing. Go ahead and try.”

He raised both hands in mock surrender.

She didn’t know the details of how to go about this, but she had a vague general idea.

First…… first, undo the clothes, take them off, and then……

What came after?

No, wait, who was supposed to undress first?

“J-just lie down.”

“Your voice is shaking. Adorable.”

Zayed obeyed her command and lay back on the bed, watching her with an expression that said, well, what now.

Those eyes were full of teasing and laughter, and the irritation that rose in her made her want to bite him again.

But she stopped at the thought this time.

Doing the same thing twice would be reckless.

So instead of leaving a mark on him, Elia decided to try something bolder.

She was confident this would surprise him.

“……!”

She climbed on top of him and pressed down with her hips, and Zayed let out a sound from his throat that was somewhere between a gasp and a groan.

Feeling slightly victorious, Elia planted both hands on his firm chest and met those red eyes.

“This is a bit of a problem.”

“Is it? Is it a problem?”

“Haa…… what am I going to do with this wild thing.”

Elia opened her eyes coolly at his murmur.

She was trying to approach this seriously and maturely, as the contract required, and he clearly was not.

“Focus.”

Fed up, Elia grabbed him by the chin.

Her fingers were still thin no matter how much weight she had gained, but there was unexpected strength in them, built from all those hours practicing with the rope.

Zayed looked up at her with his chin tilted to the side and decided he should stop teasing her. He swallowed a sigh.

“The enthusiasm is good, but—”

“……!”

In an instant, the position flipped.

Zayed wrapped one arm around her waist and laid her down. Then he pressed a few kisses to the back of her neck as though to say it was all right, and looked up to meet her eyes.

“If we do this now, you’ll die.”

“……Die?”

“No Quialaiser has ever made it through Hunting Season with me.”

Hunting Season.

It came up without fail whenever the biology of Masters was taught.

A Master’s ability was limitless, but the more it was used, the deeper the madness seeped in.

Even with a superior Quialaiser purifying it, a trace of poison remained and accumulated in the mind over time.

When that reached its limit, Hunting Season arrived.

Once a Master entered the hunting state, reason went dormant and instinct took over. The drive to hunt consumed everything.

It was slightly different from a full runaway. A runaway meant destroying everything in sight and killing indiscriminately until the soul shattered. This was more like the social veneer being stripped away, leaving only the wild.

It lasted until the accumulated poison was fully purged, so the duration varied enormously from person to person.

And Zayed…… from what she had been taught, he endured a Hunting Season longer and more brutal than anyone.

“And to receive my seed in this thin body on top of that……”

Zayed murmured low and spread his palm wide, slowly circling it over her stomach.

“You can’t be this fragile.”

“……”

“Once I start, I go for three days.”

Elia stared at his smug, teasing face and looked thoroughly done with him.

Only one word came to mind.

“Animal……”

“Is there a Master who isn’t? Male or female, they’re all the same. Scorpio, who runs this casino for me, is no different.”

He took being called insane as a compliment and responded to being called an animal without a shred of shame, so there was nothing left to say.

Zayed looked at Elia for a moment, lips pressed stubbornly shut, and then his brow furrowed with something like genuine strain.

He had been talking casually and pretending to be at ease, but the truth was he was at his limit too.

He could talk about consideration and restraint all he liked, but the ache below had already become considerable.

He still had enough reason left to get out of bed, but it was getting precarious.

But Elia needed to put on more weight, needed to be healthier first……!

It was then.

Elia stretched out both arms and bit down on the back of his neck. The sight of her small lips working against his skin, gnawing at it, filled him with bewilderment and fondness and an inexplicable surge of desire all at once.

“Don’t pull back.”

“……”

“People don’t die that easily.”

Her voice, low and plain, her true voice, slipped into his ear.

The particular calm of someone who understood her situation, accepted it, and had made her peace with it. The spirit of someone who would do whatever it took to get what she wanted.

Zayed’s heart responded to that.

Or rather, something lower responded. Either way.

“I’ve always liked strong things, even though I was fragile.”

“What do you mean?”

“Honest. Proactive. Unbearably lovely.”

Zayed pushed back her hair and his eyes shifted entirely.

He had held back twice. He had given her chances to step away.

A puppy might not know to fear a tiger, but she kept walking into his mouth like this, so what was he supposed to do?

He had no choice but to bite down and taste her.

“It’ll hurt at first.”

“Yes.”

“If it’s too much, don’t hold back. Hit me.”

After that low, unhurried whisper, he pressed his lips to her cheek, her neck, her collarbone.

The warmth that came through in those small, scattered kisses was unmistakably different from before.

Whether it was because his manner had turned serious, or because she was drunk, she couldn’t tell.

“You’re beautiful.”

His hands drew the shoulder straps of her dress slowly down.

Her skin was cool and he was burning, and Elia thought this felt like darkness being swept away as the sun rose.

Golden light scattering over earth that had been frozen all night. That crossing from night into day.

The same as the moment she had loved most, locked in a narrow room and slowly losing her mind.

So Elia was not afraid.

Being held by him meant holding him in return.

There was nothing frightening about holding the sun.

“Ah……!”

He left a mark on the inside of her thigh. Zayed, with her slender calf resting over his shoulder, looked closely at what his hand had found.

There was a brand there, one that must have hurt throughout the entire time it was being burned in.

Ouroboros.

A dragon devouring its own tail.

The mark of a permanent resident of Moshre Psychiatric Hospital.

Seared in so that even those who escaped could be easily recaptured. A deeply cruel trap.

This was the undeniable proof that Elia was Yulia.

“W-why are you looking there—!”

He parted her legs and pressed his face down without hesitation.

Elia squirmed and he held her firmly in place. The tip of his nose met soft fabric. He pressed along the seam with the bridge of his nose, moving slowly upward until he stopped at the apex.