Chapter 3. Trickery

Dawn light tickled at her firmly shut eyelids.

Drifting weakly, Elia tried to work out how many hours it had been.

“Oh, you’re awake, sweetheart?”

“……Water……”

“Just a moment. Let me finish once more and then I’ll give it to you. You can hold on, can’t you?”

Insane. He’s actually insane.

It felt like they had been at it for two days, and Elia silently cursed the man whose eyes were still glazed with want.

So it hadn’t been an exaggeration when he said once he started he’d go for three days.

She had taken it for empty boasting, but Zayed showed no sign of tiring.

If anything, he seemed to come more alive as time went on.

The funny thing was that she didn’t want to push him away or hit him.

Elia actually stretched her arms out, wrapped them around his neck, and moved on her own.

It felt good. Even while cursing him, she kept getting pulled deeper and deeper into the pleasure he gave her.

The sound of skin against skin was stark and unambiguous.

The blanket had ended up on the floor at some point, and the sheets were hopelessly crumpled.

The bedpost had been fine at the start, but now one side was broken and the canopy hung in a lopsided mess.

The carpet had white, translucent stains that made it unusable again, and something was smeared across the window as well.

In the past forty-eight hours, Zayed had spent less than ten of them actually in the bed.

It was only natural that the room had been damaged in various ways.

“Ah……”

Elia’s voice was completely gone, raw and cracked from exhaustion. A short while later, Zayed handed her the water he had promised and cupped her sweat-damp cheeks in both hands, pressing small kisses to them.

“Beautiful. Why are you so beautiful?”

“……”

Elia knew it clearly now.

Zayed liked her far more like this than when she was dressed up.

The excess of pleasure had made her cry several times. Her makeup was thoroughly smeared because of it, her hair hopelessly tangled and knotted with no apparent way to fix it, and there wasn’t a single spot on her neck, chest, stomach, or thighs that wasn’t marked with bruises.

And he liked this. What a peculiar and strange taste.

Zayed definitely had something broken somewhere in his head.

‘Then again, acting like he’s in love when he doesn’t feel a thing isn’t exactly sane to begin with.’

Mid-yawn, a tart cherry was placed in Elia’s mouth.

Draped lazily against his solid body and eating it, she let her gaze drift downward.

After two days of this, something that should have been spent was still very much at attention.

“When does it ever go down?”

She asked in genuine bewilderment, and Zayed snickered.

“I told you, sweetheart. Once I start, I go for three days.”

“No, but still……”

Elia trailed off and tilted her head.

“Come to think of it, this isn’t even Hunting Season.”

“It’s not.”

“Then what are you like during Hunting Season?”

“Well…… you’ll manage. Even now we’re taking breaks and I’m feeding you in between.”

Saying it with a pretty smile didn’t make it any less absurd.

Exasperated, Elia grabbed a handful of cherries and shoved them into his mouth.

The purpose of this was to conceive a child, so during the contract period he wouldn’t be taking anyone else to bed. Which meant he would have to endure the Hunting Season with her alone.

‘But…… even if it’s a bit much, mm. How do I put this.’

Rolling a cherry around in her mouth, Elia looked down at her own hand.

“It feels like I lost as much as my right hand, but gained as much as my left……”

“Mm?”

“You said normally one person can’t handle you. But I’m handling it.”

“Ah, that’s true. Strange, isn’t it.”

A recessive cannot sustain a Master. So it’s better not to fall in love with one to begin with.

That was the prevailing belief in this country’s noble society.

So was she able to handle it because she was a transmigrator?

“One more day and we’ll have our answer.”

“……What?”

“It feels grimy. Should we wash up first?”

Zayed scooped her up in his arms.

This fine suite naturally came with a well-appointed bathroom with proper plumbing, and the large square bathtub was filled with water, though she had no idea when it had been drawn.

Sinking into the warm water, she felt her stiff muscles release all at once.

Zayed climbed in with her still in his arms and poured the hot water over her shoulders.

“Can you lift your arms?”

“Mmhm.”

“Good girl. Well done.”

He was the one doing all the washing, so what exactly she had done well was unclear.

Zayed washed every part of her with fig-scented soap.

The places marked with violet bruises he scrubbed with particular care, and the touch felt so good that she exhaled softly.

“Now that I think about it, it’s a little unfair.”

“What is?”

“My body is covered in marks but yours isn’t.”

Elia had bitten him. She absolutely had.

It just hadn’t left any marks.

That had annoyed her, so she had bitten his lips repeatedly instead, and now there was a dried scab on his lower lip.

“I don’t usually bite like this…… but someone kept provoking me.”

Zayed smiled faintly and washed her hair.

A short while later, Elia came out into the sitting room wrapped in a thick towel.

Drip, drip.

Water fell from her not-quite-dry hair.

She felt not even a trace of guilt, and that was because the state of the room was beyond words.

The morning sun had risen at some point and was pouring over the whole world, spilling into the room and illuminating the wreckage.

Elia picked her way around fallen, torn, and broken things to reach the window and stood looking out at the beautiful view.

Last night she had not been afraid.

While she lay with Zayed, there had been nothing to fear. Not even a nightmare.

That alone had been enough.

“What are you looking at.”

Zayed came out after washing, still dripping, and wrapped his arms around her waist.

It was strange how natural it had become to settle into his arms.

It was an illusion that would disappear someday, nothing more than a dream, and yet she leaned into it anyway…… because of the weakness in her that wanted to hold on to a moment of peace, even briefly.

“It’s strange. I’m not hungry.”

“Is that so?”

“I must have eaten too much of you. Why am I so full……”

It really was strange. Strange, and strange again.

She had always been hungry. No matter what she ate, the hunger never left. She could stuff herself and be empty again within an hour. So she would go looking for food again.

Why wasn’t she hungry now.

After sweating this much, moving this much.

“Then eat a little more of me, sweetheart.”

“Yes.”

“Shall we do it slowly this time, facing the window? You love the sunlight.”

It was a wonder he had held back through the entire bath.

Zayed pressed small kisses to her thin shoulder and gripped her hips, rubbing his thumbs in slow circles.

Her body had loosened in the warm water, so entry came easily.

He didn’t rush. He pressed his lips softly against the area near her shoulder blades and let them linger. Elia shivered, and he felt it through his whole body and smiled.

“My sweetheart likes being touched like this on her back.”

“……Mmh.”

“And when my hand comes around to the front…… you like that even more. Wanting both at once. Greedy.”

He moved his hips slowly and took in every part of her.

The color of her fully opened folds was even more vivid in the bright sunlight.

Golden light poured down the length of her slender back.

She had been beautiful in moonlight, but this was something beyond words.

“Sweetheart.”

“Ah!”

“What am I going to do…… you’re so beautiful. Aren’t you.”

Zayed, unexpectedly, didn’t know how to say empty things.

He had never needed to perform for the sake of someone else’s feelings.

So every compliment he gave her was entirely sincere.

Here in the south, the idea that intimacy required love was considered a childish notion.

What was wrong with two grown adults wanting each other and enjoying it?

Though in a relationship built on pleasure without love, the most important thing was, naturally, not to become attached.

“Think about it. After sleeping with me, do you have any strength left to get into someone else’s bed?”

“That’s…… insane.”

He knew that unspoken rule, and it still irritated him for no reason.

This was not Shell House.

Anyone could extend an invitation to her here, and Elia could take that hand if she chose.

They were husband and wife for now, and they had to appear to be in love, so even if it didn’t go as far as the bedroom, flirting was acceptable.

That was the way of the southern social scene, so he had no grounds to object, and yet……

‘Even imagining it makes me irritable.’

Zayed pressed his lips together and tormented Elia slowly.

He knew what she wanted, but he let the tide rise, then stopped, then let it rise again, then stopped.