28

Elia was the one suffering for it.

“Ah, just……”

“Just?”

“……Do it.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Say it clearly, sweetheart.”

He answered with a smug grin and looked down at her slight body.

He felt too good.

Simply being connected to her felt like enough.

At some point, the monster inside him had sunk to the very bottom of the deep and gone quiet.

‘She definitely doesn’t have purification ability.’

He couldn’t explain this feeling of fullness.

That simply holding this woman made him feel so good he could lose his mind, that no one else even crossed his thoughts……

Why did he want to be gentler with her, sweeter with her.

He had never been this way with anyone else.

There was no answer, but the connection continued.

From rough and frantic to something thick and sweet as honey. From raging like a storm to something like the soft rain at the end of monsoon season.

Through all of it, Elia was not lonely for a single moment.

“I’m hungry!”

She had no idea how much time had passed after that.

Elia’s eyes flew open and she cried out.

This time, her stomach truly felt like it was touching her spine. The moment she came to her senses, she was starving to death.

It felt like she had been scraped clean from head to toe.

Then a soft white roll was pushed into her mouth.

Chewing it slowly, Elia blinked and looked around, and realized the ruined bed had been replaced with something new.

She rubbed her eyes thinking she had seen wrong, and sat up.

The bedroom, which had looked like it had taken a direct hit, was clean and tidy, with new furniture brought in.

“I was going to have flowers brought in too, but I stopped myself. You said you don’t like food smells mixing with fragrance.”

Zayed, looking more carefully dressed than usual today, explained as he pushed a slice of apple into her mouth.

“Four nights have passed since the masquerade.”

“……Four nights?”

“That’s how it turned out. Do you want to rest a little longer? I was a bit much.”

Zayed let his eyes droop and put on a sorry expression.

But those red eyes, blazing like the midday sun, held not a trace of remorse. They seethed with nothing but the savage desire to strip her bare again at the next opportunity.

Elia kneaded her stiff shoulders and stretched.

“I want to wash up and eat something proper.”

“Is that so? I’ll call a maid. I’ll be taking care of some work for a bit, so take your time washing up and come down to the lobby. Let’s go get steak.”

He seemed to be talking more than usual.

Elia narrowed her eyes and looked him over, then nodded without much fuss.

Well, what did it matter.

He was offering to feed her steak.

She had been cooped up in the bedroom for too long and was starting to feel stifled, so she had been wanting to go outside for a walk anyway.

***

The toga Zayed wore, white cloth embroidered with gold thread, made him look like a sun god today.

He was always handsome, but today he seemed to glow from within.

He had rented out an entire restaurant and chosen the table with the best view.

“Here, sit.”

“You’re being unusually attentive today.”

“Am I? Must be your imagination.”

Zayed curved his eyes.

His face looked like it was lit from the inside, and Elia felt a faint, unwelcome flutter in her chest.

“This is the information you wanted.”

The order he would have handled himself, choosing the best of everything, so Elia turned her attention to the documents placed in front of her.

“I had it thoroughly investigated over the past few days, so you can trust it. Everything written there has been cross-verified.”

“Yes.”

The documents contained things that would be very difficult for just anyone to know. Deeply private matters. For instance, the fact that Catalena and Morgon had once been lovers.

“……Is this real?”

She asked again in disbelief, and Zayed lifted his wine glass and gave a small nod.

“So she attached a man she used to date to me.”

“More or less.”

“Ha.”

The reason was obvious. It would be about the inheritance.

Most of the dirty things in the world came down to money.

“It’s in there too, but Catalena and Morgon are from the same hometown.”

Zayed turned to a page and tapped the first line. Elia focused her eyes and read down the text.

The documents stated that the two had been in a relationship around the age of nineteen, and had been a well-known couple in their village. Then they had been caught running a con on a wealthy man and, fleeing, had been separated.

“Quite the love story of the century.”

Elia muttered sourly and bit the soft inside of her cheek.

[Morgon relocates to another city. Conceals his identity and works as an astrologer.

Approximately one year later, adopted into the Vergeus family as an adult heir.]

The further she read, the worse it got.

Elia exhaled slowly and spoke.

“So he wasn’t even a real noble.”

“That’s right. Adopting an adult to continue a family line does happen occasionally, but it’s not common.”

“……Yes.”

So how had he come to carry the Vergeus name.

The documents had the answer.

[Believed to have been in an unofficial relationship with the elderly Lady Vergeus.]

“I should have waited until after eating to read this.”

She felt a mild pang of regret.

[Furthermore, three months later. The elderly Lady Vergeus died in a suspicious fall. As it was so long ago, no evidence remains linking the incident to Morgon.]

The meal arrived just as she finished reading that.

Sion, Zayed’s subordinate, brought it personally, while someone who appeared to be the head chef stood at a distance with a look of barely contained anxiety.

“Eat first. Sion will have checked for poison, so you can trust it.”

Elia read a few more lines while Zayed cut the meat.

“So Morgon took all my inheritance and didn’t share it with Catalena.”

“Right. There was no suspicious flow of funds to Catalena at all. On top of that, Catalena has become an alcoholic.”

“Ah.”

“The Cretus family right now is a fortress on the verge of collapse.”

Good.

Knowing that Catalena had not been happy while she was living through hell was deeply satisfying.

The appetite that had vanished at the thought of Morgon’s repulsive actions seemed to return.

“So currently, Yulia Vergeus is listed as dead in a hospital fire……”

“Which means the Vergeus family now has to return the existing inheritance to the imperial household. Catalena, upon hearing that news, was doubly devastated and has taken to her bed, according to what’s written there.”

The steak, cut into bite-sized pieces, was tender enough to melt.

Elia accepted each piece as he fed it to her, then felt a gaze and turned her head.

The head chef was frozen, looking like he had just witnessed the sky fall.

“I’m asking just to be sure, but our conversation can’t be heard from over there, can it.”

“Of course not.”

“Then why is he staring like that?”

“He’s probably seeing me feed someone for the first time. I used to come to this steakhouse fairly often.”

Zayed explained without any particular expression and fed her another piece.

‘So he came here with other women.’

Elia took it and tilted her head.

They weren’t the kind of couple who had any reason to be jealous of each other to begin with, but setting that aside entirely, she genuinely didn’t feel jealous.

Even after that intensity, it seemed no particular feelings had developed toward him, which was a relief.

“What are you thinking about?”

“That Morgon must have accumulated an enormous fortune by now, so he’ll probably hand back that amount without blinking, and that irritates me.”

“He’s officially a widower now, so he’ll likely pursue the Empress more aggressively. From what I can see lately, he’s practically her lover already. No one says it aloud, but.”

Morgon was someone who had climbed in status through marriage fraud.

Was his final goal to become the Empress’s lover?

Or……

‘Surely he’s not aiming for the throne itself.’

Even Morgon, regardless of how little he knew his place, would know that was impossible.

But he would have designs on getting the Empress with child.

“Before the Empress conceives Morgon’s child…… He has to die before that.”

Elia picked up the knife set before her.

Her own two eyes reflected back in the silver blade catching the sunlight.

The color of those vividly alive pupils was green.

Every time she saw her own eyes, she was reminded again that this was not the world she had originally lived in.

Just then, someone came over and murmured to Sion, who was standing by. Sion then approached Zayed and delivered his report.

“My lord. My apologies for interrupting your meal.”

“What is it?”

Sion was not someone who stepped forward carelessly.

Knowing that, neither Zayed nor Elia showed any irritation.

“Lord Gillian has arrived at Belladio.”

And what Sion had to say was indeed a report that could not wait until after the meal.

***

The iron-willed patriarch, Gillian Idmazel.

He was, at this moment…… sulking.