Megrez, who briefly met eyes with Alkaid, flinched without realizing it.

“……I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

What Alkaid inherited from his mother, Duchess Winterhold, wasn’t just imprinting on an ordinary human.

Red eyes.

Eyes that planted fear in people’s hearts and gave them a sense of intimidation had been passed down as well.

Until now, the only people who could meet Alkaid’s eyes without being affected were his mother, the Emperor, and the Crown Prince. Even Megrez, who had been with Alkaid since childhood, reacted like a startled person when caught off guard, and his father had never once met his eyes.

Then what about Spica, an ordinary human like his father?

“Megrez. What do you think would happen if your mate rejected you and ran away?”

“I’d go insane.”

“That’s why my mother confined my father. So he couldn’t go anywhere.”

“……”

“I didn’t understand before. They say mates are more important than life to beast-humans, but I wondered why mother treated father so cruelly.”

However, after discovering Spica, he came to understand.

They’re an existence that must look at him as much as he looks at them, that must want him as much as he wants them. When a mate’s heart doesn’t face theirs, beast-humans gradually go mad.

“Ordinary humans don’t understand a beast-human’s obsession.”

“Young Duke. Not all humans will be like that. Just like not all beast-humans are the same.”

Alkaid raised the corners of his mouth slightly.

The faint hope Megrez spoke of was no different from the last thread binding Alkaid from acting like his mother.

* * *

“Huk!”

Spica bolted upright.

Collapsing ground, despairing eyes. Herself running without thinking and the pain of her arm being severed. Eyes containing slight irritation, her father bowing his head.

‘It was a nightmare……’

Her head felt dizzy from the dream she’d had after a long time. Spica panted while trying to focus her vision.

Long hair clung tangled over her neck soaked in cold sweat. Someone’s hand slowly approached to remove it.

Spica didn’t even have the leisure to grasp the other party’s intention. The moment she felt something moving behind her, she reflexively tried to subdue it.

But they weren’t someone Spica could handle. Alkaid simply twisted to avoid her hand and pressed her round forehead down to lie back in place.

Lying with her superior’s firm thigh as a pillow, Spica blinked slowly.

‘This feels good……’

Having just escaped from a nightmare, it felt like she had entered quite a pleasant dream this time.

While an enchanting fragrance tickled her nose, she saw a glittering helmet through her blurry vision. Spica blankly raised her hand to feel the helmet.

“Cold.”

“……Are you truly awake?”

Alkaid, who had been silent for a moment due to Spica’s behavior, asked.

“Did I…… fall asleep?”

Even while asking back, Spica still thought she was in a dream.

That was natural since her sleeping with Alkaid’s leg as a pillow was something that couldn’t happen in reality.

Instead of correcting that she had collapsed, Alkaid nodded.

“You must have been lacking sleep.”

“Yes…… Every night…… strange sounds come from the next room.”

While Alkaid paused at the unexpected story, Megrez interjected.

“Spica didn’t sleep for long, so stop nagging.”

It was a lively voice completely opposite to Alkaid’s low rumbling one.

That voice shattered her sense of reality like she was being poured ice water.

“Eek!”

Spica got up falling from the sofa and pressed her back tightly against the wall.

What on earth did I say? No, words aside, sleeping with Alkaid’s l-l-leg as a pillow, good heavens……

Watching Spica cover her mouth, Megrez pretended to be sad.

“Eek? Really…… Commander, is my voice that terrible?”

“I suppose it depends on how you listen to it.”

“Wow. That’s really too much? Where else can you find someone who devotes loyalty to the Commander like me?”

“Whether I acknowledge that will depend on how quickly you handle your work.”

The two had been working together at the meeting table while waiting for Spica to wake up. Spica’s hands slowly lowered upon discovering documents scattered here and there.

“Did you…… work here because of me?”

“I knew you’d wake up soon.”

When Spica seemed somewhat calmed, Alkaid slowly got up and approached.

“Excuse me,” he said and carefully felt Spica’s forehead. Her gaze, which had been wandering here and there because her embarrassment hadn’t fully subsided, dropped down after seeing the red cufflinks on his sleeve.

‘No fever.’

Even checking the pulse below her chin seemed normal……

……No, it seemed to be getting slightly faster, so he asked.

“You’re not short of breath?”

“Y-yes. I’m…… fine now.”

Spica managed to answer somehow, but she wasn’t fine at all.

‘It wasn’t my imagination.’

What was the reason she had forgotten about hiding from the Crown Prince and stood up?

The fragrance that flowed in whenever strange sounds came from beyond the wall — she felt the same scent from Alkaid.

‘I didn’t know until now, why only now.’

No, it wasn’t that she could ‘only now’ smell it. It had been announcing its existence very gradually, growing stronger over several nights.

She wanted to block her nose because of the fragrance that felt stronger the more she was conscious of it. While burying her face in Alkaid’s hands checking her condition……

Only when her thoughts reached this point did she realize.

‘I’ve really become strange.’

She had never wanted someone like this before, and the target was her superior.

Alkaid sighed. Though Spica didn’t try to escape his touch, she couldn’t look straight at him like usual either.

He was always pleased when Spica was conscious of him. However, he was equally anxious. He feared her heart might not return and she might completely avoid him.

Nevertheless, Spica needed rest right now. Alkaid let her go and commanded.

“Go home early today.”

“……Work has piled up, so I need to do even a little. I need to send people to the guard post and also……”

“Dame Atrain.”

Spica raised her head with a subtle expression.

Just before completely losing consciousness, she had heard Alkaid loudly calling her name.

The title that had returned to normal upon opening her eyes felt uncomfortable for some reason. Part of her heart felt empty too.

Whether he knew she was shaken by emotions she couldn’t understand, Alkaid only continued his lecture calmly.

“If you’re a member of the knight order, you should know how to entrust your back to colleagues.”

“Right, Dame Atrain! We’re one group.”

“If Megrez says that, it means the other knights feel the same way. You know how much the members like you.”

“Of course, of course. They like you so much they even tried to marry you to their younger brother……”

When killing intent emanated from inside the helmet, Megrez shut her mouth.

Though she would obviously grumble inwardly about why he didn’t just confess, Alkaid completely ignored her and looked only at Spica.

“Whatever happens, we, I will gladly stand before you.”

Spica’s lips trembled.

Though he didn’t directly specify out of concern for her who had even fainted, she couldn’t help but understand he meant not to fear Diblin.

She felt Alkaid’s sincerity. Whatever his intention, he had the will to protect Spica from her. Above all, he had the power.

He was Spica’s shield that she couldn’t have before.

It felt like returning to being a powerless teenage girl who had to swallow her grievances and receiving comfort.

She barely opened her mouth to speak.

“Thank you……”

Her intuition was telling her. That the strange person in the next room was precisely Alkaid. That there was no one else with the same fragrance as him.

‘I don’t know what circumstances Alkaid has for renting and living in one room.’

But since he worried about Spica and volunteered to be her shield, she thought she should protect him too.

On the way home, pushed by Alkaid and Megrez,

Spica wrote a short message and slipped it through the gap under the next room’s door.

* * *

Spica’s next room opened at a late hour of the night, same as always.

Something bumped against Alkaid’s foot while he was tearing off his uniform buttons.

When he bent his waist, an envelope written in familiar handwriting saying ‘To the person beyond the wall‘ came into his view. The letters were round like Spica’s personality. He slowly tore the seal.

What was inside was a note as short as he had gauged by weight.

I happened to hear sounds.

Since I promised to help with anything

Please trust me too, Commander.

“……Yet you say ‘the person beyond the wall.'”

What are you going to do if it wasn’t not your Commander, Spica.

He tapped the paper’s edge and raised his gaze. Spica would be beyond that wall.

‘She said she heard sounds. My sounds, every single day.’

Even Alkaid hadn’t anticipated there would be a backlash from not connecting with his imprinting partner and only keeping her by his side to watch.

The time when instincts grew stronger, groans swallowed while gritting his teeth and enduring impulses. Sounds that shouldn’t leak outside were felt from beyond the wall…… Even to the extent of losing sleep.

It seemed he hadn’t been doing completely futile things all this time. Alkaid tapped the paper once more.

“What do you think I want when you keep saying you’ll do anything?”

What if the other party was a bad guy who dug all sorts of traps and just waited for you to roll into his mouth.

Alkaid chuckled and kissed the writing.

“……I’m exactly that kind of bastard.”

What do I do, Spica.

My mate.