“While war occurred in the north, I heard the umbra also paid for their sins through hard labor. Please show mercy so she can live the rest of her life as light rather than shadow.”

“……Mercy.”

Everyone present could sense Kata’s anger.

“If you pledge undoubted loyalty, I might reconsider.”

He spoke with his gaze on empty air.

“Come here, Rosaline.”

Rosaline emerged from the shadow behind the altar with slow steps. Romeo glared at Rosaline standing meekly before him as if to devour her, his back to William and Tybalt.

“Undress.”

“Kata!”

Tybalt was shocked. Romeo thoroughly ignored him and twisted up the corner of his mouth. But his red eyes weren’t smiling.

“You said you could do anything.”

Rosaline looked at Tybalt briefly with trembling eyes. Steeped in dismay, he clenched his teeth. Moderate kindness was deception after all.

She exhaled and began undoing the shoulder straps of her top one by one. Her arms trembled helplessly, but if he was testing her limits, she had to willingly respond. Without him, she was truly alone now. She was the one in need.

Ignoring her flowing tears, she removed her clothes until her round shoulders and thin shoulder blades were revealed—

“How readily you undress. In front of that b*stard.”

He pulled Rosaline’s waist into his embrace. When she collapsed into his arms, he covered her shoulder blades with his large hands and pressed his cheek between her br*asts. Impossible to tell if he was displeased she’d obeyed or achingly satisfied.

“Thinking I’ll send you back to the Capulets if you obey.”

Excited with jealousy and l*st mixed, he gripped her delicate neck and bit. He glared at those beyond her shoulder.

“Everyone get out.”

William was the one who dragged out Tybalt, unable to move rashly. Israil and Raphael looked troubled and flushed, anticipating what would happen in the temple, and Tybalt seemed complicated.

But William was not. His cold eyes blazed like embers as if he’d found a method.

“They put out all the candles in the temple—what’s the reason?”

Usually temples kept scented candles lit as custom. No reason to extinguish candles in such a large temple with the master present.

“Kata must dislike the scent.”

“Nonsense. He never cared about such things.”

William looked at empty air and chuckled.

“That Rosaline friend was quite self-sacrificing. She must have come here because she was devoted to your cousin too.”

“……”

“Wouldn’t she do more for her lover?”

When Tybalt looked as if asking what he meant, William’s eyes curved looking at him.

“I think I found it. A way to separate from Kata.”

There’d been a time like this before. When she’d gone to the temple with Romeo to clean and made love on the altar.

But it hadn’t been this merciless. Though rough, tenderness had been everywhere. Even after climaxing, not withdrawing his c*ck but gazing at her as if entranced before kissing and moving slowly again, the sensation of his s*men and her fluids mixing and seeping inside her walls, the intangible passion beyond grasp… all of it.

He keenly noticed her longing for other times and grabbed Rosaline’s jaw. Foreheads touched and a vicious gaze fell. Since he’d bent his waist while inserted, her belly folded and her inner walls were compressed.

“Hah……!”

Both legs draped over his shoulders convulsed finely. Romeo drew a twisted smile.

“Seeing that b*stard makes you want to return to the Capulets?”

“You know I don’t want to go.”

Rosaline, completely softened from repeated s*x, pleaded. Opaque s*men filling her walls leaked like foam from their tightly joined perineum, and she couldn’t speak properly from continuous climaxes.

She truly wanted to work things out with him somehow. Even in Valher she hadn’t expected an ordinary life, but she’d planned to stay with him even if they continued secret meetings.

He always spoke as if someone had abandoned him. So hadn’t he said he understood her?

“I’m different from the person who abandoned you in the past. I’ll be with you… I……”

“Ah, will you save me?”

Anger simmering low dwelt in his smile.

“Unlike the person who abandoned me in the past?”

Laughing loudly as if absurd, he pulled away from her grasp and pressed foreheads together. Raising his hips and positioning himself, he took posture to have her again. Her insides are already soft from multiple insertions spread open from his c*ck.

“Romeo… hngh……!”

Gripping and pinning both wrists, he inserted to the root excruciatingly slowly. As Rosaline shuddered, he pressed her limit then rolled his hips heavily as if making space. Her fully filled lower half instantly trembled.

He looked teasingly at her arched waist and er*ect n*pples, then raised the corner of his mouth while meeting her clouded eyes.

“Even in Valher I thought things might change. Because I mistakenly thought you’d accepted me.”

He was clearly angry.

“But again, you’re trying to drown me by plunging me into hope.”

His gl*ns that had thoroughly teased inside withdrew until it caught at the entrance. She should say that wasn’t it, but her breath caught as he scraped sensitive spots withdrawing.

“When you see me, you don’t even smile.”

His cheek touched Rosaline’s cheek. He rubbed like a masterless dog.

“While crying.”

Just, a bit exhausted. Sad because their relationship seemed to make no progress at all. But she couldn’t be easily honest and only mumbled.

Taking silence as refusal, his movement stopped abruptly. The red gaze stabbing down was fierce as if to excavate her intent. She had to say something, but felt something foreign in her suddenly gripped hand.

“Romeo……!!!”

Rosaline screamed. He’d made her finger probe the wound between his ribs. She curled her hand at the touch of fresh red flesh, but he gripped the back of her hand fiercely and made her probe deeper.

She tried to pull out, face pale, shaking her head, but the hand gripping her wouldn’t release. Romeo was even smiling longer than ever.

“Romeo, Rome… hah!”

Rosaline’s neck snapped back at the sudden hard thrust below. His er*ect c*ck poured prec*m and pressed inside as if to burst. Pleasure that whitened her vision.

Fear and tremor mixed until her head seemed to melt. But as if this was merely a prelude, he bent his waist. His entire wound touched her palm. Despite her tears and refusal, fierce insertion continued until her b*ttocks bounced with slaps. The sound of flesh meeting was messy.

“Cry if you want. Just be here. Forever, with me.”

“Ah, ah.”

Romeo kissed as if to bite her neck and whispered.

“I want you to suffer. I hope you’ll live forever in this mire with me. I wish you’d watch my death to the end.”

Even in moments of losing consciousness, the s*x was rougher than ever, pleasure trampling her. Blood flow throughout her body boiled with pleasure, but her heart was scraped away more than ever.

“I’ll crumble at one gesture from you, so will you still leave?”

“You destroyed me!!!”

At the climax’s end, his past words suddenly surfaced and she realized. Rosaline had ignored his clear warning, and

Romeo had already crumbled.

Perhaps intending to firmly announce Kata stood with the royal family, the triumph ceremony was scheduled to last a month, creating a long procession from northern Arsha to the capital.

Usually they had to dress Kata in clothing exposing his upper body to show off a body unaffected by any weather, so they needed to heal scars remaining everywhere.

Even in the capital, wounds that had healed right after injury now remained open for days after coming to Arsha. Blood didn’t flow unless touched, but William couldn’t leave the scars as they were.

Treatment proceeded in utmost secrecy, so only physicians entered Kata’s room. Rosaline couldn’t hide her anxious air and waited outside for his treatment to finish.

“Leave. Come right back in when it’s done.”

Romeo had ordered this for some reason. Was he trying to cast her out? Growing needlessly anxious, Rosaline paced before the room.

“Before Kata’s incarnation, Romeo once asked me something.”

Duke William approached from the end of the empty corridor and stood before the door. When Rosaline looked up in surprise, he slowly lowered his gaze and tapped his neck.

“He asked what to do if his throat wasn’t usually well. What wasn’t well about it. Things like that.”

“……”

“I told him not to expose it to any kind of smoke. My twin sister often suffered chest pain too.”

He smiled faintly. His blue eyes felt rather like dark flames.

“It was strange. On the battlefield he’d be covered in blood and guts, didn’t mind smoke from burning corpses……”

“……I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

His gaze lingered long on Rosaline. The prince turned duke seemed to hide his intentions meticulously unlike Romeo, who laid bare every emotion, making it hard to guess his purpose even while watching.

He spoke.

“Strangely enough, he seems the same to me then and now.”

Of course. He was the same being then and now. But the next words were enough to fluster her.

“Usually, an incarnation takes time to shed human skin, but this is too slow. Besides, his body won’t heal—it’s dangerous.”

“……”

“Some say it’s because he can’t cast off his human heart. But it’s strange. He healed fine before, but it became odd after coming to Arsha. I thought he might die like this.”

“……”

“Those doubting his divinity are increasing.”

The smile completely left his face.

“Do you have any idea why he’s like this?”

William’s intent now came through blatantly. He was saying Romeo was in danger because of Rosaline. When she only gaped, William smiled gently and softly gripped her hand.

“You seem to know enough, Rosaline.”

A dagger was placed in Rosaline’s hand. A blade as beautiful as the one that had once stabbed Juliet’s belly. William’s footsteps were light as he trod on Rosaline’s long shadow.