Vienny blinked slowly and lowered her head slightly. The fact that he had become more lenient recently didn’t mean that he was her husband. She had allowed her thoughts to run too far ahead.

From his perspective, her words must have sounded utterly absurd.

To him, she was nothing more than a wicked Great Witch.

“Or are you the one so desperate with desire that you’re throwing yourself at me?”

As expected, McClart’s voice was steeped in contempt.

Vienny knew it was foolish to react to every shred of hostility he radiated. And yet, when he spoke like that, a petulant reply slipped out before she could stop herself.

“If that were true, would you hold me?”

She regretted it the moment the words left her mouth. Before McClart could even respond, she drew back, curling herself up again.

“I know you wouldn’t. You’re devout, Inquisitor. I’m just sleepy, and you keep saying strange things…”

She continued to mutter, carefully avoiding his gaze. Suddenly, she sensed a shadow fall over her.

Puzzled, she looked up.

McClart, who had been standing a moment ago, was now kneeling in front of her.

Still tangled in the blanket, she tried to sit up, but before she could move, McClart seized her chin and forced her face towards his. His slanted gaze swept over her features with an unsettling intensity.

Being held like that while curled up made her posture painfully awkward. Her neck ached from being forced into position.

She tried to shake free, but McClart showed no intention of releasing her.

Had her earlier words sparked a bout of stubbornness in him?

Was he trying to provoke her out of irritation?

She missed her husband’s arms, but she had no desire to tangle with a man who looked at her with such contempt.

Especially since he had never once seemed to consider her worthy of warming his bed.

Acting on pointless stubbornness would only lead to regret—for him most of all. And it might very well undo the fragile improvement in Vienny’s situation.

“I’m sorry, I spoke out of turn and disturbed you with nonsense, Inquisitor.”

Her swift apology only seemed to irritate McClart further.

“And about my daughter—and my husband—”

“Husband?”

The sharp interruption cut her off. Vienny realized her mistake and pressed her lips together, but McClart had already lifted his gaze, eyes flashing.

“Hah. So he was your husband?”

In truth, they had never held a ceremony or received any formal sanction. But they had naturally become husband and wife. They hadn’t needed permission or blessings—only each other’s consent.

“I was told devil-worshippers are incapable of reproduction.”

That much was true. This was precisely why most of the witches in Tempe were women. Men branded as ‘devil-worshippers’ were said to be infertile. Witches considered male infants to be worthless, and even if they were born, they were rarely allowed to live.

McClart, at the forefront of the witch hunts, could not have been unaware of this.

When Vienny pressed her lips together without answering, the hand gripping her chin shifted. His thick, rough thumb forced its way between her closed lips, as though he intended to pry her mouth open by sheer force.

“Was he a demon?Or—don’t tell me—a follower of Chiron?”

If she had to choose, then yes, she would be a follower of Chiron. Not just any follower, but a devout one. She would wield the very sword that the High Priest of Chiron boasted about. A holy mace.

She swallowed the answer she could not speak and remained silent.

The pressure against her lips increased, leaving her no choice but to part them slightly.

She hadn’t bitten them recently, so they were mostly uninjured. Even so, her lips had always been sensitive. In the past, even McClart’s kisses had made them swell easily. Now, with his thumb pressing and rubbing against them, a dull, numbing pain quickly spread.

However, the motion was far too deliberate and lingering to be an innocent attempt to hurt her.

“Your kind betrays one another without hesitation, yet you seem eager to protect him.”

After a brief moment of thought, Vienny slowly moved her lips.

“He’s someone very precious to me.”

No matter how careful she tried to be, her tongue brushed against his finger.

There was a faint taste of iron.

A taste she already knew.

McClart lifted an eyebrow at Vienny’s answer. He looked down at her with a gaze filled with genuine surprise.

“A witch has emotions too?”

“…Of course.”

If something filthy had touched her, he should have withdrawn his hand at once—but the fingers tracing her lips showed no intention of pulling away.

Vienny no longer tried to force him off. Instead, she looked up at him with a calm, steady gaze.

“I’m human.”

The blue of his eyes seemed to deepen. An abyss—profound, unfathomable, like a sea she had never once dared to peer into—opened before her. It looked as though it might swallow her whole, and yet she spoke into it all the same.

“You’re human too, Inquisitor.”

A faint bubble seemed to rise and burst.

It was fragile and small, on the verge of disappearing, yet it was enough to disturb the still, suffocating depths.

Just as she thought the shadow looming over her had grown darker and the finger pressing against her lips had tightened its grip, it was withdrawn. In its place came the rough press of a man’s mouth.

Hot breath spilled over her as a thick tongue forced its way between her parted lips.

The body she had only just lifted was forced back by his larger frame, and she fell flat onto her back. His heat poured over her, pinning her down. With nowhere left to turn her head, Vienny could only endure the onslaught of his kiss.

His clumsy, forceful tongue invaded her mouth, forcing her jaw open wide and causing it to ache. There was no technique or finesse, only brute insistence. At times, he sucked so hard that the base of her tongue went numb.

She wanted to breathe.

But McClart gave her no opportunity to do so, leaving her with no option but to push weakly against his shoulder.

She just wanted air.

But he seemed to take it as resistance—or rejection.

“Ugh—!”

McClart bit down hard on her lips. A vivid red bloom appeared where her lips had been torn, blood seeping out and mingling with their saliva.

Still pressing against her as if he wanted to devor her whole, he twisted his head. He must have meant to deepen the kiss, but in doing so, he created the briefest of gaps.

Vienny seized the opportunity to gasp for air.

“Hah… hhk.”

Just as McClart was about to kiss her again, he stopped.

Vienny was gasping for breath in short, desperate bursts. Her lips were stained red, and her face was contorted into a tight, painful grimace.

McClart studied her expression; there was something strange in his eyes. He swallowed dryly. Then, as if searching for the lingering trace of an unfamiliar taste, he narrowed his eyes and slowly ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth.

While his attention wavered, Vienny struggled frantically to free herself from beneath his weight. Pinned under his massive frame, however, she couldn’t move an inch. Ultimately, all she could do was look up at him, her expression flustered and shaken.

“Inquisitor, why all of a sudden—”

As Vienny parted her lips to speak, a sharp sting cut through her words. She stopped short, then touched her mouth in a daze. When she saw the vivid red blood staining her fingertips, her eyes flew open.

“You’re the one who told me to try your blood.”

“B-But not like this—!”

“Thanks to that, I know now that what you said was true.”

Vienny pressed her lips together.

If he was acknowledging the truth of her words, it could mean only one thing: that, in that very moment, McClart desired her.

A tangle of emotions flickered across her face. What was she supposed to call this feeling? It was unsettling and deeply strange.

The man before her would indeed one day become her husband, but not yet. Perhaps that was why he felt like a stranger. Wasn’t kissing McClart, not Mc, like kissing another man while already married?

Of course, her husband — Mc — did not exist in this moment. And yet, even knowing that, the unease refused to fade.

“Even after keeping holy relics on you for days, you haven’t been purified.”

McClart’s fingers traced along the collar at her neck—the one he himself had fastened, the one he insisted was a holy relic.

Only then did Vienny realize that this might have been fueling his desire instead.

If McClart’s tastes hadn’t changed, then the fact that he had merely restrained her like this and watched without acting deserved to be called remarkable restraint.

“This is just a collar and handcuffs.”

“They’re holy relics.”

It was, frankly, a ridiculous claim.

Vienny swallowed down the retort hovering on the tip of her tongue—solely because of their current position. The storm-like kiss had paused, but only that much.