“Hannah……”

As soon as Hannah left the office with Eva, she burst into tears over the humiliation Eva had suffered.

“The rumors that the Blue Wolf army especially torments women were all true!”

She didn’t seem to realize that if those rumors were true, Eva wouldn’t have been able to endure until now, nor would Hannah herself be safe. Eva didn’t bother to correct Hannah’s misunderstanding. She didn’t want to give her, who was already terrified that she might die, another fear.

“I’ll prepare your bath first, Eva.”

“Already?”

“Well, you helped with the laundry, but also……”

Hannah trailed off, but Eva could hear what she meant—that she should wash after Divlik had touched her and put his lips on her. Eva nodded slightly.

“Yes. An early bath wouldn’t be bad.”

“Yes, Eva. I’ll prepare it right away!”

Hannah didn’t accompany Eva all the way to the bedroom but turned around and disappeared in the corridor. Walking alone toward the bedroom, Eva paused briefly to stare at her reflection in the window.

Do I still look like an empress?

Hannah’s reaction suggested that it wouldn’t change even after Eva spent the night with Divlik. Why was that? Thinking carefully about it, her faint reflection in the window didn’t look much different from before Divlik conquered this castle. It was as absurd as the fact that she was still alive. Even now, Eva wore fine clothes, slept in a good bed, and still received the same reverence as a flawless empress.

Eva raised her hand to touch her neck where Divlik’s lips had been.

—You definitely respond better when people are around than when we’re alone. Was this your preference?

Wouldn’t he have known? Why I stopped breathing there?

It was fortunate that Divlik’s provocations always stopped at a certain point. If Divlik had licked Eva’s neck more persistently, he would have discovered that Eva’s discomfort wasn’t just because she disliked it.

—Your neck is sensitive.

Eva’s neck was sensitive. Not in the sense that it was easily injured or hurt, but that it was particularly receptive to sensation. Even with a man she had no feelings for, if her neck was intensely targeted, her body would heat up. This wasn’t because Eva was a woman who easily lost her reason to stimulation, or because she had strong suppressed desires in that area.

It was a trace engraved on Eva’s body through forced repetitive learning. A trace of shame engraved by Fabian, before Divlik, to whom Eva had already once begged for death.

After Eva left the office, Divlik’s eyes quietly rested on the table where Eva had been sitting.

She seemed prepared to end it right there. Despite her troubled discomfort, her breath seemed to quicken slightly. Had she resigned herself to the inevitable, thinking that since she would be taken anyway, she would prefer not to be tormented too severely?

He had given her too much time for the cloak that was supposedly only half-finished. While he was regretting this, a soldier arrived with news that Dean had arrived.

When Finn, who had gone out to the fountain with Divlik, spotted Dean greeting the soldiers, he ran ahead of Divlik and struck the back of Dean’s head.

“Why are you so late!”

He had sent Dean urgently to the Western Grand Duchy to confirm Divlik’s visit schedule, but Dean had taken more than twice as long as the two-day round trip should have taken, so his anger was understandable.

“Do you know how long Lord Divlik has been waiting?!”

“Well, you see…… They kept bringing delicious food and asking me to stay one more day.”

Knowing he was in the wrong, Dean couldn’t make a sound even after getting hit hard by Finn. When Divlik approached, he just greeted him happily, wagging his invisible tail.

“I’ve returned, Lord Divlik.”

“So, Dean. What did Grand Duke Joseph say?”

“He said no appointment is necessary and you can come to Elan whenever you wish. He thought about coming here himself, but said it would look ridiculous for him to enter this castle when he hasn’t even confirmed whether his brother is alive or dead. He said he’ll keep the door open for you to come anytime if you have something to discuss.”

“Is that so?”

“Does that mean Fabian isn’t there?”

It was a clear action to distance himself from the missing Fabian. The implication in Joseph’s words—come and see for yourself if you’re not convinced—suggested confidence that even if Fabian were in the castle, Divlik wouldn’t be able to find him once he’s inside Joseph’s domain.

Whether that confidence was justified or mere arrogance would be revealed the moment Fabian was found.

“And Lord Divlik, Grand Duke Joseph sent a separate gift.”

“A gift?”

Divlik turned his eyes toward an unfamiliar carriage bearing the Frentz imperial crest that had accompanied Dean.

It was already strange that someone who claimed to have gained independence from Yarden was still using the Frentz imperial crest, and now a gift?

When Divlik asked, Dean answered with an oddly excited face.

“Yes. He sent many women to congratulate your victory in the war.”

“Setting aside concern for his brother, strictly speaking, it was his father’s empire and once his own empire, and yet he sends gifts to the one who conquered it…… I knew it already, but he’s properly insane.”

Finn shook his head in disbelief, unable to understand Joseph’s actions.

Insane? Well, he might be insane, but he’s certainly not stupid……

Dean, unable to read the change in Divlik’s expression, lingered after finishing his report, looking like he wanted to say something as he started to walk toward the carriage sent by Joseph.

“Do you have something to say, Dean?”

“I was wondering if we might have a chance.”

“A chance?”

“I was thinking if Finn or I could lose our virginity this time……”

At Dean’s words, Divlik burst into hearty laughter, and Finn once again mercilessly struck the back of Dean’s head.

“Don’t you feel sorry for the women who were dragged to a strange place as so-called gifts? What’s wrong with your head?”

“Grand Duke Joseph sent women who are all beautiful. And he said they’re very obedient and will surely provide a satisfying night. How can a man not think about that after hearing such words?”

“Is that why you’re late?”

“No? I only ate food there?”

“Even if that’s true, it’s a gift for Lord Divlik. How dare you set your eyes on it!”

They were twins who always seemed to get along well yet always bickered as if they didn’t. Divlik watched the two who still looked like young boys before turning his gaze behind Dean.

“So, are the women inside that carriage?”

Divlik wasn’t asking about the women first because he was curious about how pretty they were after Dean’s comments.

“Yes. They’re in the carriage. There are four of them, and they’re all beautiful.”

Joseph couldn’t have sent these women with the pure intention of congratulating Divlik’s victory. Thanks to this gift, Divlik was certain. There was definitely another scheme behind his withdrawal from the war.

Of course, he must be protecting Fabian too.

He was a man who seemed to be calculating even in the brief moments when they made eye contact. If a man who surely understood what it meant to send women as congratulations for victory did this……

Including sending women to act as spies, Divlik was rather angry that Joseph’s move was so obvious. How much did this man look down on him to test him with such a shallow trick?

“Excuse me, could someone hold my hand?”

“I’ll hold it for you!”

Every time the women stepped out of the carriage one by one, the soldiers surrounding it kept whistling. The women seemed pleased with the men’s gazes and greeted them with eye contact here and there. The third woman had already stepped out of the carriage, as if they had intended to fill the small carriage to capacity.

The women were indeed pretty as Dean had said, but the atmosphere emanating from their bodies was different. They had something that purely animally enticed men.

“Do you need anything, lady?”

“I’d like a cold glass of water.”

“I’ll bring it right away!”

“Thank you.”

Moreover, unlike common street women who had lost their energy and vitality from passing through many men, these women exuded a certain composure in their well-maintained appearance and demeanor. It was as if they were of a different class, even though they were selling their beauty and youth with the same sensuality.

“When he said they were well-trained women, he wasn’t wrong.”

Even Divlik, who had no interest in these women, could understand the reactions around him. The heavy vanilla scent mixed with musk that came with the wind from someone’s perfume naturally evoked the smell of a woman’s flesh melting hotly on a bed.

“Can you sense such things just by looking, Lord Divlik?”

After scolding Dean, even Finn couldn’t control his eyes toward the women and fidgeted restlessly.

“Why, do you have thoughts too?”

“If so, I’d choose that black-haired woman who got off first…… Ah! No, my mouth must have gone crazy!”

While Finn was wavering between reason and instinct, Divlik, who had been quietly standing near the carriage carefully watching the women stepping down, trembled his lips with anger upon seeing the last woman who stepped out of the carriage door.

“Now I understand why he sent the women to me.”

“What? A reason? You mean it’s not to congratulate you?”

Amethyst-like purple eyes with blonde hair.

The woman’s hair and eye color were exactly the same as Eva’s. Even though she didn’t exude the same obvious seductive feeling as the women who had gotten off earlier, she had a similar mysteriously eye-catching quality. However, unlike Eva, the woman deliberately flaunted her charm.

She seemed to know that her attire, which appeared covered but actually revealed half of her chest through lace fabric, would melt men’s hearts. From her flexible, tail-wagging-like graceful walk, and the way she constantly surveyed the surroundings with seemingly anxious, wavering eyes, Divlik could clearly see how skillfully this woman had handled men.

She reminded him of Eva, but Divlik gritted his molars as if he couldn’t bear the unpleasantness of seeing a woman so completely different from Eva.

“He’s trying to mock me.”

He had thought sending women was just a ploy to somehow extract information from here by using beautiful women, but there was another ulterior motive.