“Welcome, deposed empress. I was about to visit your bedroom, but you’ve come here instead.”

Divlik opened the door immediately to greet Eva, as if his mind had never been in turmoil. Eva entered the bedroom with her eyes covered, wearing a thin nightgown.

“I’m pleased to see your determination, deposed empress. I was worried you might come all wrapped up again this time.”

Whatever her resolve had been, Eva’s body silhouette was clearly visible through the nightgown that became transparent in the moonlight. She seemed to be wearing nothing else beneath it.

“Seeing you so eager makes me finally feel like the master of this empire.”

“Lord Divlik, you are already the rightful master of this empire.”

“How truly unfortunate. I should have brought Emperor Fabian’s head today. Since this isn’t a time arranged for conversation, shall we get straight to the point?”

As soon as he finished speaking, Divlik threw off his robe and approached Eva. His robust body, which she had timidly touched by the hot spring in the moonlight, was now fully revealed without restraint. Even with her blurry vision, Eva averted her eyes with difficulty from Divlik’s center, which was noticeable by its shape alone though not yet aroused.

The warning that it would be overwhelming even if she wanted it didn’t seem exaggerated at all.

Having approached Eva, Divlik grabbed her hair at the back of her head to prevent her from turning away. While sharing a deep kiss, he slowly led her to the bed. As they neared the bed, Divlik wrapped his arm around Eva’s waist, turned their bodies, and collapsed onto the bed. With Eva’s body beneath him, their bodies overlapped, and he felt the intense lilac scent and a heat from Eva’s body that he hadn’t sensed before.

Divlik savored Eva’s body fragrance, like lilac flowers scattered all around, and might have thought this heat was from her bath, but that wasn’t the case.

—Eva. Please drink this.

Mia, who had been helping the maids clean up the bathtub, had followed Eva after she left for the bedroom first. After stopping Eva and hesitating for a long while, Mia took out a small red vial and offered it.

—This will help you get through tonight without suffering.

Since Mia didn’t explain further, Eva had downed it in one go, assuming it was like the herbs in the bath that helped with relaxation…… But in the time it took to walk from the empress’s bedroom to the emperor’s bedroom, Eva realized what it was.

An aphrodisiac. Something said to numb a person’s reason and awaken only their instincts. Eva had to forcibly swallow the hot breaths escaping against her will.

“Why are your fingertips like this?”

Divlik, supporting his upper body with one elbow, pulled Eva’s hand and slowly licked from her palm to her fingertips, then asked about her swollen red fingertips.

Though Eva could barely stand the dryness in her throat just from Divlik’s body heavily pressing on hers, she answered as if it were nothing.

“I pricked them with a needle while embroidering.”

“Weren’t you said to be skilled at embroidery?”

“I haven’t done it recently, so this happened while getting reacquainted with it. Please don’t worry about it.”

Divlik put one of Eva’s reddened fingers into his mouth.

When Divlik’s lips swallowed her fingertip, Eva swallowed her involuntary moan along with her breath. The stinging sensation as moisture touched her wound was one thing, but the soft, sticky feeling against her fingertip seemed to envelop each of her cells.

“Come to think of it, I was too eager for this and didn’t check. Is the embroidery finished?”

“I beg your forgiveness. Although I reduced my sleeping hours as you said, I still haven’t completed it fully. However, if I hurry from now on, it should be ready for your coronation.”

“Let’s see. After you’ve even offered your body, it would be inappropriate for me to want to kill someone else just because of a cloak.”

Divlik proceeded to tease all ten of her fingers with his tongue, unconcerned. He slowly left marks as he moved from the back of her hand to her wrist, from her wrist to her elbow, and when his lips reached her neck after traveling up one arm, Eva’s body trembled more violently than when she had felt the pain in her fingertips.

“Haahng……”

At Eva’s moan, which she finally couldn’t suppress, Divlik smiled as if surprised.

“You’re already responding like this when we haven’t even started?”

For something that was supposed to be about accepting the inevitable, this reaction was certainly more than that.

When he grabbed both straps of her nightgown and pulled them down to her waist, Eva’s hidden br*asts were revealed. Eva became even more troubled then. While she could somehow hide her sounds by biting her lips, she couldn’t forcibly hide her n*pples and areolas, which had darkened from excitement beyond her control. When Divlik grabbed one of her br*asts, she could no longer contain the sounds bursting from her mouth.

“Hnnngh!”

“So you can also make sounds that drive men crazy.”

Divlik seemed to like this response, but his voice was full of doubt. As if something didn’t feel right, his lower part that she expected to quickly grow in size didn’t respond as early as anticipated.

Instead, only Eva’s body heated up diligently. An aphrodisiac. She had only heard of such things, and wondered if her body would really respond differently even if her heart wasn’t in it.

—You don’t understand, Your Majesty. They say that when a skilled herbalist makes an aphrodisiac, it can make you crave even a vagrant from the streets.

It seems the words of a noblewoman, who considered such things as normal exchanges between aristocrats and casually shared bedroom matters, weren’t lies after all. Mia was no ordinary herbalist. If only she had also explained what kind of drug this was and how much was appropriate to take.

Eva was more flustered by her own reactions than Divlik was. When Divlik’s hand properly lifted her nightgown and touched between her bare legs, sticky fluid that she hadn’t even noticed forming clung to Divlik’s fingertips.

“How have you managed to restrain yourself until now? To become this aroused just by changing your mind.”

“Isn’t this what you wanted from me, Lord Divlik?”

“Are you saying you can fake even this?”

“Does this look fake to you?”

“Are you telling me this lust I’m seeing is real?”

“What else could it be if not real?”

Eva decided to let go of her fiercely struggling reason. A deposed empress melting endlessly in her conqueror’s arms and experiencing climax. She couldn’t imagine a greater humiliation that Divlik would want to see from her. Though not her intention, she thought of it as an opportunity.

An opportunity to show humiliation that she could never reveal with a clear mind, no matter how resolved she was.

“Is it really lust?”

“What else could these hot breaths be if not lust?”

At Eva’s answer, Divlik once more stroked her p*ssy with his finger.

“Haang!”

Divlik, who had expected a bit more response by now, sat up completely when Eva trembled and shook her body in reaction to his touch. He then lifted her skirt, spread Eva’s legs wide, and stared intently at her hole, which opened and closed as if desperately wanting something to enter it.

“Unnecessary act……”

Instead of pushing himself in, Divlik grabbed Eva’s chin and examined her face from different angles. Even with her chin held in Divlik’s hand, Eva panted heavily, causing Divlik to bite his lip tightly. Even someone as inexperienced as Finn would have known that Eva’s current state wasn’t normal.

“Why are you getting up, Lord Divlik?”

“I didn’t order anything from that woman except lilac petals.”

“What does it matter? If it helps with this night……”

Eva found Divlik’s hand on the bed and placed it on her br*ast. She desperately wanted that hand to crush and ruin her br*ast and ravage her below.

“Is it…… an aphrodisiac?”

Divlik asked in a voice completely unshaken, despite having the moaning Eva before him.

“Yes.”

When Eva answered with a thoroughly excited voice, Divlik forcefully pushed away her hand, removing his own from her.

“Go back.”

“What……”

“I said go back to your room.”

Contrary to Eva’s expectation that he might like this behavior more, Divlik became angry instead.

“You’d rely on drugs to forget your suffering? Did you think I’d be happy to embrace a body that would welcome anyone who entered, with no will of its own?”

At that, he pulled Eva off the bed, threw her to the floor, and called for the soldier outside.

“You called, Lord Divlik?”

“Come back when you’re in your right mind.”

“Lord Divlik!”

Eva shouted, more concerned that Hannah might die tomorrow if she left like this than about her uncontrollable bodily state. Divlik immediately understood the meaning behind Eva’s cry and said,

“I’ll consider whether to take this pathetic trick as defiance against me. Either way, you won’t be able to sleep at all tonight. Take the deposed empress back to her bedroom.”

Eva called out several times toward where she heard Divlik’s voice, but Divlik didn’t change his mind. Expelled from the bedroom, Eva took a long time just to return to her own room, unable to control her twisted body.

If there was any consolation, it was that the young soldier didn’t notice Eva’s condition. If he had made advances, Eva couldn’t have guaranteed her response.

“Ahng.”

Eva entered her bedroom with staggering steps and closed the door. Covering her mouth to prevent inappropriate sounds from escaping, she climbed onto the bed, buried herself under the blankets, curled up into a ball, and groaned from the heat that wouldn’t subside. She tried hard to understand why Divlik hadn’t liked her in this state, but her mind couldn’t make rational judgments.

—Did you think I’d be happy to embrace a body that would welcome anyone who entered, with no will of its own?

A body that would welcome anyone—was that the problem?

But Eva’s more immediate problem was her body’s desire that wouldn’t subside. Sensations she thought she had forgotten during years of being taken by unwanted men had all revived, and if Divlik had wanted, Eva might have moaned in his arms all night long.

When she tentatively placed her hand between her legs to check her condition, sticky fluid gushed out. In an instant, Eva’s long, slender fingers became wet between them. Feeling she could never fall asleep like this, Eva was just helplessly swallowing dryly when she heard the door creak open.

“I knew you’d be like this.”

As expected, it was Divlik.