He tried to hold back but couldn’t. Divlik thought it couldn’t be helped even if Eva recognized his identity right here.

Florin was the homeland that Eva had mercilessly trampled and left, blinded by the position of empress.

And then she dared to say she missed her homeland so much she wanted to die. If the numerous people who lost their lives in Florin because of Eva heard this, they would be beyond dumbfounded—they would die a second time from the absurdity. No matter what kind of life Eva had lived afterward, it couldn’t serve as absolution.

“What happened last night, Lord Divlik?”

From early dawn the next day, a darkness that one would only feel during war, when people died incessantly within the castle walls, pervaded the air. Finn, who visited Divlik’s bedroom early in the morning, also had a darker face than usual due to the atmosphere.

“I hear the former empress has been crying since she attended to you in the grand bathhouse.”

Divlik silently continued with his breakfast, which had been served separately at his bedroom table. Finn sat down in front of his own portion of breakfast set across the table. He waited for Divlik’s answer without even thinking of picking up his fork, but Divlik gave no reply.

“You’ve achieved what you wanted. Despite holding her back so straight, pretending to be fine. After being embraced a few times, it seems she couldn’t bear it. Regardless, she must have been a woman raised gently in a noble family who knew no man but the emperor. The shock must have been quite severe.”

Bang!

No sooner had Finn finished speaking than Divlik slammed the table. As a result, not only Finn’s untouched plate but also the plate Divlik had been eating from fell and rolled on the floor.

“Who said Eva knew no man but the emperor?”

“Pardon?”

“Who said Eva was a woman raised in a noble family who knew nothing of the world?”

“What? Ah. No one specifically said so……”

Finn didn’t know what to do, feeling as if he had made some mistake. He had expected Divlik to look satisfied with the result obtained after so much effort, but Divlik seemed angry from the start of the conversation.

Looking at Divlik grinding his teeth in uncontrollable anger, Finn finally voiced the question he had wanted to ask many times.

“You know her, don’t you?”

“What?”

“The former empress, you knew her, didn’t you?”

He considered pretending not to know again. But this time, Divlik didn’t avoid answering, with an ambiguous expression that seemed both smiling and angry.

“I know her. Of course I do.”

“So…… it was like that.”

I see. As I thought.

Finn had no intention of asking exactly what kind of relationship the two had. So that’s why you behaved in ways I couldn’t understand, that’s enough for me to know. But Divlik continued voluntarily, like someone who no longer had a reason to hide.

“That’s why I’m saying this. I was Eva’s first, so how could Eva have known only the emperor as a man?”

“What……? Uh…… Ah….. The former empress was your lover, my lord?”

Adding to what he had probably already suspected, Divlik tightly gripped the hand holding his knife and told the story of his relationship with Eva.

“We were lovers. Until she drove me to death to become empress, we were lovers like no other in the world.”

* * *

After returning to Florin, Leon guarded Eva’s mornings without missing a single day, just as he had before leaving. When he visited Eva’s bedroom secretly in the early dawn, Eva would open her eyes as if she had been waiting for him.

“Leon, you came?”

Before going to work at the Southern Knight Order building in Floropel beyond the mountain where he had reunited with Eva, Leon couldn’t bear the anxiety if he didn’t see Eva’s face at least once.

“Yes.”

“Come back safely.”

In the dim dawn as daylight slowly broke, while kissing the back of Eva’s hand who was still half-asleep, Leon often felt anxious that Eva might disappear before his eyes, wondering how he had endured three years without her. He grew nervous, thinking what if this was all a dream.

As if knowing Leon’s feelings, Eva would reach out her other hand and touch his hair here and there, and only then could Leon finally be assured that this wasn’t a dream but reality.

“Come here. Hold me.”

Eva rubbed her sleepy eyes and complained that it was too early, yet naturally reached out for Leon’s embrace.

It had been like this before. Eva always nestled into Leon’s chest and settled there as if it were only natural. Each time, Leon felt his heart would burst with fullness at the fact that he could hold Eva so completely in his arms. If only Eva was there, if only he could hold her like this, he needed nothing else. That’s what he thought.

But lately, Leon kept feeling strange.

I love Eva. Eva loves me too. But that alone felt insufficient. The more he saw Eva, the more he wanted to devour her whole. No matter how tightly he embraced Eva, he felt something remained unfilled.

I am dangerous like this. I might hurt Eva. The more he thought he should let Eva go, the more afraid he became that she might disappear, so conversely, he could only hold Eva so tightly she might break.

“It hurts, Leon.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You keep doing that. I told you it hurts when you hold me too tightly.”

Even as she cautioned him not to do that, when Eva smiled ethereally, Leon couldn’t even breathe. Would this anxiety subside if he folded Eva small and carried her in his pocket? Happy but anxious, anxious but happy. Heat kept rising in his body, and sometimes he wanted to bite Eva’s white neck and leave his teeth marks there.

“Is it true that a black lion can become human if it lives for a thousand years?”

“Pfft, what? Leon, do you believe in such fairy tales?”

Leon wasn’t saying this because he believed in such legendary stories.

“Oh my. I wondered when my little baby lion had grown up so much, but seeing you say such things, you’re still a baby.”

Since Eva had called him a black lion cub from when they first met, often calling him “my baby lion, my black lion,” the word lion had become familiar. Now that he wanted to bite Eva’s neck, he wondered if he might actually be a beast.

It was strange to feel like he might harm Eva while looking at her, not wanting to hurt even a single strand of her hair.

Soon after returning to Florin, Leon came to understand what kind of emotions he was feeling about Eva.

“I—I apologize!”

The knight commander, not expecting anyone to enter, was entangled with a woman who was clearly from the streets on top of a table, and seeing that scene, Leon felt a heat rising in his body similar to what he felt when looking at Eva.

“I heard you have a woman you promised to marry. Does that mean you still have no experience?”

After sending the woman away, the knight commander called Leon separately and explained to the still dazed Divlik. That all men have such desires that they simply cannot ignore.

When he learned that this was also an important act for having children after marriage, Leon was relieved. The act he had decided to give up, thinking he couldn’t show such a beast-like appearance in front of Eva, was something he absolutely had to do after marriage.

If only Eva wouldn’t find it too disgusting to know that he wanted to hold her in such a way.

“Leon, are you asleep?”

It was on a day when such worries were deepening.

“Eva? What brings you here in the middle of the night?”

Not knowing Leon’s inner struggle to somehow endure until marriage, Eva visited Leon’s bedroom in the middle of the night.

“I had a scary dream.”

“A scary dream?”

“Yes. In the dream, you disappeared. When I asked where you went, they said war broke out with the Veilen Empire and you had to go protect the emperor. You left without even letting me see your face. I cried so much, wondering what if you died in the war.”

With eyes full of tears, Eva hopped onto Leon’s bed. Lying down next to him, Eva embraced him in her arms unlike usual and stroked his hair. It was something that often happened on Eva’s bed when they were young. Leon would bury his face in Eva’s chest, which was as flat as his own body, and fall asleep listening to her heartbeat.

“Ah, now I feel like I can live.”

“Eva.”

Now was different from then. First of all, Eva’s chest that touched his head was no longer flat. With the soft and plump sensation he had never felt before, Leon could no longer hide the heat rising inside his body. He was afraid Eva might cry and reject him, but he no longer wanted to ignore these feelings.

He worried that Eva’s purple eyes, which had always accepted him as he was, might hold wariness, but Leon carefully broached the subject with a slight hope that since it was Eva, she might smile at him even like this.

“When we get married…… they say we need to have children.”

“Of course. I’m going to have lots of children!”

Eva answered quite cheerfully, seemingly not understanding Leon’s meaning.

“Then…… do you know what we need to do?”

“I know, Leon. I studied so hard while you were gone……”

Yet even amid that cheerfulness, Eva’s cheeks turned slightly red, giving Leon courage. If she knew and still planned to have many children, it must mean this kind of behavior was acceptable.

When Leon emerged from her embrace to make eye contact and placed his hand on her cheek, Eva momentarily startled and covered his hand with her own.

“Leon? What’s wrong? Your hand is so hot. Are you sick?”

“What should I do, Eva?”

“What?”

“I keep wanting to…… The knight commander said that especially men feel this way when they see the woman they love.”

“What kind of feeling?”

Instead of answering, Leon laid Eva flat and moved his body over hers. Concerned his weight might be too much, he propped himself up on one arm to maintain some distance, then looked down at Eva and tickled her neck with his lips.

“Mmm, Leon. That tickles.”

“How should I express this feeling? It’s the first time I’ve felt this way, so I can’t put it into words.”

“Then why do you keep biting me?”

“Maybe it’s a feeling of wanting to eat you?”

When Leon lightly bit her neck, pretending to gnaw at it, then made eye contact, Eva laughed like a child, “Hahaha.”

“That’s ridiculous. Wanting to eat me.”

With hot breath, Leon kissed Eva and continued speaking against her lips.

“I want to grab you with all my strength.”

“Are you anxious like me, afraid I might suddenly disappear? You can’t eat me, but if you want to hold me, hold me as much as you want.”

Eva thought Leon wanted to grab perhaps her face or shoulders at most, but Leon’s hand touched Eva’s br*ast, which had diligently increased in volume as her body matured.