She hadn’t really thought about that. From early morning, she had washed and cleaned her body reverently, dressed in white ceremonial clothes, and now stood before him in a thin nightgown.

When she sat on the small sofa opposite the bed, his gaze followed.

“I’m finally free.”

“You look relieved.”

Next to the sofa were grape wine and a bunch of green grapes placed side by side. A transparent wine glass was also prepared.

“I really don’t know what those eyes are seeing. What are you planning to do later? If you turn your back on your family and leave Helen, where will you go?”

She understands Lorendis’s curiosity. She has turned her back on her family. She plans to leave Helen soon. Then what’s next? Next is farewell, of course. Farewell to the world, farewell to the family, farewell to you.

“I haven’t abandoned my family. The viscountcy is the legacy Father left me. I’ll drive out my stepmother and stepsister…… and keep it in my heart.”

Unless she takes everything with her in her final days of terminal illness, yielding doesn’t seem to be her way. She’ll take everything from her family.

She has no intention of yielding even a speck of dust from the viscountcy to her stepmother’s family. From now on, she can take everything one by one.

At first, she had expectations for her stepmother. How could the world be so cruel to Catherine? Still, she’s a daughter. What mother would sell her daughter for money? She thought there was no way. She wanted to believe that the future she glimpsed briefly was just a delusion.

“However, expectations make people shabby.”

Catherine let go of everything. She was too tired to cling to past connections. She would soon leave this world. The relationships she had maintained until now were enough.

“Will you drink?”

“No.”

“It would be good to have a drink……”

Catherine deliberately avoided his gaze. As she swallowed dryly and looked far out the window, Lorendis pulled her arm. Her body, drawn along, collapsed onto the bed. Catherine knew well what would come next.

“I’ll drink.”

“It’s strong, so take small sips…… You should savor the wine, not pour it down your throat.”

The wine was bitter. Its aroma was stronger than expected. Helen’s alcohol is strong.

She vaguely remembered hearing that alcohol from regions with long winters is strong. The bitter aroma and distant feeling wrapped around her body like flower petals. That scent wafted subtly.

“Then come to bed.”

“……Do we really have to share a bed?”

She asks again despite already knowing. This strange feeling is something she would never adapt to, even in death. It felt like her entire body was being tightly constricted.

“Without the wedding night, a marriage isn’t established even if you’re husband and wife.”

Catherine carefully shook her head. That’s not it.

“This marriage will break anyway. To make it as if it never happened……”

“I’ve been wondering why your words bother me. Whenever those lips chatter, words that irritate me come out. Now I understand. You’re already discussing the end. You reached out your hand to make a contract with me, but you’re looking for an escape route first.”

Catherine’s quiet recitation sounded like a reading. Like contract clauses to be shared in a contractual relationship.

This is a contract formed based on mutual interests. And when the value of those interests disappears, the contract ends. This contract was made for the purpose of parting.

When Lorendis leaves for the battlefield, they won’t see each other for a long time. During that long time, they will spend separate times in places too far for communication to reach, and when that long wait ends, they will begin preparing to part again.

‘A marriage that will break anyway, I was just trying to give you a way out…… Since I’ll leave, but you’ll remain in Helen.’

Lorendis spoke indifferently, as if reading her inner thoughts.

“We’re a relationship that will end in a year. If you refuse the wedding night, I’ll quietly let it pass. If you want to refuse, refuse now.”

Their lips met. As his tongue traced her lower lip, the bitter scent of wine wafted.

“Do you hate it?”

“I’m not sure.”

Whether she hated it or liked it. She had rarely dealt with such personal feelings. She never had the opportunity to choose such things, and even if she hated something, there was nothing Catherine could do. So she had forgotten such trivial emotions.

“Will it hurt? Everyone says it hurts……”

“Well. If you’re wet enough, it won’t just be painful.”

When Lorendis sat on the bed and pulled her, her body fell onto the bed.

“Then come here.”

His lips descended. He bit her lower lip and slowly pressed with his tongue. It was slow and static, but it was a stimulus strong enough to make her shiver.

“Mmm.”

His hand touched beneath her nightgown. Her skin tingled at his rough fingers. Her lower abdomen tightened. When she tensed her waist, he seemed to feel it and pushed Catherine down on the bed, pulling off her nightgown.

“This is strange.”

“Why?”

“That someone who will go to the battlefield tomorrow is guarding my side instead of the knights.”

Lorendis grabbed her pelvis and removed her underwear.

“I’ll see their faces for a long time later. It’s tiresome. If only the barbarians weren’t rampaging at the border, I wouldn’t have to see those faces until I’m sick of them.”

Catherine was left completely n*ked.

He continued kissing from her neck to her collarbone. He crossed his arms horizontally and removed his top. He had broad and firm shoulders.

“It’s tight, so I’ll loosen it.”

“Just……”

“It will tear. If I put it in like this.”

Lorendis lowered his hand and stroked her p*ssy. Her cl*toris was crushed under his hand. He stimulated it by flicking it, and inserted his hand into her v*gina. Even with just one thick finger, it gripped tightly. He inserted another finger.

“It’s tight.”

“Nngh!”

“Two can fit, but you’re not getting wet.”

As he traced her walls with his fingertips, he felt the texture vividly—he was scratching her walls. At that stimulation, she bit her lips and crossed her legs, but his rough grip grabbed her thighs and spread them. Her ankles trembled. With her legs spread…..

He lowered his lips, entangled his tongue with hers, and pulled at the root of her tongue, consuming all her cries. Wet fluid flowed down between her legs with a squelching sound.

“I’m going to put it in now.”

“Ah, aah……”

“If you want to run away, tell me. I’m not the type to hold down someone who hates it and thrust in like a beast.”

Her lower abdomen clenched tightly. This belly will hold him. He lowered his fastener and took out his p*nis. She quickly withdrew her gaze that had touched his lower part. That thing with dark red veins was thick and strange. I didn’t see that.

“I’ll try not to hurt you.”

He took out gel from the bedside table. He applied it to her p*ssy and scratched inside with the gel.

After putting away the gel, he rubbed her core, found the vaginal opening, and pushed in that way. The foreign sensation filled her vaginal walls. Thick. Hate it. Strange.

“Aah.”

It felt like a foreign object had entered below—something large and thick like an iron skewer piercing her. The p*nis stabbed her vaginal wall. It scratched and slowly wedged into the interior.

“It hurts. This, ugh!”

“Is it deep?”

“Mmm.”

“This should be enough.”

Lorendis pulled back his c*ck. This depth would be better. Her inner walls squirmed and chewed his flesh. He narrowed his eyes. Ah, tight. Stretching out his arms to support his body, he grabbed Catherine’s pelvis and kneaded it gently.

“……Do you learn this?”

“No, you just naturally realize it. Knights know the human body best. I’m the same. I can tell you’re tense right now.”

Saliva pooled in her mouth. The strength left her trembling jaw.

“It feels like something bad……”

“Why?”

“You don’t like me.”

Heat pooled in her lower abdomen. Hah.

“Such feelings aren’t necessary.”

Her lower abdomen was pressed by that heavy pressure.

Her lips parted weakly at the sense of fullness filling her from below. As she fumbled with her fingers to soothe her mouth, his hand blocked even that gesture.

Lorendis reached out his arms and interlocked their fingers. Mmm. With the small moans escaping, a dense warmth filled the bedroom. His body half withdrew and then filled her again.

This is too overwhelming. Her body, swept up in intense stimulation, became increasingly wet. Her slender body was small and delicate to bear him. Her grip, wet with sweat, was slippery.

“Even if it’s a contract, we’re husband and wife, and even couples in arranged marriages have conjugal relations. There’s no grand reason. You don’t need to think of it as complicated either. It’s just… bedding.”

Rough heat filled her stomach. Beads of sweat soaked the sheets. She gripped the sheets with slippery hands and scratched them with her nails, and delicate moans burst from between her teeth. That heat consumed her mind completely, shaking her rationality to the core.

Her hazy mind keeps letting go of reason. That haziness is welcome.

‘Hah.’

His hand touched the entrance of her pelvis. There won’t be another time to mix bodies…… A sense of transgression wraps around her body. And the feeling of struggling in that transgression isn’t entirely bad.

That transgression pressed down on her depression, giving her an awkward stimulation. Her head was already dizzy. It seems fine now no matter what.

“Are you okay?”

“I like it, in a way…… Mmm. Is it strange?”

She hugged Lorendis’s neck and let out a faint cry.

“It feels a bit strange.”

“Where?”

“Here, my body feels like it’s boiling with heat.”

She’s terminal. A body that will die and be buried in a year. Even this sense of transgression is good. It feels like she might have treated her body too harshly because she’s leaving.

But anyway, it’s a face she’ll have difficulty seeing again after today.

They are destined to part when the war ends, and aah…… he’s scratching again.

* * *

A familiar face is outside the door.

‘Is this a childhood dream……?’

It’s a story from childhood that she no longer remembers.

Amanda steps on the threshold of the residence. The youthful face of her stepsister and her young stepmother. Father bringing them home was the beginning of everything. It was when she was very young. Why has the memory of that time, which she has now forgotten, taken root in her mind?