“Boss, are we going now? Let’s go! Right now, let’s go.”

Sage, with an excited expression, pulled at Jean’s arm.

“Where to?”

“Where else? Since you received the fan, you obviously need to return it. Weren’t you completely smitten, staring at her so openly?”

Jean frowned at Sage’s teasing.

“Sage. I think you’ve misunderstood something. The reason I accepted the fan was…”

“What misunderstanding? A man and woman locked eyes, and she gave you this token—that’s all there is to it. According to Laurel, at Ranke, this is basically an invitation to spend the night together.”

At Sage’s remark, Jean pressed his lips tightly together.

At the time, he hadn’t even known that accepting a fan carried such implications.

“If I had known what it meant, I would have returned it immediately.”

“Are you joking? You coldly rejected fans from other women. You even threw them on the floor—how embarrassed they must have been.”

Sage shook his head as if recalling the incident.

“What I mean is… anyway, that wasn’t my intention, so don’t misunderstand.”

Jean’s expression was complicated as he held the fan in his hand.

He couldn’t begin to guess why Simonetta had given him this fan.

But he was certain it wasn’t an invitation to spend the night together.

It must have been her competitive spirit as usual, not wanting to lose.

Jean couldn’t understand why his heart was strangely fluttering despite knowing all this.

Why on earth…

Jean sighed and spoke to Sage once more.

“Sage, I’ll say it again, it’s not like that. I can’t explain right now, but the circumstances are…”

“What? Are you saying you have some secret with that Peirasmos? Have you met her before?”

“What I’m trying to say is…”

Jean was about to say something but closed his mouth again.

If he revealed that Simonetta was the merchant he had mentioned, he would also have to explain how they became entangled.

Then Sage would surely ask persistent questions about their relationship.

“Excuse me!”

Just then, a woman’s slightly nasal voice interrupted.

All three men turned to look at the woman standing behind them.

The woman, who unintentionally received the simultaneous gaze of the three men, smiled shyly as if embarrassed.

Jean frowned at the woman’s appearance.

Her snow-white shoulders and voluptuous bosom swayed seductively in the dim corridor light.

She too appeared to be one of Ranke’s Peirasmos.

“What do you want?”

At Jean’s cold voice, the woman’s expression froze slightly, as if frightened. The smile that had graced her lips also froze.

“Boss, why are you like this again? You’re scaring the beautiful lady.”

Sage tried to ease the awkward atmosphere, but Jean’s attitude remained icy.

“If you have nothing to say, get lost.”

Not even bothering to hide his bad temper, Jean spoke with an irritated voice and then turned his back on the woman.

“I was waiting because I wanted to give my fan to the Duke.”

“I never wanted your fan, so take it and disappear immediately.”

“Boss, that’s too harsh…”

As Sage tried to intervene again, Laurel grabbed his arm and pulled him aside.

Jean’s expression was ominous.

Only then did Sage seem to read Jean’s murderous atmosphere and quickly shut his mouth.

Though normally Sage was insolent to the extreme, he instinctively knew when to back off.

And this was precisely that moment.

“Duke, you seem not to know who I am since this is your first time at Ranke, but you might regret rejecting my offer. I don’t plan to give you another chance next time.”

With inexplicable confidence, the woman raised her chin and arrogantly extended her fan.

Jean snorted at the woman’s impudent attitude.

Sage and Laurel anxiously watched Jean’s reaction, worried he might kill the woman.

“If you don’t want to die, get lost. There won’t even be a warning next time.”

The woman seemed offended by Jean’s harsh attitude.

“Duke, you don’t seem to understand how popular I am. Nobles go to such lengths to receive my fan… Ack!”

The woman gasped for breath as a force constricted her throat.

With a pale face, unable to grasp the sudden situation, she looked up at Jean in terror.

And the next moment, as if realizing he might kill her, she began to tremble uncontrollably.

“I told you. There wouldn’t be a second warning.”

He applied pressure to her slender neck as if about to snap it.

Laurel and Sage, watching the scene, could only wear troubled expressions, not even thinking of stopping him.

Everyone froze at the chilling coldness and thick k*lling intent emanating from Jean.

“Truly incorrigible. Planning to kill again?”

Just then, a voice echoed through the dark corridor, accompanied by footsteps.

And Roen grabbed Jean’s hand that was gripping the woman’s neck.

Startled, Jean turned to look at Roen.

Through the shawl covering her head, he could see her beautiful face without makeup.

“You…”

“Weren’t you coming to see me? Then let this person go. I fundamentally dislike m*rder.”

Roen slowly removed Jean’s hand from the woman’s neck.

Jean’s hand, which had been tense with force, relaxed as if by magic. There was a thud as the woman collapsed to the floor, but Roen didn’t take her eyes off Jean.

“I…”

“Since you brought the fan, I should reward you.”

Before he could finish speaking, Roen grabbed his shoulder and pulled him toward her.

Then, rising on her tiptoes, she kissed his parted lips.

Their soft, tender lips met. Their breaths intertwined intensely. As their lips touched, his ice-blue eyes, which had frozen in surprise, trembled slightly.

“Close your eyes.”

At the reproachful voice that didn’t break the kiss, Jean’s eyelids, which had been looking down at Roen in surprise, instantly lowered.

‘Surprisingly obedient. I thought he would strangle me for sure…’

Roen smiled slightly as she looked at Jean with his eyes closed.

It was strange. The unpleasant emotions that had clung to her heart until just moments ago disappeared.

And she felt oddly satisfied seeing him obey her words.

Roen pressed her lips against his again and swallowed his breath.

She was crazy.

To initiate something she absolutely shouldn’t do. Regret and the thought that there was no turning back washed over her like a tide.

But…

‘Let whatever happens happen. I don’t want to think about anything right now.’

The warmth of his consumed lips was hot.

His heart, which she felt under her hand, beat at a heavy pace.

Proof that he was alive.

A gesture that didn’t reject.

How could this be so comforting? So joyful?

Roen thought that perhaps she had been longing for warmth all this time.

Would it be okay? To receive comfort from someone, just for a brief moment.

After this moment passes, she would be swallowed by a terrible fate, so she wanted to stay like this now.

Like ordinary people do.

Roen slowly lowered her fluttering eyelids hesitantly. As Jean’s refreshing and pleasant warmth seeped through her nostrils, her heart beat in unison.

Until then motionless, he suddenly grabbed her chin and lowered his head deeply. Soon their lips overlapped without a gap, becoming more intense.

‘Mmh—’

At the sticky sensation, Roen unconsciously let out a moan. But the emerging sound had to be swallowed back down her throat due to his lips pressing heavily against hers.

And so, in the dark corridor of Ranke, Roen kissed Jean Saint Louis Reushden.

Her first kiss.

“I’m insane. I must be out of my mind.”

While comforting herself that it was okay as their lips met, Roen bitterly regretted her actions in the carriage returning to the mansion.

‘Why on earth did I kiss him there…’

She couldn’t understand it at all.

After parting with Esther, she had left the waiting room and walked down the dark corridor. She had been holding her shawl tightly, pulled low to avoid being noticed by people.

But not long after, she heard the silhouettes and voices of others in the corridor.

Soon she realized that those appearing before her were Jean and his companions.

Her heart sank.

Just as she thought, as Esther had said, that he had come to see her, she saw the figure of a woman hidden behind his body.

The face of the woman, blushing shyly, was beautiful.

Her moist red lips and fluttering eyelashes exuded sensuality in the light of the lanterns illuminating the dark corridor.

And the next moment, the woman offered Jean a fan with clear intentions.

Ridiculously, at that moment, she couldn’t think of anything else.

She just felt the need to separate them.

Although Jean’s only interest in the woman was k*lling intent, even that gaze directed at someone else displeased her.

‘He’s mine. I discovered him first. He’s my dragon.’

She didn’t know why such thoughts came to her.

By the time she realized it, she had already approached Jean, grabbed his hand, and was swallowing his lips while looking at him soothingly.

She would have to retract what she had said to Esther.

That it would be beneficial if anyone could seduce Duke Reushden.

“Why? Why do I feel this way…”

Roen bit her lip.

She couldn’t understand when she had developed such possessiveness.

‘It’s because of the way he looked at me.’

His gaze as she read the love letter to him after he returned to the mansion had been softer than usual.

And indescribably intense.

‘And also because of his smile.’

Why did he have to smile like that then? The smile that appeared on his usually ice-cold face was so enchanting it could cause misunderstandings.

Is this what they call the handsome man’s strategy? How unfair to attack with his face.

And one more thing.

It seemed that her desire not to lose him, as the one who had swallowed the dragon’s heart, had played a part.

That’s why she had developed this terrible possessiveness, like an obsession.

“Yes, that’s it. I’m fixated on him because he swallowed the dragon’s heart. I don’t want to lose him.”

He was necessary to break the Roxburgh curse. So she had to use every means possible to make him hers.

Yes. She couldn’t lose him to anyone.

And she clearly realized something.

If they became entangled as a man and woman like today, rather than as business partners in a transaction, the situation might turn more favorable for her.

“Emma and Cecil were right.”

They said that when a man falls for a woman, he becomes blind enough to kneel at her feet and even give her his heart.

If Jean could become blind with devotion to her, as they said…

Roen stopped her thoughts and looked out the swaying carriage window.

The moment she impulsively kissed him…

“I thought he would strangle me for sure…”

But Jean didn’t.

In the Recluse’s Forest, in the study of the Reushden duchy. He had strangled her neck without a moment’s hesitation.

But not today.

He should have been angry at her audacity for stealing his lips without permission, but he only looked at her with a strange expression. Moreover, the heat of his tongue entangling with hers in the final moment was unmistakable desire.

However, perhaps startled by her impulsive action, he turned his back and left as soon as their lips parted.

Roen pressed her fingertips firmly against her lips.

She recalled the soft, tender sensation that had touched her lips.

Above all, the violent poison in her body, which had been raging terribly, had subsided thanks to his bodily fluid she had swallowed through the kiss.

The unbearable pain that intensified as the new moon approached had somewhat eased.

The ancient text was true.

That the bodily fluids of one who had swallowed a dragon’s heart were a specific remedy to purify the deadly poison.

“So I have a reason to seduce him.”

Roen convinced herself with these words.

As if she needed justification.

The carriage, which had been traveling through endless darkness, had already arrived at the Roxburgh duchy.