“Will you think about whether I’m doing well, when I’ll return, if not every day, at least a little? Will you recall…… my safety and well-being, even occasionally?”

For the first time, he looked lonely. She could clearly feel the trembling as he tightly held Elia’s hand.

So she knew. That he, too, just like her, was afraid of being forgotten.

“Yes.”

Some feelings cannot be controlled by thought.

“Not occasionally, but every day…… I will think about your well-being.”

This current feeling was like that. Elia accepted her emotions toward Rockfort as they were for the first time.

“I will do the same.”

Rockfort didn’t miss that subtle change and stared intently into Elia’s eyes with his purplish ones.

At the same time, Rockfort bent his upper body and moved his face close to hers. Again, her heart pounded and her lips felt parched.

“……I’ll bite again.”

In the faint darkness, Elia’s lips trembled. His scent wafted over strongly, making it difficult to look him straight in the eyes.

“I don’t mind.”

Rockfort approached her lips with a hot breath.

Elia’s interlocked fingers tightened, but he didn’t stop, parting her lips and invading inside.

“……!”

Rockfort’s warmth, stirring inside her mouth more freely than before, was overwhelming. He gently bit her lips and then thoroughly ravaged the inside of her mouth along her even teeth.

His hand cupped her cheek, and as his thumb brushed near her soft lips, a slight gap formed as she exhaled.

“Hm……”

After confirming that Elia had barely exhaled, Rockfort leaned his upper body further, placing some of his weight on her.

When he briefly pulled away, her lips glistened with a transparent fluid of unknown origin. Elia’s blue eyes trembled with an indescribable feeling.

“Haven’t I already told you? That you would come to want me.”

His low voice sounded sticky and moist.

“I’m taming you to make it so.”

He remained arrogant and self-centered.

For a moment, his lips seemed to curl upward before he slid them onto Elia’s still wet lips for a kiss. Again, he squeezed their interlocked fingers.

In the dim darkness, the sound of hot, sticky breaths and the clash of moist skin echoed occasionally. At some point, Rockfort was almost leaning against Elia’s upper body.

“Ha……”

He let out a low sigh. Though his tightly closed eyes during the passionate kiss were lovely, the trembling of his blue eyes as he carefully opened them to observe her was equally captivating.

“You don’t hate me.”

When Rockfort jumped to his own conclusion, her still moist lips twitched.

“That’s……”

“You didn’t bite me.”

She had many opportunities. She could have pushed him away, or wounded his heart with cold words, or as she had warned, bitten his tongue to finally draw blood.

“You are an honest and straightforward person. That’s what I’ve believed until now.”

“……I don’t lie to Your Majesty.”

“I know.”

Rockfort’s thumb rubbed near Elia’s lips, which were still moist.

Somehow, the front of her white nightgown, which had lost a button, kept catching his eye.

And what about her defenseless neckline that trembled with each delicate breath? Elia’s subtle scent had been fueling his impulses since earlier.

“But, are you that way with yourself?”

His eyes, tinged with purple, shone quietly as if piercing through Elia’s inner thoughts.

“Sometimes, you seem like someone who’s deliberately trying to hate me.”

“Even that…… might be Your Majesty’s arrogance.”

Elia barely managed to retort. At first, when she told him she hated him, there wasn’t a shred of falsehood in her heart.

However, gradually, the definition of ‘hate’ was becoming blurred in her mind.

“We started with many complications. If we met as fiancés from the beginning, without any incidents, would everything have been different?”

Cecilia’s incident wasn’t Rockfort’s fault. Honestly, every time he saw Elia treating him coldly, he felt bitter and unjustly treated.

With such incidents already having occurred, what more could he possibly do for her?

“If that were the case, are you saying…… I would have obeyed Your Majesty’s will and gladly become your wife?”

Rockfort, who despised the word ‘if’ the most, nodded. That was the kind of normal marriage he knew.

“If so, how would Your Majesty have treated me?”

Warmth vanished from Elia’s voice. The gesture of unlocking their fingers and pulling away from him once again scorched Rockfort’s heart.

“I would have respected you, cherished you…… above all, treasured you, no matter what.”

“No matter what?”

“Yes.”

Something inside her chest ached with a pang. In her past life, though Elia had desperately longed for his heart, he had never truly seen her.

To be cherished—she couldn’t even dream of such a thing.

“What if…… I hadn’t honestly reported Cecilia’s incident? If I had remained silent and become your second empress?”

Rockfort unconsciously frowned. It was a premise he didn’t want to think about.

“You are not that kind of person.”

“No one is perfect. I could have made the wrong choice.”

The past Elia had done just that. Foolish and naive, she had ruined everything without knowing anything.

As a result, the one who suffered the most was Elia herself.

“I think I would have recognized your worth eventually. You are a person who shines nobly on your own; if I failed to see that, I would be the foolish one.”

For a moment, she was at a loss for words. It was an unexpected answer.

“If the misunderstanding was deep, it would have taken that much more time…… but I couldn’t have failed to know you after spending several years together.”

In her past life, Elia had lived as empress for barely a year.

After dying once and returning, she arrogantly thought she knew everything, but there were ‘what ifs’ that even Elia could never know.

“Even if you recognize it belatedly, would the wounds already inflicted heal?”

“I would have made them heal. Perhaps, I would have nothing to say even if you bit me every time I kissed you.”

His low laughter resonated warmly. Perhaps, just perhaps, he might have seen her in her past life too.

If the misunderstandings had been properly resolved, if they had been able to see each other clearly as time passed…… her life might not have been a tragedy.

“……I see.”

But now it was a story that could never be known.

“Your Majesty…… is truly self-centered.”

“And you are truly unreasonable and impertinent.”

They exchanged their usual remarks. However, the atmosphere between them had changed significantly from before.

“But, regardless of that, I want you.”

Rockfort caressed Elia’s fingers, which had been released from their interlock.

Unlike his fingertips, hardened with calluses from wielding swords, her skin was fair and smooth, making him want to caress it more and more as he touched it.

“Your Majesty…… it’s getting late……”

When the atmosphere turned strange again, Elia couldn’t hide her bewilderment and trailed off.

This only made the heat in Rockfort’s chest rise further. He tried to kiss Elia again with their fingers tightly interlocked, but she quickly turned her head, causing his lips to touch her cheek instead.

“Stop, go back.”

“I hate to.”

His response was so brazen and confident that Elia bit her innocent lips.

“I might consider going back if you give me one more kiss……”

His subtle baritone tickled her ear.

His large hand moved to cup her cheek but caressed her abundant platinum blonde hair instead, then traced her lips again.

The traces of the hot heat he had left remained on her plump lips.

“I’d be fine staying like this all night.”

Just being in the same bed with him, and at such a close distance, made her heart pound continuously.

If she had to stay like this all night, her heart would be so overworked that she felt her lifespan might shorten.

“Of course, sharing the joy of kissing would be better.”

She never knew the word ‘joy’ could evoke such strange and sticky sensations.

“It’s truly strange. I’ve known what joy is since the moment I first kissed your lips……”

At that time, Elia was too bewildered to feel any joy.

“It was quite different from what I’d heard, but I could definitely feel joy.”

“What do you mean…… by ‘heard’?”

Elia found herself asking before she realized it.

“Minstrels sing about kisses between men and women, saying tongues melt, that they taste sweeter than honey.”

Elia knew that too from hearsay. That wasn’t what she was curious about now.

“When I actually kissed you, I felt a soft, tender, and hot sensation. And very faintly…… something indescribable……”

Listening to his low, hot voice made her face flush more than the actual kiss.

“Th-that’s not it. By ‘first’…… why……”

Suddenly, Rockfort, who had stopped speaking, looked at Elia curiously with his violet eyes.

“Because you were the first woman I’ve kissed.”

“……What?”

Elia’s eyes widened as she foolishly asked again.

“Was it not the same for you?”

“For me…… of course Your Majesty was my first, but……”

“Then naturally, you would be my first as well, don’t you think?”

It felt like being struck on the back of the neck by a thought she had never considered.

Even if not Cecilia, how could she have thought that Rockfort, as emperor, had never kissed a woman until he was twenty-four?

Not to mention, he skillfully explored Elia’s lips, violated the moist places, and pushed his desires forward.

“No matter how much you hate me, how exactly do you see me as a man?”

Rockfort looked at Elia with displeased eyes.