“Hngh…!”

It wasn’t a simple kiss. Through the gap between their locked lips, a blinding blue flash burst forth. Isolet forcibly stopped the mana core spinning deep in his lower abdomen and reversed its flow. 

Unrefined, high-density magic surged up his esophagus and poured like a bursting dam through his lips into her body.

It was a horrible sense of wrongness, like forcibly dragging out his soul. His organs twisted and his bones screamed, but he didn’t stop. He was scooping out the fundamental power sustaining his body and filling her empty shell with it.

He firmly supported the back of her neck with his blood-stained hand and twisted the angle to delve deeper.

Vwooom—

The atmosphere began vibrating heavily around them. The excess magic flowing from Isolet’s body was warping the surrounding space. 

The thick layer of snow covering the ground instantly turned to white steam with a hiss and flew away, and even the gorge’s cutting wind couldn’t approach, pushed back by the heat they generated.

Isolet’s veins glowed blue and bulged above his skin. That light traveled up his neck to his face, then rapidly transferred through their touching lips to Kyrie’s pale body. As he lost vitality and turned corpse-pale, color began returning to Kyrie’s ashen cheeks.

“Ugh, mmph…”

He swallowed his pain-filled groan. Isolet’s tears, blood from his split lips, and liquefied magic mixed to create a salty, fishy taste.

“Haa… haa…”

Only after a long while did Isolet pull his lips away. Between their lips, remnants of blue mana that hadn’t been fully absorbed stretched like sticky silver threads before scattering into the air with a glimmer.

His sapphire eyes gleamed brilliantly from the mana overload, glistening like a beast’s.

Isolet barely supported his swaying body and pressed his ear to her chest again. He heard a heartbeat clearer than before. This was the result of a desperate miracle—dismantling his own existence to fill her emptiness.

He ground out the words.

“Live… survive, Kyrie. That’s an order.”

He growled over her wet lips.

“Who gave you permission? Your life is mine. From the moment I pulled you from that corpse pit, every heartbeat is my property.”

Isolet snarled. It was less a lover’s plea and more an owner’s ferocious roar.

“So don’t stop on your own. Even dying requires my permission. Got it? Not even God can touch what’s mine. If they want to take you, they’ll have to take my head first.”

It was both a curse and an oath Isolet placed upon himself.

Hearing those words, tears streamed down Kyrie’s eyes. She raised her blood-stained hand to cup Isolet’s cheek.

“…My prince. How will you manage, still so fragile?”

“That’s why you need to protect me.”

She simply smiled faintly.

Isolet devoured her lips again. This time deeper, more desperate than before. A kiss where they bound each other like their tongues would be ripped out. A union of two souls that even death couldn’t separate.

Casian and the imperial army arrived late to witness the carnage. The prince, covered in blood among the corpses, clutching his lover and clinging to each other hungrily. It was a pietà both horrifically beautiful and thrilling, yet simultaneously the most blasphemous sacrilege.

* * *

The field hospital tent was as quiet as a swamp.

Outside, rain pounded the tent noisily, but inside only heavy silence flowed. The smell of medicine and blood mixed to create a strange fragrance.

The surgery was over. Fortunately the spear had missed her lung, but severe blood loss meant Kyrie hovered at death’s door for three days and nights. 

Isolet stayed by her side without sleeping a wink. His face was gaunt from not taking even a sip of water, but his eyes blazed vividly alive.

When Kyrie woke after several days, she was still pale. The moment she saw Isolet sitting beside the bed, she tried to rise.

“…Your Highness.”

“Stay down.”

Isolet’s voice was hoarse. He wiped her forehead with a wet cloth. But Kyrie turned her head, avoiding his touch.

“I’m sorry. I… overstepped. Please forget it.”

Her first words were an apology. Having barely survived death, she was creating distance again. Irritated, Isolet snapped his head away and spoke coldly.

“What did you overstep?”

“I put Your Highness in danger. And… in the gorge, I dared touch Your Highness’s sacred body…”

She meant that kiss. That desperate act of sharing life—she was trying to dismiss it as an ‘impious mistake.’

Isolet’s hand stopped in midair. Snap. The thread of reason broke once more. He felt days of accumulated fear, guilt, and suppressed desire explode in a mixture.

“A mistake?”

Isolet laughed hollowly.

“Do you know what I did to save you? I carved away my soul to hold onto you, and you call that a mistake?”

“Your Highness. I’m a knight. A knight protects their liege…”

“That d*mn knight talk! Shut up already!”

Isolet roughly pushed Kyrie’s shoulders down.

“Ugh!”

The wound flared and Kyrie groaned, but Isolet didn’t stop. He climbed over her. Like a beast subduing prey, his legs pressed down and pinned her thighs.

“Your Highness!”

Kyrie tried to push him away in confusion. But Isolet bound both her wrists with one hand and pinned them above her head.

“Let go! You can’t do this!”

“Why not? You’re my knight, right? My sword, right? However the master handles his sword is the master’s business, isn’t it?”

Isolet’s eyes had sunk murkily. He roughly grabbed and tore Kyrie’s patient gown. Rip. The sound of buttons popping off rang like a scream.

Her body wrapped in white bandages was exposed. Red blood seeped through them. But Isolet didn’t stop. He buried his face in her nape.

“Hngh!”

Kyrie twisted her body. Isolet’s hot lips traveled down her neckline and bit her collarbone. Pain and pleasure rushed in simultaneously.

“This smell… blood. Medicine. And your body’s scent.”

Isolet muttered.

“I thought I’d go mad. Every time you grew colder, my world felt like it was freezing too.”

He raised his head to look at Kyrie.

“Prove it. That you’re alive. That you’re mine.”

Isolet covered Kyrie’s lips. This time it was a far more expl*cit and greedy kiss than in the gorge. He parted her lips and thrust his tongue in to ravage every corner of her mouth.

“Mmph, mmm…”

Kyrie tried to resist, but her body, weakened from days of illness, couldn’t match him. Moreover, heat was blooming deep inside her body. The instinctive craving for life felt by one who’d returned from death’s threshold.

Isolet’s hand dug beneath the bandages. Rough touch grasped her br*ast. When his fingers rubbed her sensitive n*pple, Kyrie’s waist arched like a bow.

“Haa, Your Highness. Please stop…”

“Say my name. Say it.”

Isolet whispered in her ear and licked her earlobe with his tongue. A shudder ran down her spine.

“I refuse! I’m Your Highness’s…”

“You’re stubborn to the end.”

Isolet reached his hand between her legs. The patient gown pants had already slipped below her knees. His fingers dug into the dry valley.

“Hngh!”

Kyrie screamed at the unprepared intrusion. But Isolet didn’t stop. He roughly moved his fingers, stimulating her.

“You’re wet. Your mouth says no, but your body seems to disagree, Kyrie.”

“Haa… don’t…”

Kyrie whimpered, but her hips unconsciously bucked, chasing his touch. Casian’s words came to mind.

‘That prince can’t handle you.’

No, he was wrong. Right now, this man was devouring her.

Isolet unbuckled his pants. His rigidly enraged member was revealed. The red pillar lined with veins was already swollen to its limit. He hooked Kyrie’s legs over his shoulders. Her most intimate place was exposed nakedly.

“Look. Watch closely. See who’s taking you now.”

Isolet rubbed her entrance with his tip. At the sensation of hot, slick mucous membrane touching, Kyrie’s thighs trembled.

“Ah… no…”

Her refusal rang hollow. Isolet held back no longer. He gripped her waist and thrust into her in one stroke.

“Ahhh!”

Along with tearing pain, a heavy fullness filled her. Her narrow, hot inner walls clenched him like screaming. It was stiff from lack of preparation, but Isolet felt even that tightness as pleasure.

He groaned and paused briefly, then soon began moving his hips slowly but heavily.

At first there was only dull pain. But each time Isolet thrust deep, a strange sensation like scraping out her depths bloomed.

Kyrie couldn’t endure that strange sensation and whispered softly.

“Hngh, Your Highness, you’re too big! I don’t think I can…!”

“Endure it. Accept it. This is both punishment and reward from me.”

Isolet gripped her pelvis tightly and accelerated.

Slap, slap.

The sound of flesh hitting flesh filled the tent obscenely. Isolet thrust his hips up like a madman. 

There was no gentleness. He was that desperate. Each time he drove in, Kyrie’s body slid up toward the headboard.

His member ground and expanded her inner walls like a weapon. Each time he reached her deepest place, touching her cervix, Kyrie felt like she’d stop breathing.

“Ah! There, hngh, it’s too deep…!”

“Here? You like it here? Does this feel good?”

Isolet persistently stabbed where she reacted. He seemed intent on finding and crushing her pleasure point. Kyrie threw her head back and opened her mouth. Saliva dripped down, wetting her chin.

“Haa, ah! Your Highness, it hurts, it hurts…!”

Kyrie clawed Isolet’s back.

She didn’t stop even as flesh caught under her nails. Pain transformed into pleasure, and in the strange sensation of rejection climbing toward climax, her reason also numbed. 

Her legs automatically wrapped around Isolet’s waist. A wordless signal begging him to go deeper, harder.

Isolet responded to that signal by driving in even more violently. Sweat drops fell from his chin onto Kyrie’s chest, onto her wounds. The smell of sweat and blood mixed with the scent of s*men and fluids to create a dizzying pheromone.

It wasn’t insertion but imprinting. A desperate struggle to leave his mark deep inside her body, to the bottom of her soul.

“Kyrie… my beautiful Kyrie…”

Isolet called her name like an incantation. His sweat-soaked silver hair draped like a curtain, creating a space for just the two of them. He stared directly into her wavering amber eyes.

He longed for only himself to be reflected there. Isolet craved to become her entire world.