Quite capable of provocation, it turned out.

He had hesitated for so long that he did not bend easily, but the Sirak she knew was a man who, once he had made a decision, walked forward without looking back.

The wavering in his gaze settled, and the relentless stare that seemed to pierce straight through her was not unwelcome.

In truth, that damned justification had not been given to Sirak alone. It applied to her as well.

The desire to cling to someone. A small, weak inner feeling that wavered. The helplessness of having to accept what came from those she shared no emotional bond with, in this damned situation. But if you were there, if you were among those men.

‘Sirak.’

Feelings like these did not suit an emperor. The occasional urge she felt when looking at Sirak, the desire to lean on him, to hold him closer than others and cherish him, those were not right.

She had willingly cut them away and honed herself against them.

And yet the sensation of his touch was good. The feel of his hand, beginning to cancel out the pain through the Oracle’s manifestation, was good.

Even though all he had done was grab her by the elbow once, trembling in a way that did not suit him, as if he did not dare touch her.

‘To melt a person this completely.’

When she had quietly clenched her fist against the pleasure surging sharply through her, that fearless wolf had said it. That she should confirm whether he satisfied her.

‘Ha.’

Iberis did not hesitate. She reached out and bit down on the smooth lips of the man who had been stealing her gaze all this while.

Ah. Joy erupted from somewhere inside her.

Damnably, the lips of the man she had steadily pushed away and cut her feelings against were truly delicious.

“Haa, ha.”

Like a starving person burying their nose in meat and breathing it in, Iberis seized the face of the one receiving her kiss without resistance.

She tilted her head and sucked deeper, more hungrily. She pulled at his well-shaped lower lip and bit down. She prodded at his teeth with the tip of her tongue, then slipped it over the hot, fleshy surface her fingers had already toyed with.

Their hot tongues pressed and rubbed against each other wildly. She moved like she would not let a single drop of saliva escape. She threw herself into it with the focus of someone half out of their mind.

It was delicious. If saliva could have a taste, it had one. The sensation of every pain that had been spreading through her in sharp, numbing waves dissolving all at once was devastatingly rapturous.

The knight’s *rection pressing firmly against her from just behind her backside made her want to laugh. Thinking of how he had been hard like that even while primly saying no, was that not almost endearing?

“Sirak.”

When she released the lips she had been kissing roughly and looked at him, his face, flushed quite red, was indecent. So he was capable of a face like that. So that was the look he had been giving her.

That fearless knight, her most cherished sword, occasionally made Iberis feel like an ordinary woman.

Not the emperor who walked a path of blood and victory and could never be looked down upon by anyone, but someone who could imagine, simply, marrying and bearing children and smiling peacefully at someone’s side. Even though none of that was of any use whatsoever to Iberis’s life.

‘That is why you are dangerous.’

Look at him even now.

Was he not stoking her with that passionate gaze?

Because of the Oracle, and because of her agreement with the Grand Duke, she had not been able to open herself to anyone before the healing began, and yet right now there was something in this that made her want to part her legs and lower herself onto that heat without delay.

“Has the pain truly subsided, because of me?”

That large knight should not be this adorable and endearing. Even while catching his breath, he was curious enough to ask, and she wanted to bite down on those lips all over again.

To hold back that impulse, Iberis took hold of the man’s cheeks. Restraining the urge to tear apart the stiff knight’s uniform wrapped tightly around all that hardness, she smiled fiercely.

“Yes, it’s good. It doesn’t hurt. Sirak, this is a gift you’ve given me.”

Instead, she decided to make the wolf, who was shyly holding back, move on his own.

She took his hand and drew it toward her.

“Your, Your Majesty.”

For all the devouring look in his eyes, he was still acting less like a wolf and more like a dog rolling over to bare its belly.

The emperor slowly pulled at the corners of her lips and opened her own collar herself. The thin fabric was held closed by only a few buttons, and with a pop, pop, they came undone, baring the long line of her neck in full.

“Now then. If you’re going to confirm it, you had better do it properly.”

She tapped her neck with her fingertips. The man, swallowing hard, drew close in a trance. And slowly, gently, he bit into her skin.

“Haa.”

With a drowsy breath, a thrilling pleasure grazed down Iberis’s spine. Seated so close against her, the knight felt every response of her body, and his hands tightened. Before she knew it, large hands were gripping her slender waist hard enough to crush it.

“More. Go on.”

She breathed out hot and whispered it with pleasure, and the faithful knight obeyed her words. The soft lips that had sucked a mark into her nape followed the whispered command and moved lower.

“Haa. Yes, there.”

The tongue of the knight commander, who seemed like he would be hard in every way, was soft and smooth. Hot and wet.

Slow as a snail’s trail, he licked and sucked at the places his liege favored. The stimulation, growing more intense by the moment, swallowed her whole like rising water.

“Haa. Ha. Yes, that’s it.”

The knight’s hot breath, his lips working their way down as he nibbled at the graceful line of her collarbone, seeped intimately into the open folds of her clothing.

Iberis smiled with pleasure, and then suddenly pulled the man who was pressing his lips to her collarbone into a one-armed embrace.

“Sirak.”

They had never been this close before. This intimate, bodies flushed with arousal pressed together.

He would know it now.

That the woman seated with her legs spread wide over his firm muscles was hot with arousal between her thighs. He would be feeling clearly how wet and slick she was becoming.

Much like the taut *rection that was striking against Iberis’s backside even now.

Well then. What now?

It was already the same as having accepted it, but if she had no intention of undoing her clothes here, she had to stop.

She had to focus on becoming the fourth man by the Oracle’s command and on the process of the Oracle that would lift the curse going forward.

She had to push him away.

Even as those thoughts crossed her mind, Iberis did not move. And since she did not, her faithful knight likewise seemed to freeze, waiting for the next command.

Ah, this was hopeless.

No good. One more time.

She would at least taste his lips again.

Unlike the others, was he not entirely hers? But just then.

“Your Majesty.”

Her knight, who never allowed himself to be greedy, spoke first. He met her gaze openly, his eyes full of heat. Without loosening the grip on her waist that seemed ready to snap it in two, he pulled her into him.

“May I kiss you once more?”

He spoke with a shyness to his voice, pressing down the hesitation that still remained, and Iberis laughed. She pulled sharply at the head of the one she was holding. This time the man who came at her without waiting for her to part her lips obediently breathed out hot against her. She smiled and welcomed him even as he dared to pry open his liege’s mouth and slip his tongue inside.

Unlike the men before him, there was no signed document, no contract staked on a name. The sovereign had simply commanded, and the knight had refused, then accepted.

Between panting breaths, the kiss that seemed like each was devouring the other went on.

Their red tongues tangled and connected between each other’s lips, then parted, then tangled again.