They sucked and were sucked until a tingling sensation lingered even through a recovery that was anything but human.

The slick saliva formed a transparent thread connecting them, then snapped, and the supreme emperor traced the curve of the ear of the insolent knight who dared wish to devour the master he served.

“What you want.”

She pinched lightly at the cheek of the man blinking at her, looking like he did not know what she meant. Foolish thing. Loyal, endearing thing.

“All the others took something from me in return, yet you have nothing?”

She had expected him to say he had nothing, but once again Sirak defied her expectations.

“In that, case. One thing.”

She was genuinely curious. What could this rigid knight commander, who had refused even the gift of vast territory, possibly want?

But Sirak did not speak. He acted. He raised his hand and measured the distance between the two of them, pressed so close together.

“This much distance.”

“What?”

“For the rest of my life, I will remain this close to Your Majesty. I will not be any further away than this.”

A distance less than the width of a palm.

He pointed to it and smiled quietly.

“Even if I dare, even if this slave grows greedy beyond his station. Even if I become ugly and hateful because of it. As long as you do not send me away for the rest of my life, that is enough.”

The single eye holding deep and quiet feeling looked into the dragon’s eyes, eyes that may have been all the more cruel to those close to her.

“Is that possible, Your Majesty.”

This damned thing.

This unbearably, devour-worthy thing.

This loyal, endearing man.

The one she had saved and given reason to live.

“Sirak.”

Iberis swallowed the surge that rose from somewhere inside her. She did not know what that feeling was. Only that the person before her eyes was precious.

Human feelings, the things she had been forced to discard, the profoundly human feelings she had been forced to shed in order to survive, and yet……

‘You were always there before me.’

In the moments she grew weak, when she opened her eyes, there was a broad back. Always protecting Iberis.

She had told him she would free him from slavery and let him live, and yet she had dragged him to the threshold of death countless times. He had every right to feel wronged, and yet the young knight had been faithful.

Tenaciously, he had saved the princess again and again.

And then, when that knight had nearly died.

‘Even if it meant discarding every human feeling.’

At that moment, she awakened. She swallowed her coldness and unleashed the dragon’s power. The awakening she had not been able to achieve even when Elizabeth died came to her when Sirak fell.

Sirak was the tide of her emotions.

The one she could not let go of, to the very end.

“Very well. I will do so. But in return.”

She opened her own nape herself.

“Let us see your worth.”

She pointed to the place that might still carry a faint mark.

“I want to see what that tongue of yours can do.”

The fingertips that had been sucking so hungrily just moments ago trembled as they traced the emperor’s neck, the way one might touch something precious and fragile.

She ended up laughing, her shoulders shaking. What a thing this was.

“My loyal knight, are you incapable of satisfying your master in a carnal sense?”

She whispered it like a provocation, and the thick air grew all the hotter. The body that had drawn back pressed close again. Hot breath clung damply to the open gap of her collar.

“Your Majesty.”

A light kiss landed deep at her throat. The delicate skin tingled. But Iberis did not let him stop there.

“Lower.”

As though to tease him, she undid the buttons fully before his stiffened eyes. Pop, pop, the sound of them coming undone, and the thin fabric fell open limply on both sides.

“My knight.”

Before his wavering eyes, Iberis’s smooth and beautiful curves were laid fully bare.

She grabbed the nape of the knight who was daring, who was actually thinking such thoughts, and pulled him in.

Her white, pale br*asts swayed before the knight. The pale n*pples above the full and beautiful curves were a vivid pink.

Ragged breath grazed against her. Even without contact, pleasure spread in a shiver across her skin, and Iberis clenched her teeth fiercely.

She cupped her own br*asts from below, lifting them. Between her slender fingers, the white and soft flesh pushed up and out.

Sirak squeezed his eye shut and then opened it, and his gaze fell hard on the flesh spilling between her fingers and the n*pples.

Good heavens, Your Majesty.

“Now then, Sirak.”

“……My, lord.”

“I am feeling very good.”

The emperor kneaded the soft flesh herself and provoked the knight.

“But I want to feel even better.”

“……”

“What should be done?”

She held her br*asts out toward the one whose eyes were burning like a beast in heat, like a starving animal.

“You still don’t understand even when it’s laid right in front of you. Hmm?”

“Your Majesty, I.”

“You should lick.”

“……”

“S*ck on them greedily.”

And the knight, the beast-blooded man who had in truth flung his patience off somewhere long ago, served with absolute faithfulness.

He opened his mouth and extended his tongue.

As though he had not been permitted to touch with his hands, he used only the red flesh of his tongue to stimulate the soft n*pple.

“Hmm, mm.”

He coated it thoroughly in saliva until it glistened, then sharpened the tip of his tongue and traced circles around the *reola. He stimulated the soft bud until it stiffened fully, and then finally sucked deep.

“Hng……!”

Meanwhile, the knight stimulated the firm n*pple against his tongue and sucked hard.

He felt he might go mad. The heat and passion he could barely contain made him want to press and grind himself against the body he was holding right then and there.

Desperate not to let his teeth come down, he forced himself to ease up and sucked wildly at the soft flesh filling his mouth.

As Iberis arched with pleasure, the force with which he sucked her n*pple grew stronger still.

His sovereign was taking joy in it because of him.

Ah, the knight was aroused. The wet, slick sounds rang out nakedly.

“Haa. Though my first was promised to another.”

He buried his face in the soft br*asts, leaned his body toward his liege who was pulling him close, and opened his mouth.

“Suckling, I will permit you, ngh, first.”

The sight of her crying out in pleasure at his work and trembling at the waist was more than satisfying. He was so overcome with joy he felt he could spend right then.

Unable to suppress the ferocious desire swelling within him, he released the br*ast from his mouth. He lowered his head and sucked at the narrow waist.

Below here. Further below.

The therianthrope’s nose, sensitized and aroused, sniffed and followed a certain scent.

He gripped the parted thighs hard and moved to shift lower. He wanted to s*ck there. If he swallowed her sweetness and stimulated her with his tongue, it would be rapturous.

But then. Crack.

“Ugh!”

“Good boy, Sirak.”

“My, lord?”

“Not there.”

“……”

“I have not permitted it.”

The cold emperor’s voice came with a hand seizing his hair. The reason that had slipped away, like a beast entering its rut, snapped quickly back into place.

“Your, Majesty.”

“Yes, easy now.”

Looking at his face, gone a bursting, vivid red, Iberis took hold of the knight’s ear.

She pulled his gaze sharply back to her, commanding him to look only at her, and opened her chest to him again.

“S*ck.”

Entranced, he took the ripe red n*pple at the tip of the white flesh into his mouth.

The knight stared in a daze at his sovereign, her face showing more pleasure than any contact with any other man had given her, as though the pain of the curse was nothing at all, and sucked long and deep at the sweetness in his mouth.

“You are to be my pillar.”

He was ready to follow any command.

“If other men restore my body from the curse.”

Nibble. He bit down on the n*pple and the soft cry it drew was sweet.

“Sirak, you are to heal the emperor’s soul and mind. Do you understand?”

The knight commander answered with the emperor’s n*pple still in his mouth. He gave his faithful answer in a muffled voice. He said he would do so even if it meant burning his very soul, and then moved his tongue.

He had only sucked a few times, yet the soft n*pple had swelled slightly, and he rubbed and stimulated it with his tongue.

* * *

The prayer room of the Central Temple. The cardinal, Behil, looked at the faintly glowing stone door and let out a breath of relief.

“At last.”

Behil’s eyes sparkled like starlight and a smile spread across his face. The Oracle had finally been completed.

“Congratulations, my pupil.”

The auspicious day, the process, and in his pupil’s terms, the order in which the bedding would occur. Iberis did not yet know that it was preparation for the decisive moment to come.

Cough, cough. Blood flecked from Behil’s mouth as he coughed. It was the twisting of the current of water, obtained at the cost of a great deal of his strength.

He, who was beloved by the gods, occasionally glimpsed fragments of the future. To prevent the tragedy he had seen then, he would do anything.

Even by a method like this. Even if it meant seeing his pupil recoil in horror.

Behil wiped away the blood and smiled.

“She is going to have four tireless lovers, and yet our emperor is still so displeased about everything.”

She had always been a difficult pupil to look after, then and now.