The room was too dark with only the dim moonlight filtering in, but being pressed so closely together, his face was clearly perceptible.

His ash-gray eyes, clouded with some indecipherable meaning, appeared more turbid and empty than usual. Yet they held an unprecedented intensity she had never seen before.

“Does it… still hurt?”

Flora glanced down at her arm still held in his grip. The blood from the wound he had arbitrarily licked had almost stopped.

When she neither confirmed nor denied, seemingly finding it insufficient, he immediately lowered his eyelids and brought his momentarily separated lips back to her skin.

“…Mmh.”

Her body, which had momentarily relaxed, trembled again. Flora unconsciously released the breath she had been holding. The spot where his lips touched burned strangely. Though she tried to pull her arm away, he stubbornly held her tight and wouldn’t let go this time either.

His moist breath kept rising upward. His softly attached lips slowly traveled up her dry wrist, reaching just below the hollow of her armpit.

Chu. At the peculiar sensation of his lips pressing together and sucking on her flesh, Flora bit her lip. It was as light as willow branches tickling gently, yet when he pressed down firmly with the tip of his tongue, it became so stimulating she had to hold her breath for a moment.

The Duke persistently licked her wounded area with his tongue. Unable to bear it anymore, Flora raised her elbow and pressed it against the Duke’s throat. It was a reflexive response saying this couldn’t go any further.

“Master. You’re not in your right mind.”

The Duke’s dark eyebrows twitched slightly as he tried to move closer. Meeting his ash-gray eyes that held some kind of painful light beneath them, Flora unconsciously shuddered.

“You didn’t want to do it either.”

The Duke, who suddenly met her eyes, said something unexpected. His voice, masculine even at his most vulnerable point, carried a strange power.

Has he finally come to his senses?

But if so, his eyes were hazy like someone under the influence of drugs, or rather like someone wandering in a dream. His large hand reached out and carefully cradled the back of Flora’s head. That hand slowly stroked down her hair, then gently caressed her round ear, pale cheek, and small chin in succession.

“You didn’t live that way because you wanted to… You hate this too, don’t you.”

The Duke, who had seemed to momentarily regain his senses, kept speaking words she couldn’t understand.

“You didn’t want to kill either. You just had no choice.”

At that moment, Flora felt as if her heart had dropped.

She froze before she could even process what she had just heard. Because she already knew the meaning of his words.

Flora stared at him with trembling eyes.

“How… Master… how do you…”

It couldn’t be.

There was no way a stranger she had known for barely half a year could understand her feelings that she had never revealed to anyone. However, his expression, contorted like he’s bearing an unspeakable pain, told her this wasn’t just a casual remark.

“You didn’t want to do it either.”

Flora’s eyes trembled again. It felt as if everything hidden deep inside her was being pulled out by his single statement.

It was the first time.

The first time anyone had asked her such a question, with such a pained expression.

What she saw every single day was a hell where people died one after another. Some died by the sword, others were impaled on spears after falling into traps.

If she didn’t kill, those horrific scenes of severed limbs and twisted necks would become her reality — it was everyday life. These were feelings she had never spoken about or revealed to anyone, not even once.

“How… how do you know that, Master?”

“…Because I didn’t want to do it either.”

The words that flowed out like a heavy sigh were tinged with deep regret.

As if even just speaking these words he had kept on the tip of his tongue was exhausting, his eyes beneath his furrowed brows narrowed, like they were about to distort. Through his parted lips, heavy breaths escaped as though even breathing was burdensome.

I see.

Her own image of having lived with no choice was reflected in the Duke’s eyes. The anguish of suppressing fear and the helplessness of being unable to even seek compromise.

These were things she knew well. After all, she had often seen knights with the same eyes, not just herself.

After killing someone for the first time, reactions typically split into two paths: those who lost their reason and became obsessed with victory, intoxicated by the elation of destroying the enemy, and those who struggled with the self-loathing they carried.

And now, the Duke’s expression was entirely that of the latter.

Flora, finding her past self in him, was left speechless. After all, she too had spent a long time huddled in a corner, holding her trembling body after taking her first enemy head.

The long process of gradually fading and becoming numb to it all.

He was now telling her that he too had gone through that same difficult process.

“You don’t have to do it anymore.”

His voice sounded remarkably plaintive. His voice, now devoid of its usual intimidation, even carried a hint of tenderness.

Flora’s parted lips pressed together firmly. The man who had always seemed so strong now appeared infinitely weak at this moment.

It felt strange to glimpse this other side of a man who appeared stronger and more impressive than anyone else in public.

Duke Heinst, the key figure who had led the southern front to victory time and again, who had demonstrated valor in the face of death.

To feel such kinship with a man she had thought was so far removed from her…

Without realizing it, her hand came to rest on the Duke’s cheek. He grabbed her hand and pressed it against his own.

“I won’t let you die.”

Her heart ached at his voice that was strangely low to the point of instability. The infinitely gentle, kind resonance began to strike something within her.

“Stay by my side. That’s the only way you can be safe.”

So spoke the man who maintained an undeniable dignity despite everything.

What brought her consciousness back from being immersed in past memories was a moist sensation.

Taking advantage of her momentarily loosened grip, the Duke took hold of her wrist and caressed it gently, as though he were embracing it. It was as gentle as wounded animals licking each other’s wounds for comfort.

The man who had rushed to her, like he was seeking something desperate, began to shower more passionate kisses on the inside of her wrist.

When Flora raised her head to say something to him as he blindly explored her, their eyes met.

A metallic taste rolled on her tongue, as if the wound had reopened.

The Duke’s eyes narrowed intently. His gaze was fixed persistently on Flora’s lips. She could instinctively read what he wanted.

He pulled her chin and overlapped their lips. The sensation of flesh stirring her mucous membrane was far more stimulating than when he had traced the skin on her arm. His hot tongue wetly sucked at her tender mouth.

“Hic… mmph…!”

A soft moan escaped between Flora’s lips, which she hadn’t been prepared for. His soft tongue secretly sucked at her lower lip. Chup, tsk–. The sound of him thoroughly sucking and swallowing even the saliva that hadn’t been swallowed yet dampened her ears.

His tongue, which had been slowly exploring her mouth, grew increasingly rough. Though she grabbed his shoulders, unable to bear the sensual sensation, he invaded her mouth more mercilessly, thrusting his tongue.

“Haa… Mas–… mph.”

Without giving her time to catch her breath, he changed the angle and crashed their overlapped lips together fully. Flora’s round br*asts rose and fell with her quickened breathing. The more she tried to hold back her heated moans, the more vivid and intense the feeling of the moist tongue on her lips became.

His long fingers slowly traced up her back and firmly supported the back of her head. Her body grew increasingly hot from the burning flesh pressing against her.

“Flora…”

The man who had shown strange favor since she arrived here kept calling her name. She embraced the Duke who was clinging to her desperately. His hot body temperature transmitted through their more closely pressed bodies.

Why?

She could no longer reject his touch.

Because the Duke was now making the same eyes she had made in that hell-like world. Because he was the first to draw out and soothe her loneliness that no one had ever acknowledged.

He interlaced their fingers. She could see that large, firm palm that he had first extended to her when they met.

In truth, her master was like that.

From the beginning, he was the only one who had cared for her.

Even when she lost consciousness trapped in the wardrobe, it was none other than her master who had helped her. She vaguely recalled that broad, warm embrace.