Chapter 81. Through the Night, So As Not to Let Go
2023.11.20.
"……Did you drink?"
It was Blair who first broke the silence flowing between them.
Seeing her delicate brow slightly furrowed with worry, Herdin chuckled and shot back.
"Why. Are you going to nag me?"
He didn't answer her question, but his eyes, more languid than usual, and his slow, unhurried stride answered on his behalf.
Blair stepped closer to support him and replied.
"I'm not nagging, I'm worried."
Herdin watched Blair approach him with quick steps. The sight of her trying to support a man a full head taller than herself was amusing.
His wife, who knew nothing and approached him without fear, wrapped her slender arms around his waist. At the same time, her sweet scent washed over him.
In that moment, the thread of reason he had momentarily loosened pulled taut—and finally snapped.
Herdin pushed the woman who had fallen into his arms against the wall and immediately pressed his lips to hers.
He felt Blair flinch in surprise, but he cupped her cheek so she couldn't escape.
Blair, who had frozen for a moment, closed her eyes and accepted him. Through his warm breath, she tasted the bitterness of whisky.
He was the one who drank, yet she felt like she would be the one to get drunk. So Blair grabbed his firm arm as if clinging to him.
The two explored each other, tangling their hot breaths as if they had completely forgotten they were standing in a hallway.
Blair was the first to come to her senses.
"Herdin, to the room…… Let's go to the room."
When Blair barely pushed him away and separated their lips to speak, Herdin captured her lips again and lifted her into his arms.
Her worry about whether it was okay to be carried like this by a drunk man proved meaningless; when she came to her senses, she was already lying on the bed.
Herdin tore away Blair's nightgown, which was in the way, and continued kissing her as if he wanted to devour her. Blair flinched in surprise, but he paid no mind and touched her body.
That kiss, that touch—it was desperate, like that of a person suffering from a long thirst.
She noticed that his demeanor was subtly different from usual at the moment when Blair, suffocating, briefly pulled her lips away and opened her eyes.
She met the gaze of him, who was looking down at her with slightly lowered eyes.
His blue eyes that met hers somehow…… looked tormented, like someone being strangled.
In her past life, overwhelmed by her own emotions, she had thought his unusual behavior was simply because he was drunk.
She had believed that he, who had suddenly distanced himself from her one day, had come to love her again, and because she had yearned for even a fragment of his affection, she had simply been happy in that moment.
She had no luxury to observe his feelings.
Because she was afraid that when he sobered up tomorrow morning, he would push her away again, afraid that it would end like a one-night dream.
But ironically, in this life where she no longer wished for his love, she could see his feelings first.
"……Herdin."
Blair called out to him as he tried to press his lips to hers again.
"Did something happen?"
His approaching lips stopped. But the answer that immediately followed was composed.
"No."
Herdin laced his fingers through Blair's and added softly.
"Nothing at all."
With that answer, their conversation ended.
He pulled Blair's body, which had not yet fully relaxed, and overlapped his body with hers.
"Ah!"
Even though her body had already heated up to some degree from the persistent kisses alone, Herdin was still too much for Blair.
He had always been too much, but today even more so.
Herdin desperately pulled her all the way in and embraced her. However, even though he was pressed against her without a single gap, the hollow feeling born from a suddenly realized emotion was not filled in the slightest.
As if he needed something to fill that emptiness, he sought deeper inside her.
But the more he did, the emptier he felt, and he tightly embraced the woman who was looking up at him with fevered eyes.
Even though she found him overwhelming, the woman who took all of him in was still beautiful in this situation. Damn it.
Why.
Why did you have to be that woman's daughter? Why did you have to be the emperor's sister?
No…….
Why did I have to fall in love with you?
There were countless reasons to let her go, but only one reason not to, and it was driving him mad.
It felt like the ground beneath his feet was falling into an endless abyss.
His vision blurred from the emotion that was completely consuming him, but Herdin ignored it and focused on the desire right before him.
Because now, no matter what happens, I won't be able to let you go.
"……Blair."
Blair, who had been surrendering her body to him and being endlessly shaken, opened her eyes at the sound of his ragged voice falling by her ear.
The moment she met his blue eyes swirling with desire.
She suddenly realized a fact she had forgotten. That tonight was the last night she would spend with this man.
At the same time, the cold energy that roughly touched her felt a little sad.
He was still in his outdoor clothes, while she was the only one without a single thread on her.
In her past life, that had made her sad too.
Even though they were close enough that they couldn't get any closer, the distance of a single layer of clothing that couldn't be bridged, the warmth that could never be felt.
The memory of that night when she swallowed her sorrow for fear of him pulling away was still vivid.
But today, wouldn't it be okay to be a little more greedy?
Just this once, for the last time.
"Herdin."
Blair carefully grasped his collar and said.
"Could you…… hold me a little warmer?"
As if understanding her meaning, Herdin began to take off his outer clothes. One by one, the clothes were removed, revealing his perfect body.
Soon, he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. At the same time, his hot body firmly embraced Blair. From his warmth touching her skin, she felt like crying for some reason.
Soon, her vision began to shake again.
Blair desperately embraced that warmth.
Through the night, so as not to let go.
* * *
The entire capital was abuzz with rumors about Blair day after day.
The bar in the back alley was no exception. Rather, because it was a place where people who lived rough lives gathered, the rumors became even more vulgar.
Especially when the subject of those rumors was a woman.
"Did you hear that rumor? That the Duchess tried to bite the Grand Empress's neck?"
"For all her airs, the imperial family is no different from any other household. A daughter bewitched by a man and betraying her mother—it's a complete mess of a family."
"Well, like mother, like daughter. What do you expect from lowborn blood's uncultivated nature? She got involved with the Duke and was so smitten she sold out her own mother."
Honestly, women, just treat them a little nice and—"
It was while the men sitting at the bar were snickering and inflaming the filthy rumors about Blair.
Crack—
A glass shattered in the hand of Mikhail, who was carrying cocktails toward them.
Startled by the noise, both his subordinates beside him and the men in front flinched and looked at Mikhail.
From his hand, along with the fragments of the crushed glass, alcohol and fresh red blood dripped down.
"……Ah."
Mikhail, who made eye contact with the frightened customers, had an expression as if he had only just realized the glass had broken.
"I apologize. The glass broke."
However, nowhere on his cold expression could any trace of apology be found.
One of the men flinched involuntarily at Mikhail's aura, then tried to hide his feelings by raising his voice.
"Hey, it seems like you broke that glass on purpose! What kind of customer service is this here?"
One of Mikhail's subordinates, who noticed the unusual atmosphere, quickly stepped in to mediate.
"I apologize, sir. It seems our staff member made a mistake out of exhaustion. I will make you a new one right away."
Seeing his subordinate's signal, Mikhail slipped out from behind the bar and went up to the second floor. Then, using divine power, he healed the wounds where the glass fragments had embedded themselves.
Just as he was finishing the healing, he heard footsteps approaching from behind.
"Master."
When Mikhail turned around, he saw his subordinate approaching. The subordinate paused when he saw the bloodstains covering Mikhail's palm.
"……Did something happen downstairs?"
"No, I just got a little hurt. What is it?"
"We've been continuously investigating the black magic book you ordered us to look into, but since it's forbidden magic, it's difficult to obtain information."
Mikhail furrowed his brow.
He had been investigating the black magic circle he saw on Blair that day at the villa in the forest.
If even she was unaware of its existence, there was a high probability it was magic implanted with dangerous intentions.
He wanted to remove the ominous magic circle from her as quickly as possible, but as expected, gathering information wasn't easy.
"Anything at all, no matter how trivial. Bring it to me as soon as you acquire it."
"Well, about that……."
Mikhail looked at the subordinate, who wasn't leaving, with questioning eyes. The subordinate pulled out something crumpled from his inner pocket.
"It's not a black magic book, but it's at least a document related to black magic, so I brought it just in case."
On the first page of the document he presented, a black magic circle was drawn, and below it—
[It is said that there is a black magic that connects the second condition of a contract with a divine beast that was severed long ago.]
—was written in neat handwriting. It seemed the owner of the document had written it themselves.
"Where did you get this document?"
"Yesterday, some guy left it instead of paying for his drinks. He looked like a gambler, and he said he picked it up on his way home early in the morning."
"He picked it up on the street?"
"Yes. At first, he didn't know what it was and thought it was an important document, so he tried to sell it for a high price. But once he realized it was a black magic circle, he got scared and just handed it over to cover his tab."
As Mikhail listened to his subordinate's story and examined the document again, he stared intently at the black magic circle drawn on the front page and then paused.
'This is…….'
It was a magic circle with the exact same pattern as the one engraved on Blair's collarbone.