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5. At the word "escape," Daphne unconsciously tried to rise. The moment she kicked off the ground to flee, her hand was seized. She tried to yank her hand free, but the grip crushing her wrist wrenched a cry from her lips.
Gritting her teeth, she was dragged right in front of Asherad. It felt as if she hadn't seen him in a very long time, and yet she could not bring herself to look at his face.
Daphne barely lifted her head and looked up. Asherad's face was bathed in the pre-dawn light, glowing pale white. Was this what the vampire of legend, the one who drank human blood, looked like? He curled up his unnaturally red lips. He looked as though he might drink her blood at any moment.
Daphne, without realizing it, let out a sigh and spoke.
"H-how did you get here……"
"Is that what matters?"
It was a soft but chilly voice. Only now did she learn that such a voice could be this terrifying. She felt as though she might faint.
Had his face ever felt this frightening?
"Let go of me."
"……."
"Your Highness, let go of me."
Help me.
Save me.
Love me.
Daphne had never once asked any of those things of Asherad. This was the first time she had ever requested something of him.
I'm leaving. Let me go.
Her first request was a severing of their bond. Knowing it was futile, Daphne was still desperate. Asherad twisted up the corner of his mouth.
Asherad looked up at the sky and let out a small laugh. To Daphne it felt like mockery, but it was nothing more than a brief burst of deranged laughter.
"No."
The man whose eyes gleamed as he looked at her said tenderly,
"I won't. So what should I do?"
Every hair on Daphne's body stood on end. Asherad whispered gently at her terrified expression.
"Come with me, Daphne."
"……."
"If you want that man you love to remain unharmed."
At the murmured voice, Daphne's lips trembled. Fabian. His face swirled through her mind. The escape plan had failed.
Which meant there had been a leak somewhere. To come here and wait in advance, the plan must have been discovered quite some time ago.
Then something must have happened to Fabian. Trembling all over, Daphne clung desperately to Asherad, who was staring straight at her.
"Please."
"……."
"Please, at least spare Fabian."
In that instant she felt him roughly yank her arm. His face remained perfectly composed, but the hand dragging her along was nothing short of violent.
The hand gripping her wrist had veins bulging across it. Her wrist ached as if it might snap, but Daphne did not resist.
The place she was dragged to was a familiar one.
The Crown Prince's chamber.
In that dim room where she had always felt so safe, she became once more a bird locked in a cage. Daphne looked around the moment she entered.
Perhaps Fabian was here? Where was he?
"Where is His Highness Fabian…… where is Fabian?"
Could he have been thrown in prison? What was she supposed to do now? Asherad was looking down at Daphne with an unreadable expression.
She grew suffocated.
"Your Highness, Fabian…… Mmph!"
Asherad grabbed the hair at the back of her head and suddenly crushed his lips roughly against hers. Daphne's eyes flew wide open.
The moment something dry and soft touched her mouth, her lips parted reflexively. Asherad did not let the opening escape him.
Something wet brushed across her lips. Daphne could not bring herself to close her teeth, afraid she might bite his tongue. Like a herbivore surrendering everything to a beast of prey, she simply accepted his kiss in stillness.
The damp sensation of his tongue teased the roof of her mouth. She was who she was, but even she knew that this was how men and women coupled. Asherad was kissing her.
Asherad was, to her……
Each time his lips touched hers and pulled away, she could barely breathe. She forced her weakening body to move and tried to push him away. When she lifted her wrist to shove him off, it was seized and slammed hard against the wall.
"St…… ah!"
She cried out for him to stop, but as if he had resolved to seal her mouth, the kiss only grew fiercer.
The more she struggled, the tighter the arms coiling around her body became. Their saliva smeared over her lips and chin. Hot breath met hot breath, and the air filled with scorching heat.
"Mm, mmph!"
Tears welled in Daphne's eyes. Only after the kiss, which felt like torture, ended could Daphne finally face Asherad. Her pinned-up hair had long since come undone, and her resisting wrists had been caught.
"Fabi……"
"Why did you try to run?"
It was a clean voice, stripped of any lingering heat from the violent kiss. Unlike Daphne, who was gasping for breath, he gazed at her with a face somberly composed. His green eyes, holding a tiny lamp within them, gleamed sharply.
"You said you would never run away again."
He murmured low, continuing.
"Answer me."
The hair at the back of her head was pulled backward. Tears welled up in Daphne's face. Was he demanding an answer, or was he furious?
"Look at me."
His thumb brushed over her seized wrist. Daphne truly wondered if this man might devour her whole.
"You said you would stay by my side."
"……."
"You said you wouldn't leave. You said you'd stay with me."
Was that what it was? Was that all he was angry about? Daphne looked at Asherad's face. She still could not tell what he was thinking.
But looking at someone who claimed not to know the reason exasperated her. Daphne parted her trembling lips.
"That's because……"
"……."
"Because you deceived me."
That was why, for the first time, she had stood against the man who had been her entire world. Asherad, who had been the sole ray of light through those hellish hours. She had thought she might die. And yet, somehow, she had never believed Asherad would actually kill her.
There had been far too many opportunities. This man would never want to grant the one who had humiliated him an easy death.
And because of that, Daphne had, paradoxically, been able to say what she wanted to say. Facing Asherad's face, Daphne spoke with a contorted expression.
"You knew from the very beginning who I was."
"……."
"You hated me."
"……."
"You despised and scorned me. So you played with me. You…… you……"
"……."
"You never truly liked me at all."
Tears streamed down Daphne's eyes, drop by drop. That was it. The Emperor's filthy hands, the way Asherad had isolated her behind the scenes—none of that mattered.
Only that affection.
That affection, granted like rain after a drought, had been a lie, a thing meant to mock her—that was what mattered.
"So I'm running away."
"……."
"I want to escape this place. I'm sick to death of your father. I don't want to see your face anymore."
Asherad had been worse than anyone else who had shunned and tormented her. He had isolated her, made her depend on him alone, and treated her like a dog.
She remembered the time she had read to him about how to train a dog.
He had said the most effective way to make an insolent dog look only at its master was to keep it beside him in a place filled with nothing but beings hostile to it.
That had been Daphne.
In this strange place where everyone was hostile to her, she had ended up clinging to Asherad's kindness.
He had tamed her the way one trains a dog, and then told her not to leave him, to stay by his side. Knowing she liked him. Knowing she was clinging to him.
Asherad was looking down at Daphne in silence. When he slightly bowed his head, a shadow fell and his face became difficult to see. But his luminous eyes looked, if anything, wounded.
Or perhaps she only wished them to be. His shadowed expression was unreadable. As Daphne secretly began to suspect that he truly was hurt, a sound so loud it felt like it struck her ears rang out.
"Ha, hahaha!"
Asherad let out the loudest laugh of his life. At that great sound, a chill ran down Daphne's spine. He laughed, clutching his stomach.
As if he were watching a comedy, he let out a clear laugh and then looked at Daphne.
"Daphne."
"……."
"Aren't you being far too shameless? Expecting me to like you."
"……."
As if a mask had been stripped away, Asherad wore a twisted smile. When Daphne slightly parted her lips, his thumb brushed across those soft lips.
"You dared—expected me to like you?"
"……."
"You knew what your mother did, didn't you? You must have known your very existence nearly cast me down into the abyss."
"That's……!"
She truly had not known.
That her existence had threatened Asherad. In her memory, her mother had been desperately anxious to return to the imperial palace, striving to force Daphne into it.
If not for Fabian, she truly would never have known.
Daphne stared at him blankly. He was right. It had been shameless of her to hope for even a sliver of affection from Asherad. It was laughable that she had ever felt even disappointment.
"So that's why I'm leaving."
Even so, just because they were bound by ill fate did not mean she had to keep dragging it along.
Daphne wanted to erase the lingering feelings she had held for Asherad, to break free from everything and start anew. She had endured quite enough torment.
So she hoped he would show mercy and let her go. Watching the twisted face of the man toying with her lips, Daphne spoke with empty eyes.
"I was wrong. It was wrong of me to be born of such a mother, and it was wrong of me to try to take your place."
"……."
"So let's end this. Please."
Daphne was exhausted. She had simply learned that wanting anything at all was a sin. The moment Asherad pointed out that she did not even have the right to feel the bitter sting of betrayal, she had simply wanted to die.
Lifting Daphne's pale face, Asherad said,
"Who gave you the right to end it?"
"……."
"You must not end it. Never."
Looking at Daphne's tear-streaked face, Asherad bowed his head even lower. Fearing he would kiss her again, she turned her head away, but he only pressed his body and face closer.
Into the ear exposed by her turning head, Asherad whispered.
"Because, you see, Daphne."
"……."
"I like that shameless you."
"……."
"I love you."
At the most terrible timing in the world, Asherad confessed his heart. To Daphne, it was nothing more than yet another mockery.
It meant he would take that shameless love she had once hoped for, hand it back to her like this, and toy with her.
"So accept me."
Asherad buried his face in her neck.
Tears fell from Daphne's face. Because she so desperately loathed this confession, and because of the foolishness that made her want to be swept away by its sweetness, her face crumpled into sobs.
Asherad gently drew Daphne toward him. Daphne realized there was a bed behind her.