Episode 2
Three years ago.
The violently shaking vision made me feel like I was going to be sick.
My hands, gripping the blanket tightly, turned white at the fingertips, and beneath them, my skin looked as though it had been dipped in fire—flushed and red all over.
A round bite mark on the back of my hand came into focus, warped and uneven.
“Hh, ah, ugh… I-I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Mm. Then do it.”
A solid body pressed tightly against my back, pinning me under his weight.
“Haa, Jerred, ugh, you said you’d be gentle…”
I tried to push against his rock-hard body with my arms twisted behind me, but my hands slipped uselessly, sliding over sweat-slicked skin.
His veiny hands pinned mine down against the sheets, and his damp mouth closed over my ear, sucking the rim until a shiver of strange pleasure crawled down my spine.
Low moans and hot breaths soaked into my ear.
I once asked him, Do other lovers do it this much?—after being wrung dry by Jerred day and night.
“I’m average.”
Oh. So that’s average.
“You just need to build more stamina, sweetheart.”
And so, I thought my endurance was below average—until I overheard another purifier friend talking one day.
“We went at it for two hours straight. I thought I was going to die.”
“Because it was that good?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t people usually go at it for five hours at least?”
“Hah! Luiche, you’ve never dated, have you? No man lasts five hours. That’s not a man, that’s a monster—half lower-body, half beast!”
Yes. My boyfriend was a monster whose lower half was the main body.
Because of our difference in status, we were in a secret relationship. I couldn’t tell anyone this humiliating truth.
“Hh, Jerred…!”
A sharp, sticky pleasure overtook my head, making my body tremble uncontrollably.
Crying and moaning his name only made him grin wickedly, more excited than ever.
A vein bulged on his beautiful forehead.
Overcome with frenzy, he hooked his arms under my shoulders and pulled me back toward him.
“You liar, hhh, ugh…”
“Who, me?”
“No, you! You lied first, remember?”
Tears blurred my vision as Jerred’s tongue licked them away, his lips playing over my face as if he couldn’t get enough of the taste.
“And what about you? You lied about your name the first time we met.”
His teeth nipped the tip of my nose.
He still hadn’t let go of that one white lie from our first encounter, afraid of earning a penalty. Beneath his composed face, he was a petty man.
I whispered you bad man a few times before my eyes fluttered closed in exhaustion. I could hear Jerred’s soft chuckle as I drifted off.
When I woke, he had already washed me, changed the sheets, and was fully dressed.
The gold epaulettes on his uniform made his handsome face look even more disciplined, even pure. It was hard to believe this was the same man who’d lost himself in lust not long ago.
“You’re being deployed again?”
Among all the awakened ones, Jerred Castion was the most active on the battlefield.
Thanks to him, the prestige of the Castion Duchy had skyrocketed.
From the year his powers first manifested, Jerred hadn’t had a single moment’s rest—thrown from one front to another.
As the only awakened one of his family—and a first-rank at that—he had become nothing more than a banner for the family’s pride.
His mother, Lady Marcella, once a concubine, used his achievements cleverly to rise to power within the duchy.
But the heir of the family was still his older brother, Pallas Castion—pure noble blood.
All of Jerred’s glory and sacrifice merely served to polish the family crest, never to reward him.
He endured it all for one reason only—to protect his pitiful mother, trapped beneath that cruel shadow of power.
“I’m leaving soon.”
Which meant he was already late; everyone must have been anxiously waiting for him.
“How long will you be gone this time?”
“Why? Can’t stand to be apart even for a bit?”
He smiled teasingly and sat beside me. I leaned back against the headboard.
His energy still hadn’t recovered, even after purification.
Though I did my best to replenish him, he consumed more than I could ever give.
When war broke out between kingdoms, humanity faced a new enemy—monsters that tore through space itself. Guns and blades were useless. Humanity was slaughtered.
Then the Awakened appeared.
They wielded strange powers capable of piercing the monsters’ hides and shattering their hearts.
But when an awakened one lost control, they went berserk—turning into a calamity greater than any monster.
The only ones able to calm them were the Purifiers.
Through touch—from a brush of fingers to the deepest, most intimate contact—a purifier could suppress the rage and madness of an awakened one.
And I was a fourth-rank purifier.
Too weak to be employed by any temple or noble house.
So for someone like me to purify a first-rank like Jerred… it took days and nights of lying tangled in bed, without rest.
“Are you sure… that’s enough?”
Jerred’s eyes widened a little, surprised by my question.
He tilted his head with a faint smile and gently cupped the back of mine.
As his face drew closer, I closed my eyes instinctively. His lips pressed against mine; he sucked lightly on my lower lip.
“This is enough.”
But I knew better—it wasn’t.
He needed a stronger purifier.
Yet I could never make him listen. His stubbornness wouldn’t allow it.
A dull guilt pressed down on my chest. I clenched my fist quietly.
Jerred tucked a stray lock of my hair behind my ear.
“Don’t get distracted while I’m gone. Exercise. Eat properly.”
“I know.”
He bit my earlobe—not softly. The sharp sting spread through my skin, familiar by now. His tongue traced the curve of my ear, and the wet sound made everything echo faintly.
“Luiche.”
“Mm.”
“If we ever break up, we die. Both of us. So don’t leave me. Remember that.”
“…I said I know.”
His thumb brushed over my swollen eyelids before he stood. The old bed creaked under his weight.
“When I get back, we’re getting a new bed. Don’t argue about this one.”
That was the last thing he said before walking out.
Normally, he would linger—half threats, half affection—holding me so tightly I could hardly breathe.
But this time, he really was in a hurry. His goodbye was plain.
“I wonder when he’ll be back this time.”
The tiny, shabby house felt hollow.
Before the loneliness could sink in, I lay back down.
Jerred returned exactly one month and four days later.
At the sound of the door opening, I rushed out barefoot, half-dressed.
But when I saw him—arms open, waiting—I froze.
I couldn’t bring myself to run into his arms.
