Chapter 1

The man, or perhaps the monster, was crouched defenseless under the moonlight.

Even the beasts and the smallest insects seemed to feel instinctive fear, so the surroundings were eerily quiet.

Agnes could not say she was unafraid.

“Ugh… ah.”

But the pained groans spilling from the man’s lips caught her in place.

Clutching her dress tight, Agnes cautiously approached him.

“Your Grace, Duke of Vasteron, are you all right?”

At the sound of her voice, the Duke of Vasteron, Dylan, snapped his head up.

His face was paler than moonlight, sweat beaded on his brow, and his lips were torn and bleeding from how hard he had bitten them.

Anyone could tell at a glance that Dylan was in pain.

“…Leave. Now.”

He forced the words out through a locked throat. Agnes neither retreated nor advanced and only lowered herself a little. His voice was too quiet to hear clearly.

“Your Grace, if you tell me someone who can help, I will bring them.”

“I told you to go away. Did you not hear me?”

The sharp voice lashed at Agnes. Even so, she did not obey.

“I cannot pretend not to see someone in pain. If you tell me whom you trust, I will…”

Before Agnes could finish, Dylan reached out.

His large hand clamped her wrist with crushing strength, and Agnes, slight as she was, staggered and lost her balance.

Knees hit the dirt before she could catch herself, and Dylan glared at her with eyes darkened by frenzy.

“If you do not want your blood drained, get out. Did you not understand?”

Even in the dark, his red eyes gleamed with a chilling light, like blood freshly spilled.

And he wanted something that matched those eyes with blinding intensity.

All he could hear was the frantic thrum of the woman’s heart right in front of him.

Usually, when he said this much, people screamed and ran.

There was no one who had not heard the rumor that Dylan was a monster who ate people.

Although no one had proved whether it was true or not, people feared him all the same.

Agnes did not run. She still faced him and asked in a steady voice.

“Are the rumors true?”

Only then did Dylan really look at Agnes.

Not to threaten her, but to understand her words.

More precisely, he wanted to see if she was insane.

Contrary to his expectation, Agnes was sound of mind.

Her round golden eyes quivered wildly, as if they had lost their place.

The wrist he held trembled like a poplar in the wind, and the artery beneath his palm leapt like a fish thrown onto dry land.

No wonder her heartbeat sounded so loud.

Agnes was afraid. Even so, she did not run. She endured.

Dylan had been trying to drive her away, but what came out of his mouth was something he never expected to ask.

“If the rumors are true?”

“If they are true, I could give you a little of my blood…”

Agnes swallowed, nerves tightening her voice.

“Of course I cannot give you much. If I collapse here that will be trouble for me, and for you as well, so you would not let that happen, right?”

Her tone was playfully out of place. As if the taut tension bothered her, she offered the idea with a clumsy smile.

A kind and foolish woman.

If Dylan truly was a monster who drank blood, and he was starving to the brink of madness, could he not drink so much that her life would be in danger?

Yet Agnes did not seem to worry about that.

“If you intended to hurt me, you would not have told me to go in the first place. Am I wrong?”

Such innocence. People say one thing and do another. Did she not know that? Was she a sheltered young lady who knew nothing of the world?

A thousand thoughts ran through his head, yet none of them lasted long.

Facing a frightened face that had not lost its vitality, he could no longer bear the thirst.

Self loathing and shame at wanting to harm a person like a beast began to drift away.

Agnes even slipped off the long glove on her right hand and offered her pale arm to him.

Something fierce flashed in Dylan’s eyes, and in the next instant he sank his fangs into her forearm.

“Mm…”

In that moment, Dylan was a being beyond human senses.

The soft scent of his prey and the sound of her small gasp were painfully clear as his fangs pierced her.

When her body twisted with pain, her skirt crumpled and scraped, rustling as it dragged.

Guilt made him try to pull back without meaning to, yet the wound he had made began to seep with metallic blood.

The instant it touched his tongue, the taste was so sweet it scattered his reason.

He pressed his lips gently to her skin to draw out a little more.

The raw pleasure on his tongue kneaded his mind without mercy.

He had drunk the blood of countless people, yet none had ever been this sweet.

He had to focus all of himself on taking only a little, just enough to escape this crisis.

If not, he might truly kill this woman.

“…Haa.”

When the brief meal ended, his blurred mind cleared, and shame flooded in.

He had taken human blood in the middle of the imperial palace.

Like a monster.

Mortified, Dylan could not bring himself to look straight at Agnes.

He pulled a handkerchief from inside his jacket and wrapped it around her arm to cover the faint traces of blood and saliva, then slowly withdrew.

“Are you all right now?”

“…Yes. Thank you.”

He stood straight again, and his voice was far steadier. Only the self reproach surged within him.

He started to rub his brow, then noticed his hand was shaking and lowered it.

“What happened tonight must remain a secret.”

He forced out the words through his shame, and Agnes answered with an easy smile.

“Of course.”

“If this leaks, for the honor of the imperial family I will have to harm you. I do not wish to do that to my benefactor.”

“I understand what you mean.”

Agnes lifted the handkerchief that had been pressed to her arm, then looked awkward.

She seemed unsure whether to hand back the bloodstained cloth.

In an ordinary situation she might at least say she would wash it and return it, but this was the imperial palace, and the person before her was so exalted that even suggesting another meeting might be a burden.

Duke of Vasteron.

He was the late emperor’s most beloved son and the current emperor’s cherished younger brother.

In ordinary circumstances, Agnes, only a viscount’s daughter, would never have spoken to him.

Sensing her dilemma, Dylan decided the handkerchief’s fate first.

“Dispose of it as you wish. There is no need to return it.”

Only then did Agnes smile again as if everything were settled, and she offered a short curtsy.

Dylan watched her withdraw without a trace of hesitation, then hid himself in the darkness.

He no longer wished to remain at the palace banquet.

* * *

Back in the ballroom, Agnes was immediately seized by her father, Viscount Everchen, who grabbed her by the arm.

Unfortunately, it was the very spot Dylan had bitten, and her face tightened in pain.

“How dare you be so rude. If anyone sees that expression of yours, what then. Come quietly.”

With overbearing force, the viscount all but dragged Agnes along.

If he cared so much about appearances, he should start by fixing that behavior.

Agnes kept the thought to herself.

What came to mind instead was the man who had clung to her arm as if it were a lifeline from the heavens.

Dylan’s grip had been far stronger than Viscount Everchen’s, yet it had not been the same as rudeness.

It was a desperate gesture. She had to resist the urge to smooth down that jet black hair.

Far from rude, it had only seemed pitiful.

Dylan might have found it ridiculous if he knew, but seeing him then had reminded Agnes of her five year old son, Noah.

Noah always clutched her skirt as if he might tear it. For that timid child, that may have been the only thing he could cling to.

And yet Noah always said the same thing.

‘It is all right, Mom. Noah can do it alone.’

His words sent her away, yet his eyes were always lonely.

Just like Dylan, who had crouched in the rear garden to drive everything away.

While she relived what had happened with Dylan, Viscount Everchen shoved Agnes into a small anteroom.

Inside were his wife, flushed with anger, and her half brother, Haver.

The door shut, and the viscountess flung a cup of water into Agnes’s face.

She did it so roughly that Agnes’s cheek stung as if slapped.

“Is it true you refused Count Paula?”

The viscountess’s voice cut like a knife. Agnes ran a thin hand from brow to chin to shake off the water, then opened her eyes.

“I told you from the start that I had no intention of marrying him.”

“I told you I do not care what you want. Do you understand what an opportunity this is. You were thrown out after your husband unilaterally divorced you. Do you think it is easy to remarry a man of Count Paula’s standing.”

Count Paula was a man over seventy this year.

He was older even than Agnes’s father, Viscount Everchen.

No one there argued over that.

Even for Agnes, the person in question, his age was not the issue.

“Just in case, I asked him. Would it be all right to raise my son together. He said no. So I told him marriage would be difficult.”