CH 3

A sticky sound echoed in his ears. Leon twisted his head and pulled the small body closer to him, wanting to dig his tongue deeper.

Veronica’s clothes were crumpled up as his rough hands rubbed against her soft waist, and shivers ran through him wherever they touched. Feeling the heat rising from his skin, he squinted his eyes.

‘Why did it have to feel so damn good?’

“Ah… hmm.”

The woman was delicious. Leon couldn’t think of any other way to describe it. He wanted to lick every inch of her skin clean.

Every single drop of blood, until there was nothing left.  She tasted, smelled, and felt so sweet that it overwhelmed him and made his heart tighten.

It was an absurd experience for Leon, who had never been consumed by sexual desire.

He ruthlessly teased and ravished the gasping woman, inserting his tongue deeply into her mouth and savoring her moans.

“Ow, it hurts… this is strange…”

Each time he explored her mouth, she let out a whimper that made shivers run down his spine.

‘More. It wouldn’t hurt anymore, just one more time.’

Now he was the one begging, not her. His rationality disappeared the moment she awkwardly pushed her tongue into his mouth.

He was now facing a young adult who had just become legal.

“…I’m going crazy.”

He barely pulled his lips away from the tender flesh. A hollow laugh escaped him as he looked down to see that he was already hard.

There are sweet poisons that can melt your tongue. He was old enough to know it, and she wasn’t, so he had to stop.

Taking deep, rough breaths, he raised his arm. The air was thick with tension as his dilated pupils locked onto hers.

He felt like turning away. Maybe by now, she was looking at him with similar eyes. They were like beasts, clinging to each other’s necks and tearing each other apart.

“…Ha.”

The cold winter air scattered white breaths between them, and an endless silence followed.

It felt like being drunk on a strong medicine, bouncing back and forth between a pleasure without a ceiling and a bottomless abyss.

Leon didn’t think that the combination of a human and a Bahamut, two completely different beings, would create such an attraction. They had never touched before.

The woman was dangerous in many ways.

As Leon watched her saliva-covered lips tremble, he smirked. Then Veronica asked with a soft, loosened face.

“…Why are you laughing?”

“No reason.”

He replied, wiping the saliva from her lips with his thumb.

“I just think your life is going to be messed up.”

How did it come to this, where the only choice was to kiss a stranger or die? They said that God sends hardships to those he loves, but for an immature child who had just become an adult, it was too much.

“Is your throat still dry?”

Veronica looked up at him blankly and shook her head slightly.

‘That’s right. She’s fine now. Would she even remember this tomorrow when she wakes up?’

He gazed at her cheek, now flushed pink, and her slender neck. For a moment, he felt the urge to touch her, but he quickly suppressed it.

He was like a horny dog in heat. Leon straightened his upper body, keeping his emotions at bay.

“Don’t go.”

Then, she grabbed onto his clothes again, causing Leon to freeze.

“Don’t leave me alone.”

Her pitiful plea made his Adam’s apple bob slowly up and down. There was something about the woman that bothered him.

Frozen for a moment, he slowly raised his hand that was still numb from gripping the sword, and traced the wrinkles at the corner of her eyes. In a low voice, he murmured as if he were seeing his unhappy past.

“I won’t go.”

There was only one sleeping bag for the two of them, and it was big enough for them to sleep together if they squeezed in.

He had no intention of lying down next to the woman. He had never doubted his self-control and patience, but tonight was different.

Thus, he watched her until she closed her eyes and snored before standing up from his seat.

He threw some wood into the campfire and tilted his head as if to suppress something. His lips parted, and a long breath escaped.

Not a drop of wine should be given to a thirsty man. For it is not the drop he tastes that is dangerous, but the thirst that follows.

It was a black, moonless night.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ❁ ⋅.} ────── ⊰

Veronica blinked her eyes. The sky was a beautiful shade of blue. It must’ve been dawn.

She was lying in a large, warm leather sleeping bag on a vast meadow. The shadow of the bonfire flickered on the ground in front of her, and she could see a tree with a tethered horse. As she slowly sat up, a large man with a copper kettle in front of the bonfire caught her eye.

‘Where am I?’

For a while, her mind went blank. Then the cold wind piercing through her thin clothes reminded her of the memories that resurfaced.

Her father, who had been beheaded. Benjamin, who had asked her to go with him. The buildings that were burning and collapsing.

Bayern was gone. The beautiful and brilliant seaside city was burning.

When she turned her head, she saw the ruined port city under the gray dawn light. It looked like a lone and abandoned place in the middle of a snowy wasteland.

‘This can’t be real,’ she thought.

She didn’t shed tears, but she felt empty. Veronica clenched her teeth until her jaw hurt.

She raised her arm that had been on the ground and hugged herself tightly. She survived, but that was all. Her entire life was gone.

The alley where she ran and fell, laughing and crying. The friends who confided their small worries. Her father, her only family, and their plan to sing at a theater next month. Dreams.

The past and future disappeared at once.

It was like someone had blown out a candle. Even if she wanted to deny it, there was the remains of the burning wick in front of her eyes, making it difficult to deny reality.

‘What should I do in this situation?’ 

She had never learned how to deal with it. If she lost everything at once, if it was taken away from her, then what should she do?

She regulated her breathing. She slowly breathed in and out repeatedly. Then suddenly, a fur fell on her shoulder, and a wooden cup was handed to her.

“Drink.”

When she looked up, the expressionless man met her gaze calmly. His red hair was disheveled against the background of dawn.

He was the man who had pulled her out of that hell.

As she absentmindedly took the glass, the man casually sat down next to her. Even before she brought her nose to it, the pungent aroma told her the liquid was alcohol.

When she opened her eyes wide and stared, he snapped her out of her thoughts.

“It won’t kill you. It’ll warm your stomach so you don’t freeze to death.”

“…I’ve never had alcohol before.”

“Good for you.”

His casual response made her feel foolish. Her consciousness swayed oddly.

‘Well, whatever.’

She took a sip as if to say “whatever happens, happens.” The liquid tasted bitter as it passed through her mouth, burned her throat and quickly made her stomach feel hot.

‘Why do people drink this stuff?’

She frowned and turned to look beside her, meeting the gaze of the man who had been staring at her. He was surprisingly handsome.

From his languid eyes to his straight nose and masculine jawline. He seemed to be sculpted by God, perfect in every way.

The only flaw was the scar that ran across his right eye, but even that complemented his fierce aura well.

‘Why do I feel like I’ve seen his appearance somewhere before?’

As she thought that, the man tilted his lips slightly. He stared at her piercingly and spoke.

“Do you remember what happened yesterday?”

“Yesterday… I asked for your help, right?”

“No. The part where you were whining and crying about being thirsty.”

As Veronica stared at him in confusion, her eyes gradually widened as if she remembered something.

She stiffened from the shock. Some of the memories were too intense, as if they were coming straight out of book pages.

So much so that she wondered why she hadn’t remembered it as soon as she woke up.

“More, give me more.”

“Ow, it hurts… this is strange….”

“Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone.”

Her face flushed. An illusion in the darkness flooded in her mind, with a low voice and a sensual breath. The warmth that enveloped her body made it hard to distinguish the space around her.

‘Last night, I kissed this man. And not only that, I clung to him.’

The ecstatic pleasure vividly resurfaced. She remembered his large hands and his hot, probing tongue.

Veronica couldn’t understand. Why did she want to connect with him like crazy? Why did she desire to be buried in his warm embrace in the pure white snow, and even though it was a poetic expression, why did she want to become the corpse he killed and hid?

In the end, the only comment she could make on the memory was this.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It happened.”

The man answered playfully, looking at Veronica’s face.

“You blush so quickly,” he murmured.

He lifted his crooked fingers to her flushed cheeks curiously. As her breathing hitched and she hunched her shoulders, the fingers stopped in the air.

“What the hell… did you do to me yesterday?”

“I did my best. To make sure the assimilator I saved didn’t have her head explode.”

His deep and sharp gaze now went down like scratching her face and was stuck on her lips. His black pupils were vivid yet hazy, making her feel very strange.

“You were assimilated by the Bahamut yesterday. I saved you just before you blew up.”

The man spoke in a dry tone, as if he were saying it rained this morning.

The confusion that had come with the word ‘assimilator’ suddenly stopped. Veronica reflexively turned to the surface of her glass.

Her eyes looked red like a lantern. Like a winter rabbit on white snow.

Like Bahamut.

“You have already been assimilated.”

“You’re still alive because I poured divine power into you.”

The cold winter wind shook her hair. Veronica felt overwhelmed by the flood of memories and information, barely able to breathe.

‘You poured divine power into me?’

‘Who are you to do that?’

She opened her mouth to ask questions, but the words got caught in her throat.

A scar across his right eye. Black armor. Divine power.

The person who matched all of these traits, as far as she knew, was only one person.

“… Bahamut Hunter.”