Interlude: Appetizer
At first, when the Demon King's essence entered my body, I managed to suppress its power with the demonic qi I had cultivated through the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. Part of it was that I let my guard down — once the essence settled quietly inside me, it caused no trouble at all.
I simply told myself that, having finished what needed doing, I had merely begun to miss Adela so badly I couldn't stand it. And since I had killed the one who cast the curse in the first place, I even had a tidy excuse to go and check on her condition.
Every time I circulated the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, the Demon King's essence devoured a little more of my demonic qi, until at last it took on substance of its own and began exerting its influence like a part of my body. I fobbed Adela off with the claim that it was merely a fragment of the Demon King, but this was nothing so harmless. As the word essence suggests, it is the very core of what makes the Demon King the Demon King.
Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be controlling me. Not yet. Perhaps I can resist because I am the Hero? Either way, I decided it would be wise not to go around announcing that this thing had taken root in my flesh.
I lied to my party members. I told them I had felled the Demon King with ease by stripping away his divine authority. Even in the midst of that overwhelming victory, they fussed over my condition, insisting we return to the Order's branch at once so I could be examined. The tests found nothing wrong with me whatsoever, and only then did they finally relax, rejoicing with all their hearts over the Demon King's subjugation.
I thought that if things went on like this, there would be no problems at all. But perhaps that was a rather soft-headed thing to believe.
While I was sharing a night of passion with Adela, the Demon King's essence chose to wake. As if responding to my lust, it transformed the demonic qi it had siphoned from me and sent it crawling toward my brain. I ran the Heavenly Demon Divine Art to intercept the corrupted qi as it traveled my meridians, damming every passage with my own demonic qi — but the thing simply devoured mine and swelled even larger. In the end, my lust would not stop, and I could not halt my hips until my precious Adela had all but breathed her last.
To ravish her, to drive her so hard she stopped breathing... Was I a beast harboring such vile desires all along?
Despairingly, though I could never tell what triggered the episodes, the symptoms returned quickly. No — they grew worse. When I had an episode in the bath, my temperament turned fiercer, more coercive, and I could not suppress the lecherous thoughts that rose at the sight of her. And then the demonic qi raging inside me passed into her body. When I confirmed that it was even transforming the qi Adela herself carried, I gritted my teeth and endured.
What happens to me is of no consequence. But if Adela were to lose her mind to demonic qi because of me, I would spend the rest of my life at the bedside of a woman lost to madness, nursing her, living out my days drenched in regret. I will never allow that.
In the end, Adela fainted in my arms once more, and she came back to herself only when I spilled myself deep, deep inside her belly. Was it the dread that she might actually die beneath me that finally stopped me? Or the satisfaction of filling her? I honestly cannot say. And if I cannot say, then I have no right to gamble with the lives of my wife and the child she will bear me.
I have to deal with the problem of the Demon King's essence. My first priority is to bring Adela to heel as my wife, quickly, and get a child on her. Once we take to the road adventuring again, I won't be able to keep watch over her every moment. Her heart isn't mine yet — she might seize on a single lapse in my vigilance and run. Better to put a baby in her and make flight impossible.
I truly didn't want to resort to it, but I will use methods that reach into her mind and bend her into obedience as well. What I need most of all right now, though, is to make her accept me as her Seobang-nim — her husband. I'll begin tonight.
I know perfectly well that I've gone mad, yet I slipped into the women's changing room by the bath and committed the lunatic act of stealing her nightgown and leaving sensual lingerie in its place. Just as I predicted, she put on the lingerie I'd gifted her and came storming straight at me. It was worth hiding every towel in the room long enough to actually cover a body — I'd seen this coming. The stark contrast of black and white she showed me was a sensuality she had never once let me see before.
Unable to bear it, I do something wicked to her. In the room meant to be assigned to Estelle, I force her to serve me with her mouth. She balks at first, but in the end she takes me between her lips. Eyes brimming with tears, her husband's manhood held in her mouth, she looks up at me — and for one instant I nearly lose my reason and drag Adela straight onto the bed.
Then I catch myself genuinely delighting in the sight of her like that, and my mouth turns bitter. I am only being true to my own desires — am I not simply pinning the blame on the Demon King's essence that happened to enter my body? I shake my head and sweep the thought away. I can only pray nothing goes wrong until I've put my child in Adela.
It happened after I had settled matters with the women and lain down on the bed. The Demon King's essence began to run wild again. I thought I could endure it this time as well, but the essence had no intention of taking this beating quietly, either. This time it came at me on two fronts, wielding demonic qi it had generated all on its own. Lying beside Adela, I threw everything I had into damming the corrupted qi as it crept along my vessels toward my brain.
I was already mentally frayed from the whole affair with the party members. I had never meant to do that to her, but the essence kept fanning my lust awake. Adela looked exhausted tonight, so I had intended to simply let her sleep.
But the sheer black negligee and the lewd lingerie glimpsed through the parted gown, her hair — braided into a single plait as if in wait for me, dark as the night sky — spilling over skin white as fresh snowfall... my thread-thin patience snapped.
Careful not to wake her, I peel the gown away. Perhaps today's schedule had been too much for her weakened body; she sleeps deeply, without the faintest sign of stirring. I gently toss the stolen gown toward the head of the bed. The sweet scent of her skin and the utterly defenseless figure of that innocent woman are lethal to what remains of my restraint. I undo my trousers and free the desire I have kept caged.
"Mmm... Vincent..."
Startled by the sudden murmur, I freeze and search Adela's face. She is sleeping on, angelically serene, wearing the guileless expression of a woman with no idea what is about to be done to her. The dried tear tracks at the corners of her eyes only make me want to make her cry again. Calling my name in her sleep... do I keep her company even in her dreams?
Perhaps she took offense at my turning over to lie facing the ceiling, because Adela rolls onto her stomach. As if she has no wish to see my face — and that thought stirs the old fear inside me. Fine. Taking her face-to-face has its charms, but tonight I don't think I have any more consideration left to spare her. The lust and longing amplified by demonic qi have stolen the last of my patience. Only by seeing this through to the end can this thirst ever be quenched.
I slide a hand between the cheeks of Adela's backside. The crevice there is cool to the touch, as if to ask when it was ever supposed to be aroused. It seems that, to take her without hurting her, I will have to see to a certain process first. I grip her hips and lift them, then lean down over her raised pelvis and bring my mouth to it.
Slurp... shlick, shlick.
My tongue laves along her outer lips. The sweet scent of her flesh wreathes my nose. Next come the inner folds; I lick up over her clitoris, the little opening above, and her entrance in turn. The faint salty tang that brushes my tongue only deepens the depraved thrill of lapping at her most shameful place exactly as I please.
I press my tongue against her entrance and slowly work the tip inside. Even a hole I have violated this many times refuses to lower its guard, still pushing back against the intrusion. With my tongue, slick with saliva, I keep tasting her, patiently. Only when her peculiar peach-sweet nectar comes flooding from within will I let myself take her. Call it my own warped form of consideration — even as I disregard Adela's will in our coupling, I want what we do to become, someday, a pleasure she cannot bring herself to refuse. It must never become a terror that greets her every single time.
The more aggressively I savor her inner walls, the more Adela's breathing begins to quicken.
"Ngh... ah... nnh!"
Her drowsiness keeps her eyes shut, but the pleasure is steadily, surely piling up inside her. I find myself wondering what her face will look like when those eyes finally open. And as I lick deeper and deeper, at some point the peach nectar I have been waiting for comes flowing onto my tongue. Adela — you never fail to turn me into a wretched man.
I rise up over her, press my lower belly against the hips I hold aloft, take my aching cock in hand, aim it at her entrance, and slowly push in, starting with the head. Perhaps it is the change of position, but Adela's inner walls clench and milk me with a force sharper than before. Careful not to finish by accident, I quicken the rhythm of my hips.
"Ahhn... nngh! Nnah!"
Even in her sleep, Adela whimpers that I'm too big for her to take — and every one of those moans spurs my hips on harder.