The Predator Beneath the Sun and the Blind Bird

Under Oraria's blinding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sunlight, crimson blood streamed from Armand's forehead where it had been smashed against the marble floor. It was the wretched surrender of the merchant magnate who had once held half the Empire's economy ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in his grip — yet the gaze Cayen cast down upon him was colder and drier than a midwinter north wind.

"Spare me... Your Grace. Please — I beg you — spare that child at least..."

Armand's voice, pressed to the floor, was wretchedly cracked. As if he had forgotten even the pain of his broken fingers, he rubbed his lips against the bloodstained toe of Cayen's leather boot and wailed like a beast. The arrogant pride that had once sought to manipulate even the Emperor with money had long since crumbled beyond all recognition.

Cayen slowly holstered his pistol and jerked his chin.

At that signal, a side door of the greenhouse garden opened, and two attendants wheeled a woman into the center of the garden. Wrapped in a thick blanket, her unfocused gaze cast toward empty air, her body a lattice of scars — it was Roza.

"Ro—Roza...! Roza!"

Armand dragged his bloodied body across the floor, crawling, reaching toward her.

But the moment Roza saw him approaching, calling her name, the color drained from her face and she began to seize. The horrific memories of the previous Duke's torture chamber had superimposed themselves upon him. In his features, she saw the man who had once abused her.

"Aaaah! Stay away! Stay away from me! I'm sorry — aaaaah!"

Roza tore at her own hair and tumbled from the wheelchair. She recoiled from Armand's outstretched hand as if it were a red-hot branding iron, then crawled across the floor to hide in the shadow behind Cayen, trembling violently.

"Ah... aah... Roza, it's me. It's Armand... the one you used to love..."

Armand's hand, hovering in empty air, trembled wretchedly. The first love he had so desperately wanted to reclaim now saw him not as a savior but as another tormentor, paralyzed with terror. Worse still was the grotesque contradiction: she was hiding beneath the banner of House Genoa — the very family that had destroyed her. That cruel reality seemed to tear Armand's heart from his chest while it still beat.

"Look ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠closely, Armand."

Cayen murmured, a low mockery threading his voice.

"Kh-hhk... uwaaaaah!"

Armand slammed his fists against the floor and screamed. The sound of bones crushing in his bloodied fists rang out, but it was nothing compared to the agony of his shattering heart.

In the midst of that horrific tableau of hell, only one person — Ella, crouched at Cayen's feet — watched it all unfold in a strange rapture. Her gaze was not on the writhing Armand, but on Cayen's broad back: the back that had perfectly shielded her while forcing the world to its knees.

Roza, shattered just as Ella herself had once been, and Armand, howling like a beast because even money could not save her. Witnessing their wretched ends with her own eyes, a twisted superiority and an absolute relief surged madly through Ella's chest.

My savior is not so weak.

Clad in nothing but a thin silk slip, Ella pressed herself even closer against Cayen's leg. His violence was brutal — but the fact that the blade of that brutality pointed outward, solely to protect her, sent a shiver racing through her entire body.

"Your Grace..."

Ella let out a languid, nasal murmur and nuzzled her cheek deep against Cayen's thigh.

At that sensual, blindly devoted friction, Cayen's gaze dropped. A perfect doll who paid no mind to the world's screams of despair, who craved only the affection of the master wielding blood-soaked power. The corner of Cayen's mouth curved into a viciously satisfied arc.

"Captain."

Cayen gently stroked Ella's chin as he issued the cold command.

"Escort the great merchant Armand to Oraria's underground dungeon. He crawled here of his own accord to beg for his life — we ought to give him time to sign a slave contract as a dog of House Genoa."

The knights seized Armand by the scruff of his neck and began dragging him from the garden. It was the moment the era of the merchant magnate who had ruled the city of gold came to a complete end. And now, in the bloodstained garden, only two predators remained, radiating the most vicious possessiveness toward each other, waiting for the deep night.

Armand's desperate screams tore through Oraria's clear air, receding, until they faded completely beyond the heavy iron gates.

A silence so eerie it bordered on grotesque settled over the garden. Roza, still in the throes of her seizure, was quietly led back to the annex by the attendants, and the bloodstains Armand had splattered across the marble were wiped away without a trace by the servants' mechanical, perfectly coordinated movements. As if violence had never existed in this beautiful greenhouse at all, only the dazzling sunlight and the dense perfume of red roses lingered. Only the faint, metallic scent of blood still hanging in the air testified to the overwhelming domination that had just taken place.

"It's over, Ella."

Cayen, reclining deep into the sofa, broke the silence with a languid voice. His gaze was fixed on Ella, still prostrate at his feet, still clinging to his thigh as if it were a lifeline. Her slender shoulders trembled faintly. Not from fear. From the fierce rapture of an overwhelming fact: that a man had, solely to protect her, crushed the Empire's greatest merchant magnate and forced the world to its knees.

Cayen leaned down and slid his firm hands beneath her arms. Then, as if lifting a feather, he drew her slender body up and seated her facing him upon his lap.

"Haa... Your Grace..."

A heated breath escaped Ella's lips. The moment her bare skin, clad in nothing but a single thin silk slip, met Cayen's uniform trousers, a sharp heat pierced between them.

Cayen cupped Ella's sweat-dampened cheek with his gloved hand. The rough, cold texture of leather, and the faint scent of blood seeping from a man's fingertips. At those vicious traces of slaughter that would have sent any ordinary woman fleeing in horror, Ella instead closed her eyes and nuzzled her cheek deeper into his palm.

"Did you enjoy it?"

Cayen's black eyes stared as if they would pierce through Ella's wet gaze.

"The sight of that arrogant bastard crawling on the floor, smashing his own head — it looked rather sweet to your eyes, didn't it. That demure face of yours, and yet your whole body is trembling with excitement."

Ella did not deny it. No — she could not. A bloodied girl dying under the lash inside a black-market cage. Seeing Roza collapse just as her own wretched past self had, Ella understood to the marrow of her bones how perfectly, how safely she was imprisoned within this sanctuary. The world that had abused her had been crushed beneath Cayen's boot sole, and she was breathing as the most beautiful doll in a god's embrace. The fact that this twisted, brutal man of power held the leash for her alone bleached Ella's reason white.

"Your Grace..."

Ella stretched her trembling arms and wound them around Cayen's neck. Her full breasts pressed against the man's hard chest, forming an explicit curve.

"You destroyed everything for me... Even if the world itself perishes, I will only breathe at Your Grace's side..."

Ella's red lips brushed Cayen's ear, whispering faintly. Blind submission. The perfect completion of Stockholm syndrome — as if she had resolved to destroy her own mind and love only her master's violence. At that viciously beautiful blind faith, even Cayen's reason snapped with a pleasant tearing sound.

"That's right. You're completely broken. A perfect wreck who couldn't survive a single day anywhere but in the palm of my hand."

Cayen twisted the corner of his mouth upward and roughly seized Ella's chin.

"That's what drives me insane, Ella."

Before the words had even finished, Cayen's lips greedily swallowed hers. Gone was the cool, rational dominator who had just held Armand's life in his grip. All that remained was a primal predator, intent on devouring and dominating every last scrap of the small beast in his arms.

"Mmph...! Nngh, haah!"

Cayen's hot tongue pushed into Ella's mouth. An oppressive kiss that plundered her tender mucous membrane, bound her saliva, and would not even let her breathe freely. Though she struggled for air, Ella instead clenched Cayen's hair tight and let herself be sucked deeper into that control.

A rustle of silk. Cayen's large hand slid down Ella's spine and gathered up the hem of her thin slip. Beneath Oraria's blinding sunlight, the red bite marks Cayen had obsessively overlaid upon the scars another house had carved into her were laid bare. Without breaking the kiss, he seized the inside of Ella's tender thigh in a crushing grip and began to stroke her roughly.

In the middle of a garden where daylight, the stench of blood, violence and sensuality all mingled, two monsters who had stained the Empire with blood thoroughly violated the world's ethics, opening a deep and secret festival that feasted only on each other's body heat and desire.

Crash—!

With a single rough sweep of Cayen's hand, the finest teacups and confections on the table were swept to the floor in a wretched shatter. The sharp bursting of porcelain broke the garden's stillness, but it was nowhere near enough to drown out the two of them's tangled breathing. Cayen wrapped Ella's slender waist in a single motion and laid her down upon the cold marble table.

The noon sun, pouring through the transparent glass ceiling, spilled nakedly over Ella's porcelain-pale body. A domination that had only ever been permitted in the darkest night, in a secret bedchamber, was now unfolding in the middle of a garden in broad daylight. That sense of transgression, that shame of exposure, burned Ella's reason even whiter.

"Ah, Your Grace...! Hn — it's so bright... If someone — if someone sees..."

Ella tried to cover her face with both hands against the dazzling sunlight and the rising shame. But Cayen mercilessly seized both her wrists and pinned them hard above her head.

That chilling, grotesque tenderness. At the tyrant's declaration that he would stain the world in blood if it meant protecting his own sanctuary, Ella's entire body trembled as if electrocuted.

"Aah..."

Cayen's hard knee mercilessly split Ella's legs apart. His bare hand, the glove discarded, seized the smooth curve from the inside of her tender thigh to her buttocks and kneaded it like a beast.

"I know you enjoyed the stench of blood from those scraps licking my boot soles, Ella. That you got excited. The broken instinct inside you is wagging its tail at me, isn't it."

"Hn, ah, that's not— aah! Haaang!"

A cry of pleasure burst out before she could even finish the excuse, filling the greenhouse. Without a shred of mercy, Cayen drove his massive, burning heat into Ella's most secret place in a single thrust.

Upon the sun-drenched table, the obscene friction of flesh striking flesh rang out loudly. Cayen roughly pierced Ella's body with the same overwhelming control with which he had just crushed Armand's throat beneath his heel.

"Ah! Aah! Cay—Cayen...! Your Grace, ah, it's too big, nngh...!"

Ella's head fell back, tears welling. Pleasure and pain, both on the verge of bursting, struck her brain along her spine at once. Cayen roughly licked the tears from her cheek and continued the relentless, beast-like rhythm of his hips. With every thrust the marble table creaked and shook, and in Ella's vision the red roses and Cayen's black hair whirled together in a dizzy blur.

It's perfect... This man is breaking me. Filling me.

At the peak of pleasure, Ella wrapped both legs tightly around Cayen's waist of her own accord. A blindly devoted writhing, as if begging him to trample her further, to control her more perfectly, to make her his and his alone.

"Haa... You're maddeningly lovely, my little pile of ashes."

Feeling an explosive rapture at Ella's twisted submission, Cayen at last poured his burning trace without reservation into the deepest part of her body. Their breaths tangled, and the afterglow of climax stretched long.

How much time had passed?

Cayen exhaled a settling breath, picked up his black fur coat from the floor, and meticulously wrapped Ella's sweat-dampened naked body. The brutality that had driven her like a beast until moments ago vanished as if it had been a lie, leaving only the cool touch of a man handling his most precious jewel.

It was the instant Ella buried her face in the man's broad chest and was about to slip into unconscious sleep.

From outside the greenhouse, the cautious voice of the captain of the personal guard, who had been waiting with his presence suppressed, reached them.

"Your Grace. Armand's commercial rights and all of Oraria's financial channels have been perfectly absorbed under the name of Genoa. And..."

The captain's voice trembled faintly.

"From the imperial capital, His Majesty the Emperor's edict has arrived."

The moment that report reached him, the hand stroking Ella's cheek went cold and still.

"The Emperor."

A cool killing intent slithered from Cayen's lips like a snake. The imperial court, wary of the man who had swallowed Oraria's vast wealth, had finally begun to move — intending to take Ella as a hostage and put a leash around his neck.

"I bring down Oraria, and the master of the Empire sticks his own neck out."

Cayen held Ella even tighter in his arms, staring at the scroll bearing the edict with eyes steeped in deep darkness.

The blood-soaked festival in the city of gold had ended. And the overture of a true war that would drive the entire Empire to ruin was beginning to burn, cold and bright.