Please, Devour Me [06]
Cecilia lay sprawled across the bed, utterly spent.
Her whole body was drenched in sweat, slick and clinging.
Even breathing was a struggle. She managed only a shallow, ragged exhale.
"…I can't move a muscle."
Her white hair, damp with perspiration, stuck to her cheeks and the nape of her neck. She didn't have the strength to so much as twitch a fingertip. How many minutes passed like that? The blurred ceiling slowly came back into focus. That's right… I was threatened. Blackmailed, rather.
The sheets had sunk heavily beneath her.
A landscape tangled with heat and traces of what had been done to her.
She had no idea how long she'd been tormented—her sense of time had been ground to nothing. Hours? Longer? Outside the window, night had already fallen.
But something was strange. Her body wasn't cooling down.
Long after everything had ended, something still burned like a fist of fire deep in her belly. Especially her lower abdomen.
From somewhere within, a smoldering heat was rising, spreading through her limbs. It was wrong. Too intense to be mere afterglow.
What on earth is this?
Cecilia frowned.
It was different from any heat she'd known before. As if a tiny brazier had been planted inside her.
She reached down and pressed a hand to her lower belly.
The skin was as smooth as ever.
And yet beneath her palm, past the flesh, something was pounding relentlessly. A rhythm, low and steady. Like a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
There is something inside me.
A shiver crawled up her spine.
Cecilia tried to trace the source of the alien sensation, but her fevered mind couldn't catch even a thread of it. Confusion only bred more confusion.
"Oh, does it hurt? That was too much for you after all."
She lifted her head toward the voice.
Chloe stood at the bedside, looking down at her. Between strands of disheveled black hair, red eyes gleamed lazily. What did she do this time?
It was almost absurd, given how ferocious she'd been until moments ago. Her face now wore an easy, unhurried smile.
"…That's your fault."
At Cecilia's weary retort, the corner of Chloe's mouth lifted in amusement—childish, the way a mischievous child might light upon a new toy.
"Don't worry. You'll get used to it soon enough."
"Get used to it? Used to what?"
None of it made sense.
While Cecilia fumbled for an answer, Chloe reached out and laid her hand on Cecilia's lower abdomen—right where the heat pooled thickest.
"Right here. I just carved one into you."
"…W-wait. What did you do?"
"An engraving. Ever heard of the Slave's Curse?"
Cecilia's body went rigid.
She had heard of it. A sorcery used to keep watch over the most dangerous criminals—a binding spell etched into the flesh so the condemned could neither flee nor repeat their crimes.
And she'd put that… inside her body?
"…Have you lost your mind? You engraved something like that on me?"
Cecilia's voice trembled. She couldn't tell if it was rage or terror.
Chloe remained utterly composed, almost languid.
"There's nothing to be afraid of. It's not a bad thing."
Chloe caressed her lower belly. Every pass of her fingers sent the heat rippling.
Cecilia's skin crawled at the sensation. It felt like proof that she was being tamed.
"As long as this is in place, no one can take your life. Not the imperial family, not the Church, no one. To execute you, they'd have to undo this first—and I'm the only one who can."
Her voice was tender.
And that tenderness was the most frightening thing of all. Because she could turn on a whim, at any moment.
"You can't even die without me now."
"…That's not protection. That's a shackle."
"Well, it suits us, doesn't it?"
A pretense of saving her life. But the truth of it was a brand of ownership—a declaration that whether Cecilia lived or died rested solely in Chloe's hands.
"I'd say it's a rather good deal, don't you? If I didn't go this far, I couldn't do anything at all. You are the Empire's greatest criminal, after all."
Chloe tilted her head at the twisted expression on Cecilia's face. Every time she saw that artlessly innocent face, something inside Cecilia threatened to curdle.
"Honestly, you're a hundred times better off than you were."
"And you call that comfort?"
"Comfort? Please. Why would I bother?"
It wasn't wrong, so Cecilia swallowed whatever rebuttal she had. As long as she was alive, a chance to turn things around would come. She had to endure.
But one thing nagged at her.
"…Why here, of all places?"
A Slave's Curse was normally inscribed somewhere conspicuous—the back of the hand, the nape, the forehead. Somewhere a criminal could be identified at a glance…
That was the whole point of surveillance, after all.
She had never once heard of one being left somewhere so intimate, so hidden from every eye. What kind of warning was a brand no one else could see? A sigh escaped her before she knew it.
Chloe laughed behind her hand.
"I didn't want to leave an ugly scar."
"…Is that seriously all it is?"
"That's all. I do love beautiful things, you know."
Cecilia was dumbfounded. She couldn't tell whether it was consideration or madness.
Then again, perhaps for this woman, the line between the two had never existed at all.
Then don't carve it in the first place.
Stamping a seal into a spot like this and then prattling on about ownership—who did she think she was? The words climbed all the way up Cecilia's throat, but never made it out.
"Nnh… stop that. You've touched enough."
Chloe's hand did not stop.
It wandered over her waist, her side, the curve beneath her breasts. As if even having just tangled their bodies together hadn't been enough, that hand still carried a low, unmistakable hunger.
Cecilia was too busy swallowing the moans that threatened to spill out of her to say anything at all. Protest was beyond her; even the sounds leaking from her throat were hard enough to control.
All she could do was clench her teeth and bear it.
It was humiliating—because her body refused to cooperate.
The depths of her lower belly were still burning hot, and Chloe's fingers kept stoking through that heat. Cecilia turned her face away.
"So, now you understand?"
Chloe leaned over her. A shadow fell across Cecilia, and red eyes flashed inches from her own. Even now, that never-quenched hunger still lurked in them. She can't possibly mean to do it all over again—?
"You're mine. From the tips of your toes to the depths of your belly. All of you."
"…I'm only lending it to you. Temporarily."
Cecilia's rebuttal was weak.
Even that much was a desperate grasp at defiance.
Chloe laughed, delighted.
"Your body admitted it first, though? Just moments ago."
"…Shut up. That's just physiology."
"Shall we test that theory again, then? You don't mind, do you?"
With those words, Chloe dipped her head—and brought her lips to Cecilia's breast. It was almost gentle, the way they touched down…
Then she bit. As hard as she could.
Blood welled from the broken skin and trickled down.
The white sheets bloomed red.
"…Ngh! Ah—it hurts!"
Cecilia's whole body jolted off the bed.
Sharp pain bored in without mercy. A scream surged up her throat, and she clamped her jaw shut, barely forcing it back down. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
Is she actually a beast? Is she even human?
This was neither the heat of the brand nor the sting of wandering hands—it was pure, uncut pain. And yet Chloe seemed to savor even that.
She kept her teeth sunk in the flesh, studying every nuance of Cecilia's reaction, then gazed at the red, swollen mark with unmistakable satisfaction.
"…It's pretty. Beautiful. Even the way you cry."
She's insane. The curse rose unbidden from somewhere deep in Cecilia's chest.
Cecilia steadied her ragged breathing and stared at the ceiling. One more thing had been written onto her body. Over the brand within, now the bite mark without. The tokens of ownership were stacking up, layer upon layer, inside and out.
After gazing at her for a long moment, Chloe suddenly sat up. Sweeping back her tangled hair, she put new life into her voice.
"Oh, right. I have good news."
"…'Good news'?"
Nothing good had ever followed that word. Cecilia's guard shot up at once—certain some fresh madness was coming.
"There's a hunting tournament in a few days. A grand event where all the nobles gather."
Chloe perched on the edge of the bed.
Toying with Cecilia's damp hair between her fingertips, she whispered against her ear.
"I'm taking you there."
"…What? You have no reason to attend."
Cecilia felt her breath stop.
She had to have misheard. Dragging a witch who awaited execution into a hall packed with nobles—was the woman in her right mind?
"Why that face? It's a wonderful opportunity."
Chloe's eyes curved into crescents.
In that smile lived a pride like a child's—beaming over some new prize. What could possibly be so delightful about that? Cecilia simply couldn't understand it.
"Everyone will burn with envy. When they see that the villainess who shook the Empire is now at my feet."
Intoxication bled through Chloe's voice.
Then her expression stiffened, just slightly.
"Though it took quite a bit of effort to get this far."
Chloe shrugged.
As if recalling the wrangling of the past few days, a faint weariness dissolved into her voice.
"I had no idea Father would be so stubborn. He asked me if I even understood what it means to take a witch into the house. The family name dragged through the mud, the imperial family's displeasure, on and on… He kept me at it for three days and three nights. Haa. I'm genuinely exhausted."
Chloe pressed a finger to her temple.
"At first he demanded I cut off your head on the spot. Hand you over to the executioner. Do you know how I turned that around? Go on—try to imagine."
Cecilia didn't answer.
She didn't have the energy for it. Chloe, unbothered, chattered on regardless.
"I knelt. I, Chloe—before my father, for the first time in my life. How was that even possible? Even I find it astonishing."
That was unexpected. The Chloe Cecilia knew was a woman who would never bow her head before another soul, not even to save her life. That walking mountain of pride, kneeling before her own father. And all for the sake of…
…acquiring a single criminal.
"I've never once wheedled him for anything I wanted. So when that daughter of his clung to him for the first time, Father finally capitulated. There was a condition attached, though."
"…A condition?"
Cecilia managed to ask.
A smile spread across Chloe's lips.
"Every consequence for everything you've destroyed comes home to me in the end. So listen carefully. The only person standing on your side now… is me."
Cecilia clicked her tongue inwardly.
Unable to break his daughter's will, the Duke had simply handed off every last responsibility to her. And Chloe had taken that condition and wound it back around them both—tightened it into yet another chain.
"So you are what I knelt down and bargained for. Don't you dare forget your worth."
Cecilia said nothing. She simply let Chloe's hand wind into her hair and hold it, without resistance.
A hunting tournament, though.
Even submerged in fever, some cold corner of her mind had begun to turn.
Might someone's eyes fall on me there? Or perhaps I could let a single rumor slip…
She had no clever plan ready—not yet.
But compared to the depths of a dungeon, the board would be thick with variables. And that was exactly what Cecilia needed. There would be something. There always was.
A single crack to shake a fate already written.
Perhaps she could make use of it.
For a human being who had fallen to the very bottom, all that remained was the knowledge stored in her head. Cecilia quietly began to sharpen that one remaining blade.
"…Do as you like."
she said listlessly.
"It's not as if refusing is even an option."
"Exactly. You learn fast. It'll be worth the anticipation."
Chloe smiled in satisfaction, then bent down and pressed a light kiss to Cecilia's forehead—so gentle it was hard to believe those same lips had just torn into her flesh.
The contrast was chilling.
Truly, there is no reading this woman.
Cecilia turned her head away. The heat in her lower belly still refused to fade, and the bite on her breast throbbed hot. One of the chains inscribed upon her body flared low, as if announcing its existence.
And yet, at the corner of Cecilia's mouth…
…a faint smile was curving.
She had never intended to walk meekly toward a predetermined ending. Cecilia turned the thought over quietly in her mind. I will survive.
From this world. And from you.