Chapter 24. Contradictory Emotions
When she looked up at him and scoffed, a spark ignited in his eyes.
“…Master, you say? Madam.”
“Do you really think you can pretend not to know—ah!”
Before she could finish speaking, her wrist was yanked with force.
Ioan pulled the staggering woman toward him and slammed her down onto the table.
In an instant, their positions had reversed.
Hovering above her as she lay on the table, he licked his lower lip with a pomegranate-red tongue.
A savage, sensual expression.
‘You always end up like this anyway—so why keep pretending to be some noble gentleman?’
Delphine struggled to free her wrists, but it was a helpless act in the face of such overwhelming strength.
Looking down at her, he smirked as if amused and murmured,
“Master? This mansion, you—everything is mine now.”
A statement daring her to reconsider who really held power.
“Then let me ask again, Sir Pride.”
Giving up on pointless resistance, Delphine let her body go limp as she spat her words like venom.
“Then why did you marry the daughter of a traitor? It’s because you’re that Ioan, isn’t it?”
“…I believe I explained that before. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough.”
For the first time, he looked down at her with a chilling expression and spoke in a cold, flat voice.
The answer was simple.
“A beautiful woman is a man’s pride.”
“…So you mean,”
Her voice trembled.
She couldn’t tell if the shaking came from shame or rage.
“You married me to display me as a trophy?”
Delphine clenched her fists and glared at him with tear-filled emerald eyes.
“Even after earning all those medals and being called a hero—that still wasn’t enough?”
He stared down at her expressionlessly, then slowly opened his mouth again.
“…That’s right.”
His tone was dry and indifferent.
Yet even in this situation, Delphine realized he was becoming aroused, their bodies pressed so close it was impossible not to notice.
“Then I understand even less.”
She locked eyes with him and challenged,
“Why, then, have you not touched me in the two months since we were married? …Sir Pride?”
She mimicked his usual tone, mockingly elegant.
Despite her bold words, her cheeks flushed.
No matter how proud or fiery she was, she’d been raised as a noble lady.
She had never spoken such suggestive words aloud before.
In the face of her flushed expression, a flame sparked again in the man’s eyes.
Delphine flinched and instinctively tried to retreat—but the hard table behind her gave no space.
“Was it really so hard to believe that I respected you too much to touch you?”
“That’s not what I—”
“You mean to say,”
He cut her off with an icy tone, something he had never done before.
“That I have no reason to hold back anymore.”
“Wha—! Mmph.”
She tried to protest, but her voice was abruptly smothered.
His lips came down over hers, as if to devour her whole.
It was the first time in her life that another’s lips had touched hers—and it didn’t stop there.
Without a pause, he pushed deeper, rough and insistent.
Caught in the flood of overwhelming sensation, Delphine suddenly realized—
this was his first kiss to her.
He means it this time.
He’s not going to stop.
His body, flush against hers, burned hot enough to feel feverish.
‘Ioan… how could you…?’
Betrayal, rage, and even fear surged through her—but only for a moment.
Slowly, something strange began to stir inside her.
When she gasped for breath, he allowed her a moment—only to crush her again with renewed force.
Was a kiss always this rough, this barbaric?
It felt like he was inhaling her very soul.
After what seemed like an eternity, his lips finally left hers.
Delphine lay sprawled on the table, eyes glazed, gasping for air.
Ioan looked down at her, his expression unreadable but filled with conflicting emotions.
Victory. Strange satisfaction. And the gaze of a man who had made up his mind.
“Haa… haa… I-Ioan… you…”
“Yes. Say my name like that… Just not here.”
He whispered into her ear, lips brushing against the curve of it.
“In bed.”
Shiver.
At those words, a chill of regret ran down her neck and spine.
It was only then that Delphine realized—
she’d been holding on to the hope that this man, Ioan, wouldn’t force himself on her.
“You are my saint, my lady.”
If only he were still that boy who once hesitated to touch even the hem of her dress, afraid to step on her shadow.
But three years had passed.
And the man before her was no longer that boy. He had become something far more complex and unreachable.
In one swift motion, he scooped her into his arms and stormed out.
Delphine, gripped by fear and fury, struggled and shouted,
“Put me down! I said put me down!”
The servants in the hallway scattered in shock at the scandalous scene.
“My, my, Madam. Even if you’re eager, you should show some restraint. Unless…”
Unable to wait, he turned and kicked open the parlor door on the first floor.
He threw her down roughly onto the empty sofa and asked,
“Would this place suit you better?”
“You lunatic!”
The curse burst out of her.
Ioan!
Delphine glared at him with blazing eyes.
The mask of nobility had completely fallen from the man who now stared back at her coldly.
“…I tried to treat you like a gentleman would.”
“A gentleman? Ha! As if this is all the manners Ioan Pride knows!”
“But now that I know how desperate you are to be in my arms—there’s no need to hold back. Isn’t that right?”
“Desperate? Don’t be ridiculous! Do you think everything in the world is that vulgar to your filthy eyes?”
At the word “filthy,” a dangerous flicker returned to his gaze.
Cold. Twisted.
“I don’t know who you’re picturing in your head right now,”
He ripped off his robe.
One brutal hand gripped her wrist, his massive thigh pinning her down.
Delphine could no longer resist.
“But he is gone. The man in front of you now is your husband—Ioan Pride.”
“You—!”
His hand mercilessly slid under her dress.
Delphine clenched her teeth, ready to hurl another insult.
At that moment—
Knock knock.
Someone hesitantly tapped on the door.
Ioan’s face twisted with frustration as he cursed under his breath.
“Go away.”
“I-I apologize, Master. But…”
Betty.
Delphine felt a surge of emotion.
Her faithful, brave maid had gathered the courage to save her.
The other servants were likely too scared to intervene.
“There is a guest here to see you. They insist on speaking to you urgently. The parlor seemed… inappropriate…”
Both Ioan—irritated—and Delphine—relieved—froze in confusion.
The wind howled through the windows, suddenly sounding louder.
A guest?
In this weather? With the madness storm raging outside?
“…Tch.”
Ioan buried his face in her neck and let out a deep sigh, causing Delphine to flinch.
Then, with great effort, he stood, face twisted in rage and irritation.
“I’ll go. See them in. To the dining room.”
The brazen, fearless maid wrapped her arm around Delphine and escorted her out of the parlor.
Before heading to meet the guest, Pride opened the window to cool his burning body.
As soon as he did, a gust of sleet and wind burst into the room like a hurricane.
He clenched his teeth, welcoming the freezing wind like punishment.
Ioan Pride, once the Empire’s lowest slave, now its most celebrated hero.
“…Damn it.”
The storm—nicknamed “the Madness”—raged outside, as if echoing the chaos inside him.
In the end, she had seen it.
The scar on his back—one he wanted so badly to erase, yet could never escape.
It was his mistake to lose control so carelessly.
Who would’ve guessed that a supposedly innocent noble girl would dare seduce a man to get the truth?
She had changed just as much as he had over the past three years.
‘That boy and girl from back then… they’re gone.’
Even those pure emotions they once shared—were gone.
Pride realized that bitter truth.
When her hand brushed the scar left by her father.
And just now, in the dining room, when her gaze carried a flicker of triumph.
In that moment, a storm of contradictory emotions swept through him all at once.
