I Thought I Was the Monster Duke's Fake Tranquilizer - Chapter 34
A tinge of anxiety crept over Lucy.
“Oh, come on. As if.”
The male lead and a dragon incarnation, dying or getting hurt by some demonic beast he met at a mere gate like this?
In the original story, Edward had never been injured by a trivial demonic beast…
But a forgotten unease suddenly reared its head.
‘…The situation itself has already strayed from the original.’
The moment she had inserted herself to survive, following the original story had already gone off course.
But what if that had created some kind of variable?
“I really wasn’t going to go out.”
Should she at least check just outside the door?
She was a little hungry after waking up, and she did need to assess the situation anyway…
With that thought, she darted to the inn’s front door and was just about to grasp the firmly shut doorknob when—
“…It was an order that didn’t exist!”
Someone’s bold shout reached Lucy’s ears.
* * *
That is to say, yesterday—just as he had left Lucy and stepped out the door.
“This way, Your Grace!”
Even as he strode forward without hesitation, following the innkeeper’s guidance, Edward was, uncharacteristically, in a daze.
Though to anyone watching, he didn’t look dazed in the slightest.
If anything, the glare in his eyes made him look sharp enough to kill.
“I-I’ll guide you at once!”
The innkeeper was inwardly moved by Edward’s appearance, which seemed lethally on edge.
‘His Grace is that serious about slaying demonic beasts!’
Thinking this, the innkeeper scurried ahead on his short legs, determined to guide Edward to the beast even a moment faster.
Edward, who caught up to him in just a few long strides, slowly raised his hand.
And then he kept touching his lips, over and over.
The very lips that had touched Lucy’s moments before.
“…”
Honestly, he hadn’t expected it to feel like that.
The heat that had surged into him the moment they touched, the sensation of a ball of fire coiling and swirling through his body.
He had smiled as if composed when their eyes met, but in truth…
‘I’m astonished.’
He hadn’t known a kiss could be like this.
And it was only natural that he wouldn’t.
Edward knew of carnal matters only in theory, having never put them into practice.
Though others believed he had done this and that with Sepina.
That was largely because Sepina had subtly fabricated and spread tales of what had supposedly happened between them.
Edward hadn’t stopped her, simply because he couldn’t care less either way.
‘It’s not a matter of any importance.’
What was expected of a dragon incarnation was how well he could slay demonic beasts, not how well he could roll around in bed.
He couldn’t care less how his nonexistent experiences became the subject of gossip.
And so, Edward had let it all slide.
Even when Sepina went about declaring how wonderful her intimate encounters with him were.
‘Exaggeration is just exaggeration.’
That was what he had thought.
But now he saw—out of everything Sepina had said, there was one single truth.
“…It felt.”
It felt good.
Even though it was his first time touching a woman in that way, it hadn’t been unpleasant.
Unlike with Sepina, he didn’t feel the urge to shove her away the moment their bare skin touched, nor did he feel that it was filthy.
If anything, he had wanted to stay pressed against her a little longer.
Truthfully, he had proposed it partly with the intention of testing her. To see if she could properly purify, and to discard her if she couldn’t.
“Yes! Let’s do it!”
The moment that tiny thing had shouted that, a hollow laugh had burst from him.
She was so needlessly forceful, and yet it was strangely, absurdly trivial.
At the same time, he had been displeased, wondering just who she had rubbed lips with first to act so practiced.
But the moment their lips collided squarely…
An uncontrollable heat had surged up.
His body, heated as her holy power crossed over and became purification force — it was still vivid.
He could tell from the woman’s eyes that he wasn’t the only one.
Those pitch-black eyes, widening in shock without even noticing him, and the sight of them glazing over hazily.
‘…It leaves me wanting.’
It felt as though this wasn’t enough.
He wanted to lewdly lap at those lips, slightly chapped from long starvation and malnourishment.
If he soaked them thoroughly with his own saliva, made them soft and plush, and then bit down as if taking a mouthful.
If he made her open that small mouth and thrust his tongue deep inside, teasing her.
And then, naturally descending downward, if he sank his teeth into that throat where blue veins showed so clearly…
The moment he imagined biting down on that tender neck, and those obsidian eyes flying wide in shock—
Stop.
In the next instant, Edward flinched and halted in his tracks.
“…”
Then he silently glared down at his own lower half.
“Why is this.”
A hollow laugh nearly escaped him.
