Chapter 20: Warm Spring

Warm Spring was another name for the clusters of flowers that poured down like rain.

Just before the flowering trees shed their last blossoms, the flowers bloomed in full as though burning through the little life they had left, scattering everywhere.

The day when that splendid storm was at its most beautiful was also the warmest day of spring.

That was why people called those dazzling masses of flowers Warm Spring.

The Devil returned when Warm Spring was in full bloom.

In the middle of petals pouring down like a storm, the Devil seized my wrist and dragged me away without warning.

He did not tell me where we were going.

His back, pulling me along, blurred among the petals drifting like snow.

The Devil’s estate was wide and luxurious, and the splendid Warm Spring seemed to stretch on without end.

The garden, thickly carpeted with petals, gave softly beneath our feet.

The Devil stopped beneath the largest and brightest flowering tree in the garden.

He shoved me against the trunk.

The impact rang through my back, making me cough.

The Devil planted one arm beside my right side.

Unlike me, gasping after being dragged all that way, he looked perfectly fine.

If anything, he was clearly expecting something.

“Why are you doing this?”

The look in his eyes, as though he was about to die from happiness, was unfamiliar on him.

A feeling of rejection rose from deep in my stomach, and I tried to step back.

But the tree trunk blocked me.

I had known something was suspicious from the moment he cleared his throat.

What he said next was even more ridiculous.

“Han.”

“W-what?”

“Why are you calling me that?”

I flinched at the affectionate call and tried to move back again.

Only His Majesty used that familiar name for me.

Hearing it from the fierce-looking Devil sent a nauseating revulsion through my body.

They said people died when they started doing things they never normally did.

Of course, I wanted this bastard dead, but it was still too early.

He needed to die after protecting His Majesty and preventing the rebellion.

All sorts of thoughts raced through my head before I heard what the impatient bastard wanted.

It felt like a bolt from the blue.

“Call my name too.”

“…No.”

“Call it.”

I did not know whether it was his family name or given name, but the Red Devil did have a name bestowed upon him by the late Emperor.

Still, we were not lovers.

There was no reason for someone like him and me to call each other by name.

Unless I was confirming it one last time before cutting off my enemy’s head.

“Come on.”

But the Devil was persistent.

I knew well that he would never back down until he got what he wanted.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

Then, with the feeling of giving him what he wanted just to make him leave me alone, I granted his wish.

“General Jeok.”

“Just call my name.”

“Why do you want so much?”

“Can you not do what you are told in one go?”

That crazy bastard was lecturing me now.

I said I would give him my body.

When did I ever say I would do whatever he told me to?

But he showed no sign of moving aside until he got what he wanted.

I let out an obvious sigh so he could hear it, then reluctantly opened my mouth.

“Jeok.”

Why was he smiling like an idiot?

The more he behaved in ways I could not understand, the more frightened I became.

Had a barbarian hit him too hard in the head and knocked his mind loose?

But the Devil, unaware of my thoughts, continued acting insane.

“Ihan.”

“Did you only just learn my name?”

I snapped at him coldly.

We had known each other for so long.

What was so impressive about calling my name now?

I did not want to do anything embarrassing with the Devil, so I deliberately pushed him hard.

Of course, someone like him would not be moved by a shove.

He did not budge.

“If you are not going to do anything, I am leaving.”

“Did you want to?”

He had moved beyond acting strangely and was now making accusations.

My teeth ground together as I glared at him.

Then I spoke slowly, biting out each word.

“Now you are accusing me too.”

“You were the one who wanted it.”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to.”

“Day or night, I wanted to put it inside you.”

“I was going mad because I missed seeing you.”

The Devil spoke strangely.

I could not tell whether he meant that he liked my body or whether he had genuinely missed me.

And why was he looking at me like that?

His eyes were already deep-set, and the depth of his gaze was enough to make anyone flustered.

“I should have taken you with me.”

After saying that, he hugged me.

I had expected that the moment the Devil returned to the imperial capital, I would be thoroughly used.

But he only held me.

That was all.

His burning body heat spread through me, and only then did I truly feel that the Devil had returned.

The moment he arrived in the imperial capital, he came looking for me.

Still wearing his armor, the Devil had called my name and embraced me.

Held in his arms in the middle of Warm Spring, where flower clusters swirled around us, I could smell the battlefield’s stench on him.

Yet beneath that feral scent, there was also the faint fragrance of flowers.

I thought he would take me beneath the flowering tree, but unexpectedly, the Devil dragged me into a room.

The door shut tightly behind us.

Facing him in a space cut off from the outside world, with that expectant look on his face, made me deeply uncomfortable.

“Stay there.”

“I am staying.”

I answered indifferently and watched what he was doing.

Whatever he had learned while subjugating the barbarians, the Devil took out a thick quilt from a chest and spread it on the floor.

This was strange.

He was the kind of bastard who used to throw me onto the bare floor and do whatever he wanted.

Had he grown old and developed knee pain?

Or had sleeping outdoors on battlefields taught him the incredible softness of cotton padding?

The more I thought about it, the more irritating it became.

I could no longer pretend not to notice his bizarre behavior.

“What are you trying to do?”

“Do you want to play the wife waiting desperately for her husband to return safely from the battlefield?”

I did not know what had happened on the battlefield.

But the Devil was clumsily imitating tenderness.

The ignorant and violent bastard who used to throw tantrums and act cruel had suddenly changed overnight and was pretending to be kind.

It was so disgusting that I could not stand it.

I would provoke him until his true nature came out.

But sarcasm only worked when the other person understood it.

The Devil had no sense at all.

He did not even realize I was mocking him and only looked cheerful.

“Do you want to?”

“Should I do it for you?”

“No!”

“I mean, do you want to do it?”

After spreading the quilt, the Devil rose with his large body and grabbed my wrist.

When I resisted, he hooked an arm behind my knees and lifted me completely.

No matter how I struggled, he would not move.

He carefully placed me on the quilt and said proudly,

“They told me to treat you as something precious.”

He was boasting just because he had laid down one quilt.

Before leaving to fight the barbarians, he would have grabbed me by the hair and thrown me onto it.

“Who told you such bullshit—ugh!”

If he did not want to tell me, he could have simply kept quiet.

Instead, the Devil cowardly grabbed the weakness every man possessed.

The moment I was placed on the quilt, he suddenly seized my s*x.

I could not even gasp properly and curled my shoulders inward.

Without realizing when my underclothes had been removed, I found my waistband undone and my robe slipping down.

The Devil ran his rough hand over my exposed body.

At the same time, my own hand was pulled toward the Devil’s naked, hardened s*x.

“What the—what is this hideous thing—”

Perhaps my memories had become distorted after not seeing it for so long.

The moment I saw that monstrous club swelling in my hand, I felt a mission rise within me.

Something so wicked should be cut off and erased from existence.

It seemed even bigger than before.

The bulging veins and the head were not even the main problem.

The way it stood upright and gleamed gave off the wicked energy of something determined to kill whoever had to take it.

Perhaps he mistook my horrified cry for praise.

The Devil replied with satisfaction.

“Yes.”

“Yours is pretty.”

“Are you insane?”

Even his simple movements, gripping and stroking me up and down like a crude pillar, drew an honest reaction from my body.

Blood rushed to my smooth groin, and I hardened.

It had been far too long since we had last had s*x.

As the Devil touched the place he had left alone while he was away at war, stars flashed before my eyes.

“Ugh…”

My body bent forward.

The same seemed true for him, because his forehead touched mine.

The heat passing between us without words carried pleasure within it.

Our sweet breaths mixed and settled damply over our skin.

My s*x had grown red and sore from the friction and heat of his rough palm.

Then the Devil ordered,

“Spit.”

“W-what—”

“Quickly.”

When I did not obey, the Devil gripped me hard as though he intended to tear me apart.

Tears immediately gathered in my eyes.

I glared at him and ground out a curse.

A bastard with no decency.

A bastard with no sense of kinship.

How could he inflict pain that he, as another man, clearly understood?

If he ever strutted around claiming to be a man, I would bite his s*x off.

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