CHAPTER 82
Thunk…….
Hearing the sound of a thick towel dropping at his feet, Caliph opened his eyes, which he had kept closed.
Meyna was pressing her lips to his, her face flushed with heat.
It was neither an illusion nor a dream.
Emerald-colored hair spilled down over Meyna’s face as her eyes remained shut.
The moisture clinging to her hair slid over her neat forehead, eyelashes, and heated cheeks before dripping onto the bathroom floor.
It was a scene like a painting.
But clearly, it was neither an illusion nor a dream.
The moment Caliph realized his gaze was about to drift downward beneath Meyna’s beautifully painted face, he slowly closed his eyes.
He did not want to see her naked body.
Not like this.
“Sir Lennox……”
Meyna called out to Caliph in a fragile voice that sounded as though it might snap at any moment.
When Caliph opened his eyes again, she was still clinging to him with her eyes closed, arms wrapped tightly around his body.
Caliph realized it once more.
Her goal in stealing his breath was not a kiss.
Neither affection nor even long-harbored resentment was driving Meyna’s actions.
She was kissing him solely to breathe.
Like a fish pulled onto land, or a mermaid from some old fairy tale.
Meyna gasped desperately, lips parted and soaked with water.
The fingers clutching Caliph’s arm were pale and trembling, and her naked body, clad in nothing at all, wobbled precariously as it kept leaning toward him.
Her entire body was screaming.
That she was desperate.
That she wanted it with all her heart.
As though she would seize anything that could help her breathe, Meyna crashed her lips into his again after briefly pulling away.
“Meyna.”
Caliph clung desperately to the last thread of his reason.
He had witnessed scenes like this countless times among healers on the verge of awakening.
They each endured different kinds of awakening pain, spending anywhere from months to years in suffering, only to face severe breathing difficulties in the final days just before awakening.
It was a symptom of mana beginning to circulate through the bloodstream.
An external substance of sorts, one they could not even sense back when they lived as ordinary people.
Meyna was experiencing the very first moment of that substance moving through her body.
“Huh… huff……”
Tendons bulged along her slender neck.
“I can’t breathe.”
Meyna pleaded with a face that looked ready to burst into tears.
“Please…”
She wrapped her arms around Caliph’s chest, as if begging him not to push her away anymore and to kiss her.
This behavior, too, was familiar to Caliph.
The breathing difficulty experienced by healers before awakening was a kind of phantom pain.
There was no actual problem with the respiratory organs, which meant they would not die from suffocation.
However, the overwhelming pain and fear, as though they were about to drown, were undeniably real to them.
And just like Meyna now, what they instinctively sought were high-ranking holy knights.
They believed they could breathe only by making physical contact with A-rank or higher knights and being exposed to their mana.
Over the ten-plus years Caliph had served as a holy knight, such things had happened to him countless times.
Healers on the brink of awakening, instinctively lunging for him to steal a kiss in the face of imminent death.
Some even tried to go beyond a kiss, but Caliph’s response was always the same.
No response.
No matter how desperately they appealed to him, they were strangers.
There was no reason to share lips or breath with them.
Gently, Caliph pushed against Meyna’s collarbone.
When he spoke her name as though murmuring against her lips, Meyna slowly lifted her eyelids.
At last, their eyes met.
“Get a hold of yourself.”
Caliph commanded firmly.
“You’re only imagining that you can’t breathe.”
“……”
“So get a hold of yourself.”
His words were both soothing and a warning.
Caliph murmured,
“You’ll regret this once you come to your senses.”
“……”
“So stop.”
Meyna would surely regret trying to kiss him of all people.
They had already kissed once before, so Caliph knew.
Once she regained her reason, she would find the act of tangling tongues with him horrifying.
Panting, Meyna stared blankly at Caliph.
The face so close before her felt unfamiliar.
People often claimed they could not believe he was a swordsman.
They said he was so beautiful he looked more like a statue than a human, and that merely hanging his portrait on a building wall could turn the entire street into something resembling an art exhibition.
That such a man awakened as a gifted individual who risked his life hunting monsters, rather than living as a noble who groomed his looks, wore expensive clothes, drank wine, and talked business, was a cruel joke of fate.
Whenever Meyna heard such stories, she sometimes found herself observing Caliph’s face, but she had never felt anything beyond the impression that he was handsome.
From the moment he offered to pay off her debts in exchange for her working as his aide, Caliph had simply been her superior and business partner.
This is strange.
Caliph’s face now felt unfamiliar to Meyna, as though she were seeing it for the first time.
His lowered eyelashes trembled slightly.
His blue eyes held no desire at all.
They revealed only a deep, abyss-like anguish.
As Meyna gazed at him with a flushed face, she lifted her heels again.
Clutching Caliph’s upper arm desperately, she tilted her head once more.
Caliph, who had resisted with all his strength, finally grabbed Meyna’s waist.
As though he truly could not endure it any longer, his tongue pushed its way in.
Their soft tongues tangled together.
Perhaps because he was a man who worked with his body rather than his face or status, as citizens so often lamented, Caliph used his body with unbelievable skill.
Tilting his head with practiced ease, he gently captured Meyna’s lips, rolling his tongue as if lightly scratching at the root of hers.
His smooth, predatory waist moved with a dancer’s flexibility, and every time his heavy lower body brushed against her, Meyna shuddered and instinctively pushed back.
Caliph’s hot hand clamped firmly around Meyna’s waist.
As if savoring her soft, cool skin, his fingers moved slowly before sliding downward.
“……Hh!”
Startled, Meyna let out a sharp gasp and snapped her eyes open.
Twisting her thigh, she rejected his hand and pulled her head back, but Caliph’s lips followed relentlessly.
Ragged breathing rang in her ears.
She had thought he would devour her fiercely as before, but the kiss that followed was different.
It was slower and gentler.
With delicate movements that traced her mucous membranes and drew in her lips and tongue, Meyna struggled to breathe properly.
When her limbs finally lost strength and she swayed, Caliph briefly pulled his lips away.
He swept his gaze over Meyna’s dazed features before speaking.
“Get a hold of yourself.”
The words were the same, but their meaning had changed.
Grabbing a handful of Meyna’s hair, Caliph crashed his lips into hers again.
He skillfully pushed her body back and seated her in the bathtub, then covered her with the towel that had fallen to the floor.
Still unable to grasp the reason behind his actions, Meyna barely managed to brace herself against the tub with trembling hands.
As she gasped for the breath she had lacked and looked up at Caliph, his thick thighs slid dangerously between her unsteady legs.
“……!”
If he moved even a little more, if he spread her legs at all, her most intimate place would inevitably touch him.
Meyna stared up at Caliph’s face, which loomed before her like a ruler, utterly stunned.
At some point, his shoulders, the backs of his hands, and even his broken arm looked as though they had been completely healed.
Just as she was gauging how far this act might go—
“I’m coming in.”
Biterion’s voice was heard.
Wet footsteps approached, and Caliph’s eyes instantly sharpened with alertness and rage as he looked toward the partition.
Stopping in front of it, Biterion spoke.
“Stop.”
In a cold voice she had never heard before, he added,
“Mixing flesh results in an imprint. You know that.”
Caliph’s gaze returned to Meyna.
Seeing the woman sitting there naked and defenseless, clad only in a single towel, a powerful impulse surged within him.
“The one who will form an imprint with the young lady is not you, Caliph, but me.”
The moment those unbelievable words left Biterion’s mouth, he opened a portal and vanished with Meyna.
A conclusion like a lie.
Awakening from a fleetingly sweet dream, Caliph stared at the wet towel lying beneath the bathtub.
Horrific rage and regret seized his entire body.
