I Thought It Was the Monster Duke's Fake Sedative - Chapter 26

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 26
‘Gasp!’
Lucy barely managed to steady herself on her pale toes, feeling a chill sweep through her chest.
She’d almost slipped on the wet floor.
‘Is he trying to assassinate me?’
Lucy took several deep breaths to mask her alarm.
Then, as she stood there…
‘Wait.’
She noticed fine down rising across the skin where her breath touched, and her eyes widened.
Fine, downy hair stood up densely along Edward’s firm, powerful neck.
‘Could it be… from my breath?’
It was oddly fascinating.
He looked like a polished marble statue—the type of person you’d expect to be completely hairless.
‘And yet he has down.’
Soft, fluffy down at that—so delicate it seemed to contradict his menacing physique.
Tap.
Curious, she touched it lightly with the tip of the sponge, and the down bristled along its grain.
“…….”
The way his body responded to her slightest touch, to the mere whisper of her breath, stirred something strange inside her.
It even brought a thin thread of pleasure.
“…Haa.”
She exhaled across his back as if to ease her tension, and the down rose in finer detail.
Watching the down bristle like grass across his marble-like back, her hands moved with growing interest, and before she quite realized it…
Lucy had concentrated entirely on scrubbing Edward’s back.
In all honesty, his body was a pleasure to touch.
The contours were deep, crisscrossed in places, smooth to the eye yet rough beneath her hands.
It stirred a challenge in her—the urge to scrub every crevice, every hidden corner thoroughly.
Scrub-scrub-scrub-scrub-scrub…
Besides, though her hands had trembled at first, once she’d continued for a while…
‘It’s just like any other task really—a bit strenuous, but rewarding.’
The bathroom was thick with hot steam, and sweat beaded on her skin with the smallest motion.
Droplets of perspiration rolled down her flushed face in the heated air, dripping from her chin.
Her Dress clung damply to her body, soaked with water and sweat alike, which was somewhat uncomfortable—but oddly satisfying.
Lucy scrubbed Edward’s back with increasing focus, rinsing and drying it meticulously.
She didn’t notice his shoulders flushing deeper red with each passing moment.
Scrub-scrub-scrub-scrub-scrub-scrub-scrub…
In the midst of this furious sponging, something suddenly caught her eye.
It seized her attention completely.
‘What’s this?’
In a corner of his otherwise flawless, immaculate body.
Near his spine, where it descended from back to waist, she glimpsed a small blemish—a scar.
‘I’ve seen something like this before.’
Almost unconsciously, Lucy glanced down at her own arm.
The arm bore the marks of countless experiments and injections she’d endured in the Temple, where they’d extracted her Sacred Power.
Why was it…
…that the scar on Edward’s body felt somehow familiar to the scars on this arm?
Though there were differences, of course.
Unlike Lucy’s arm—still bearing fresh wounds from ongoing experiments, scars not yet fully healed—the wound on Edward’s spine was old, marked by the bumpy texture of long-closed tissue.
She couldn’t say for certain how he’d gotten it…
‘…What a waste.’
Separate from whatever Edward’s character might be, she couldn’t deny that his body—menacing as it was—possessed its own terrible beauty.
Yet he bore such a scar.
And in such a precise location.
Lost in thought for a moment, Lucy’s lips moved softly as she made a small sound of realization.
‘Now that I think about it…’
She’d heard that a Priest with sufficient Sacred Power could heal wounds—even old scars could be erased.
After all, Sacred Power was fundamentally a force of Purification and healing.
‘Should I try?’
In any case, she reasoned that this borrowed body must possess High Priest Rank Sacred Power.
‘And this would be a chance to test how strong my Purification really is.’
Then it would be useful for what comes next. Since I’ll be doing Purification with Edward several more times….
She paused mid-stroke with the sponge, her eyes fixed on the scar with rapt attention. Feeling her hand still, Edward opened his mouth slowly.
“What is it?”
His voice had grown somewhat thick and heavy.
“Your Grace.”
Lucy ignored the goosebumps rising on her arms and spoke.
“Let me do you a favor.”
Without hesitation, she pressed her bare hand directly onto the scar and poured her Sacred Power into it.
“…Ah!”
“…Ugh!”
In that instant.
A whoosh.
Like fire catching on spilled oil, a wave of heat crashed over Lucy.
Lucy’s mouth fell open in shock.
‘What… what is this….’
The scar was drinking in her Sacred Power far faster than when she’d kissed it before.
It was a greedy, ravenous force—as if it meant to consume everything.
“Ah… ah….”
That wasn’t all.
Each time the Sacred Power pulsed and pooled into the scar, heat rose unbidden to her solar plexus, and her mouth filled with saliva.
Heat spiraled through her head, as if her very reason was dissolving into mush and melting away.
Crack.
The hard ceramic tub began to splinter in fine fractures under Edward’s grip.
Water leaked from the tub, soaking the floor and drenching the hem of Lucy’s dress as she knelt in the bathroom.
Even then, Lucy couldn’t pull herself up.
Every nerve in her body seemed to converge at the fingertips where she touched Edward.
Each time Sacred Power flowed between them, the nerve fibers seemed to shudder through her entire arm, crying out, I’m here, I’m here.
‘Why… just why….’
It was only skin—so why did it feel so dense, so thick and clinging?
As though she’d plunged her hand into a jar of sticky ointment.
Despite the humid heat filling the bathroom, goosebumps rose on her wet skin with a soft prickling sensation.
‘I’m cold.’
That doesn’t make sense. It’s hot, but I’m cold.
‘It’s like I swallowed burning ice.’
Hot, no—cold. Warm, no—freezing….
Floundering through the fog of her reason, Lucy sought warmth.
Moving toward the nearest source, the body radiating heat.
“…Damn it.”
The moment a rough, low voice grazed her ear.
Splash.
In an instant, her body was pulled toward that warmth.
“Ah… ah…!”
When her senses cleared, she found herself thrashing helplessly in a tub full of scalding water.
More precisely, in Edward’s arms as he sat in the tub.
‘Oh.’
His crimson eyes shone with a fevered gleam as he looked down at her.
Just meeting that gaze, she found herself unable to move.
Like a mouse frozen before a snake ready to swallow it whole.
Yet the tremor that ran through Lucy held more than fear.
Her entire body tensed with sensitivity, and wetness began to gather between her thighs without her consent.
Her breasts responded the same way.
Even the brush of cloth against her skin stung sharply.
‘I haven’t done anything, so why….’
The question had barely begun to form.
“Mmh…!”
Something hot and soft covered her mouth entirely.
As she opened her lips in the sensation of being consumed, he thrust into the small space of her mouth as if he’d been waiting for exactly this.
“Ah…!”
The moan she tried to release scattered away into the darkness of their joined mouths.
He traced her mouth and teeth before driving deeper, as though he meant to push straight down her throat.
Her mouth had stretched open so far it ached, but she had no mind to care.
Lucy hung helpless amid the overwhelming flood of sensation, receiving the kiss.
Her mind grew hazier by the moment.
‘Is this….’
Is this what a kiss is?
Even the word that surfaced through the scattering fragments of her reason scattered away.
Edward was no better off than she was.
His entire body leaned toward the small figure in his arms.
A thirst that no amount of biting and sucking could quench welled up inside him, surging without end.
“Ah, hah….”
Hearing that pained sound, a desire that was bewildering even to himself flooded through his mind.
He despised losing control like this, despised it utterly—and yet….
His rationality returned only to despise his own body, only to surrender it willingly instead of fighting back.
‘Damn it.’
This had never been his intention from the start.
Just before.
His words about washing her—they had not been empty.
‘It’s been ages since I’ve bathed anything.’
He’d been thinking calmly, as if he were merely washing a pet rat.
But what came back was her offer to serve him instead.
‘With those small hands of hers.’
Before that, Edward had never permitted anyone to attend to him during bathing.
He even dressed himself with his own hands.
He simply disliked the very idea of being touched closely by another.
He could have refused.
Yet somehow, the word of refusal had not come.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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