Sotis the system really felt like one of Heena’s screws wasn’t just loose—it had fallen out entirely and rolled off a cliff. Other won, when pushed to extres, either wept prettily, turned ice-cold and calculating, or pretended indifference with practiced grace. But Heena? She smiled like a maniac planning a bonfire and casually contemplated psychological warfare as evening entertainnt. Even she had to admit it: her thods were unhinged.
Right now, staring at the bound priest on her bed, she wanted to fuck this holy bastard so thoroughly he’d forget every prayer he’d ever morized. Maybe throw in a few new verses he could recite to the gods—all of them blasphemous.
There was a reason she’d chosen Raphael first. Yes, his body was the weakest of the five—soft where the others were scarred, unmarked where they bore the evidence of battlefields and intrigue. But there was another reason, one she’d admit only to herself: he was ’beautiful’. Ethereal, even. White-blonde hair spilling across dark silk sheets, violet eyes currently shut in fitful half-sleep, skin so pale it practically glowed in the lamplight. His body was a perfect canvas, and Heena had always appreciated fine art.
Especially when she could ruin it with her own hands.
System 427 caught the predatory gleam in her eyes and his fur stood on end. ’Oh no. That look. That’s the look she had in World 9 before she broke the demon lord so badly he rewrote an entire religion just to worship her.’
"Host..." he ventured nervously. "You’re planning sothing terrible, aren’t you?"
Heena didn’t answer. She just smiled.
But she didn’t pounce. Not yet.
She had approximately six days before the other four idiots panicked enough to co searching. On the temple side, Raphael had cleverly lied about "serving the poor in distant provinces"—no one would think to check the palace. And her dear traitorous consorts? Those bastards were too busy congratulating themselves on their perfect assassination plan to waste ti filing reports at their offices. They wouldn’t dare show their faces until they received confirmation she was dead.
Heena stripped Raphael thodically, removing every scrap of his holy vestnts until he lay bare and vulnerable, wrists secured to the ornate bedposts. The handcuffs weren’t tight enough to hurt—just tight enough to remind him he had no control here.
Then, to the system’s complete bafflent, she walked away.
She sat at her desk. Picked up her quill. And started working through the mountain of imperial docunts like nothing was happening.
Raphael, anwhile, trembled even in unconsciousness. The nightmare tonic she’d dosed him with replayed his sins on an endless loop—every lie, every plot, every mont he’d smiled at her in council while secretly signing off on poison. His breathing hitched. His fingers curled against the restraints. Sweat beaded on his temples.
And Heena... wrote. Budgets. Trade agreents. Military allocations.
System 427 floated over, absolutely incredulous. "There is a ’gorgeous’ man tied to your bed, and you’re reviewing grain distribution reports?!"
In her mind, Heena replied coolly, ’People who have this much paperwork to do—and will literally trigger a plot collapse if they don’t finish it—learn to prioritize.’
The system wanted to argue, but he’d seen her operate before. She was terrifying ’because’ she had this kind of self-control.
For a while, the only sounds were the scratch of quill on parchnt and Raphael’s occasional whimper.
Then—’drip.’
A dark crimson spot blood on the white docunt, right across the word "taxation."
’Drip. Drip.’
More followed.
Heena frowned, touched her neck—dry. Touched her nose—wet.
"...oh, for fuck’s sake," she muttered, grabbing a handkerchief.
The cursed royal bloodline. Celeste Ravencourt’s body ca with a genetic "gift": an abnormally high libido that required regular... maintenance. If neglected, the symptoms escalated: insomnia, splitting headaches, irritability, and apparently, spontaneous nosebleeds like so kind of repressed ani protagonist.
That’s why the original Empress had kept an entire stable of carefully vetted bed-slaves—beautiful n and won rotated on a schedule like dication.
Heena had thrown them all out the mont she arrived. No way in hell was she risking dieval STDs from strangers.
’Besides,’ she thought, dabbing at her nose, ’I have five extrely expensive, devastatingly attractive husbands. Who needs hired help?’
Her gaze drifted—against her better judgnt—toward the bed.
Raphael lay there like a fallen angel, all pale limbs and trembling breath, hands bound above his head, body unmarked and waiting. The lamplight turned his skin to gold. His lips moved soundlessly, fragnts of prayers escaping even in his drugged state.
Heena’s fingers tightened on the quill. Her body was ’screaming’ at her to cross that room, climb onto that bed, and solve her biological problem with the convenient solution literally chained up and available.
She looked back at her docunts. Then at Raphael. Docunts. Raphael.
"Estov," she muttered, considering alternatives. "I could call that bastard—"
Then she rembered exactly what Estov was probably doing right now: charming his way through so noble’s private chambers, surrounded by blushing guards and scandalously intrigued aristocrats, absolutely shaless and having the ti of his life.
"Never mind," she said flatly. "That gay peacock is busy seducing half the empire. Useless."
System 427 watched her wage an internal war between professional responsibility and biological necessity. The poor priest on the bed had no idea he was currently being saved by bureaucratic paperwork.
Heena wiped her nose one more ti, glared at the innocent docunts like they’d personally offended her, and forcibly dragged her attention back to trade routes.
On the bed, Raphael shivered, lost in nightmares, utterly unaware that his fate hinged entirely on whether the Empress could finish reviewing tax codes before her bloodline’s demands beca unbearable.
It was going to be a very long six days.
The nosebleed didn’t stop.
Hina went through three handkerchiefs in twenty minutes, each one progressively more stained. The docunts blurred in front of her. Her head pounded. Every ti she tried to focus on a sentence, the words swam like fish in a pond.
And across the room, Raphael’s breathing had shifted—slower now, deeper. The nightmare tonic was wearing off, dragging him toward reluctant consciousness.
Hina set down her quill with more force than necessary. The sharp *click* echoed in the silent chamber.
"Fine," she said aloud. "You win, cursed bloodline. Congratulations."
System 427’s ears perked up nervously. "Host? What are you—"
She stood, pushing the chair back. For a mont she just stared at the scattered docunts, the ink-stained handkerchiefs, the evidence of her body staging a rebellion against her willpower.
Then she turned toward the bed.
Raphael stirred as she approached, eyelids fluttering. His violet eyes cracked open—hazy, unfocused, still caught between nightmare and reality. When he saw her standing over him, recognition flickered. Then fear.
"Your... Majesty..." His voice ca out hoarse, wrecked from hours of silent screaming in his drug-induced visions. He pulled instinctively at the restraints, but the handcuffs held firm. "Please, I—"
"Shh." Hina pressed one finger to his lips, silencing him. Her other hand moved to the buttons of her shirt—the sa ones she’d left undone earlier. She finished the job now, thodically unfastening each one.
Raphael’s eyes went wide. "Wait—what are you—this is—"
Heena answered, "Just your husbandry duties, so shut up."
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