The More You Struggle, the Deeper You Sink

“I want you. What other reason could I possibly need?”

Even in her second life, she became his bedmate once again.

Hector, the tyrant emperor.

Arrogant and willful, he took Chloe exactly as his nature dictated.

It was a one-sided relationship, an affection she never wanted.

He had killed her. Burned her alive.

And yet, knowing nothing, he demanded she repeat the same horrific fate.

“Someone more noble than me would suit Your Majesty better.”

“That is none of your concern. You will simply take what I give you.”

“A beast that crawls on the ground cannot live among the treetops.”

“Be tamed. I would rather watch you die in a cage than see you fly away.”

He was viciously selfish.

Even when the dagger she had hidden deep in her heart pierced straight through his, his madness and obsession did not waver.

He trapped her between his thighs, devoured her with desire, drowned her in disorienting pleasure—until that endless craving spread to Chloe herself.

“Do you love me?”

A foolish question.

Yet he asked it every time, fully aware he would be denied.

“I ask you again. Do you love me?”

Grotesquely, he seemed to enjoy her cruelty. Even though he remembered nothing.

Within the cycle of repeated fate, the cracks between them grew large enough to shake the world itself.

At last, Hector could no longer hold onto her.

“Go. I will allow you to leave now.”

The soul he had believed would remain eternal began to crumble—slowly, quietly, into dust.