It was a dawn where only the moonlight, floating in the sky, brightly revealed its presence amidst the dark curtain.
With the sound of the blanket rustling in the quiet room, Dalia rose from her bed.
"I can't sleep...!"
She couldn't sleep at all because of what had happened earlier at the dining room.
'That look earlier was...'
She recalled Clayton's pale and stunned face.
Clayton, who had been staring at her blood-soaked fingers, soon fled from the scene as if running away.
Later, a man named Caddison came to pick her up, but even upon arriving at the mansion, she couldn't meet Clayton.
After a brief recollection, Dalia looked at the wound on her right finger, then shook her head.
"This won't do. I need to get some fresh air."
Deciding that she wouldn't sleep tonight anyway, Dalia got up from her bed.
She opened the terrace door facing the back gate of the mansion and leaned against the railing.
The wind, filled with the cold night air, gently combed her hair.
'Much better.'
The fresh scent of grass carried by the wind brushed against her nose.
At that moment, as Dalia's mind cleared up, she took a deep, pleasant breath.
A carriage, just passing through the back gate entrance from afar, caught her eye.
'Who could that be at this hour?'
It wasn't a cargo carriage for delivering groceries.
Usually, such carriages would arrive early in the morning, and it was clear that there was no cargo in that carriage.
As she thought about it, Dalia quietly hid and observed the carriage closely.
It was usual for a carriage to bear a crest or some sign of the person inside. However, the black carriage had no such markings at all.
It was as if the person inside was trying to conceal their identity completely.
At that moment, sensing something strange, the incident at the garden party flashed through her mind.
"I heard a strange rumor. They say that every night, a black carriage of unknown origin enters and leaves the Duke's mansion..."
The black carriage. It was the same one the Duke of Chamberg had mentioned that day. Soon after, Dalia realized the source of the déjà vu she had felt back then.
[The black carriage, which bore no markings or insignia, yet Dalia knew who was inside. A woman with red hair that, when looked at, unintentionally stirred up feelings of inferiority...]
The content of the original work that hadn't occurred to her at that time.
'No way.'
At that moment, the door of the carriage opened, and a person appeared.
She wore a dark cloak that obscured her face, but Dalia knew who she was.
"Roche Hertz."
[...She was the husband's mistress.]
At the sudden appearance of an entirely unexpected figure, Dalia momentarily lost her composure.
As soon as she got off the carriage, the wind blew her hood off, revealing a cascade of red hair.
Despite the darkness, the red hair illuminated by the moonlight was so vivid that it was seared into her mind.
Unknowingly, Dalia stared at the woman's face, illuminated by the moonlight.
The woman resembled the red rose, often called the queen of flowers.
Even from a distance, the woman, boasting exquisite features, was undeniably beautiful at first glance.
Had she been staring for that long? As the woman moved, Dalia's eyes followed her.
"Over there..."
She expected the woman to enter the mansion, but instead, she walked toward the forest behind the mansion.
And as far as Dalia knew, in that forest...
Ah.
Only then did Dalia realize why the mistress was heading into the forest, letting out a short breath.
She was heading toward the cabin in the forest to meet Clayton.
And Dalia already knew why the mistress was heading to the secluded cabin, not Clayton's bedroom.
The secret of Clayton and the mistress.
The two were not actually in a romantic relationship.
Their relationship was merely a contractual one for 'that matter,' and Clayton was simply using the mistress.
However, the heroine, unaware of the truth, mistakenly believes that the person the hero truly loves is not her, but the mistress, and when the mistress dies, she feels intense inferiority, thinking she is merely a replacement.
That misunderstanding is cleared up toward the end of the novel, but until then, the heroine suffers greatly because of the mistress.
[I'll never be able to surpass the deceased, probably for the rest of my life.]
Dalia repeated in her mind the heroine's feelings mentioned in the original work.
Knowing all the circumstances, Dalia actually felt sorry for the mistress.
Dalia, who had been watching the mistress disappear into the forest, crossed her arms and tilted her head.
"Should I follow her...?"
Heading to the cabin now meant the two would be doing 'that thing.' This wretched curiosity was whispering to her to secretly watch.
Dalia, who had been nervously biting her nails, raised her head. Her dilemma was brief.
* * *
Dalia, relying only on the moonlight, stumbled along the path between trees that stretched upward as if touching the sky.
"I'm sure there was a cabin somewhere around here..."
A few days ago, Dalia had accidentally found the cabin while walking here.
There were no dangers in the forest, which was home to small herbivores, and the path to the cabin wasn't particularly difficult to navigate.
However, navigating the forest in the dead of night, relying only on moonlight, was proving more difficult than expected.
Only after the sound of leaves rustling in the wind began to feel chilling did Dalia start to regret her wretched curiosity.
"Maybe it was a mistake to follow her..."
She considered turning back to the mansion, glancing behind her now and then, but realizing that even going back wouldn't be easy, she continued forward.
How ridiculous it was to be wandering through the forest at night just to see something amazing. Just as regret began to creep in...
A faint light appeared in the darkness, and a smile appeared on Dalia's face.
'The cabin!'
Dalia, letting out a sigh of relief, hurried toward the light with faster steps than before.
Soon, the familiar cabin appeared.
And as if to prove that someone was inside, a warm light was spilling out of the cabin.
Sure that there were two people inside, Dalia hid her smile and quieted her movements.
She bent down and cautiously approached the cabin.
The transparent glass window wasn't as clean as the mansion's, but it was enough for her to peek inside.
Dalia, inwardly pleased by this, carefully looked inside through the window.
On the floor, two people were facing each other, with robes scattered around them.
As Dalia's gaze gradually moved upward, Clayton was seen burying his face in the mistress's white nape.
No, more precisely...
"Ugh..."
Clayton, with his sharp fangs embedded in the woman's nape, was drinking her blood.
That's right.
The curse passed down through the generations of the Sayer family.
It was the fact that the people of the Sayer family had to drink human blood periodically.
In simple terms, they were a kind of vampire.
Of course, they were different from the commonly known vampires.
They were far from the typical myths, like burning in sunlight or dying from holy water or a stake through the heart.
They were no different from ordinary people.
They had no extraordinary physical abilities, nor could they fly.
They simply needed to drink a bit of blood for nutritional supplementation, along with regular food, and they were somewhat weak to sunlight.
The mistress that the heroine of the original work knew was not actually a mistress, but rather a "blood bag" providing fresh blood to the hero.
Roche Hertz.
Roche, the noblewoman of the Hertz family, had her fate sealed from the moment she was born.
The Hertz family, who served the Sayer family, had been offering their daughters as blood vessels for the head of the Sayer family, enjoying wealth for generations.
To provide fresh and healthy blood, they meticulously controlled their diets and exercised from a young age.
They always thought of themselves as nothing more than livestock raised in a pen.
Because of this, Roche later ended her own life.
"In a way, she's the most pitiful character in the original work."
Living under the guise of a mistress and being scorned by others, but in reality, she was the most pitiful existence.
For a moment, Dalia thought of Roche's life in the original work, but then she returned to reality and stared at Clayton.
The sight of the hero biting the mistress's neck was truly...
'So damn sexy.'
With his flawless face, even the sight of him drinking blood was so strikingly sexy it struck a chord.
'I can't believe I'm seeing a scene I had only imagined in my head.'
As Dalia felt a sense of satisfaction for following all the way here, lost in admiration for the hero, it happened.
Clayton's eyes, which had been closed, slowly opened. His red eyes, as hot as blood, yet chilling.
'Huh...?'
His eyes were facing straight ahead, directly toward Dalia.