It was dead past one in the morning. The surroundings of the palace balcony were wrapped in a haunting, profound silence. Perched casually with one leg crossed over the other on the ancient stone railing sat Rehany. Her signature blood-red attire and the hypnotic, mysterious aura she carried made the heavy night darkness feel even more oppressive. Held between two of her fingers was a long cigarette, its thin wisps of smoke curling up and dissolving into the empty air. Just a couple of paces behind her, two terrified maids stood frozen, their heads bowed in absolute dread even the slightest movement from Rehany sent shudders straight through their chests.
Right at that moment, heavy footsteps echoed through the deep darkness of the corridor. Lord Kim appeared on the scene. His attire tonight was completely different though it looked ordinary from the outer layers, a stark, blood-red underlayer peeked out through the gaps of his clothes, hinting at the cruel, predatory nature hidden within him. Overriding his age and arrogance, an unmistakable ripple of restlessness and tension flickered in his eyes.
Lord Kim stepped closer, his gaze locking onto Rehany. A strange mix of curiosity and bloodlust churned inside him. Seeing the very girl who had slipped into his chamber like a silent shadow days ago, driving him to the brink of death before vanishing without a single word, now sitting all alone on the open balcony, he could no longer hold back his composure.
The night wind grew even colder. Flicking the ash from her cigarette, Rehany slowly turned her crimson-tinted gaze toward Lord Kim. That familiar, hellish, and cruel, sadistic smile crept up the corners of her lips once again as if a terrifying new chapter of this vicious game between hunter and hunted was about to begin.
Lord Kim's facade of cleverness and arrogance completely shattered. The chilling, unbothered indifference of Rehany sitting right before him, wreathed in cigarette smoke and a terrifying, macabre beauty, struck a raw nerve against his toxic pride and lust for power.
He could no longer hold back. Trembling with a mix of fury and suppressed panic, his voice rose from deep within his chest as he roared:
"You have no right to poke your nose into my personal affairs! What I do, and how I live my life none of that is any of your concern! Do not forget who I am! I am the Lord! Every single brick of this palace, down to your very audacity, lies right in the palm of my hand. How dare you repeatedly intrude into my private sanctuary like some ominous, ill-fated shadow?!"
His voice shook though beneath the anger lay a profound, underlying dread. His sharp cry echoed off the cold stone walls of the balcony, bouncing back into the frozen night air. Behind him, the two terrified maids squeezed their eyes shut and covered their ears, nearly collapsing onto the floor in sheer terror.
Yet, Rehany didn't flinch even a fraction. She remained seated in that exact same casual pose, crossing one leg over the other. Slowly flicking the long ash from her cigarette down to the stone floor below, she tilted her head and stared directly back at Lord Kim. The cruel, sadistic, and hellish smile on her crimson lips only deepened as if Lord Kim's frantic outburst and desperate display of authority were nothing more than the pathetic, dying yelps of a cornered beast.As the sound of Lord Kim's shout faded into the night air, the two terrified maids couldn't muster the courage to stand there for even another second. Trembling with dread and desperate to save their own lives, they quietly and swiftly fled from the balcony.
Seizing the opportunity to mask his overwhelming fear and humiliation, Lord Kim lunged forward in a sudden burst of reckless bravado. Creeping up directly behind Rehany, he violently wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close from behind. Blinded by a twisted, perverted lust, he pressed his lips hungrily against the soft skin of her neck, planting a cruel, predatory kiss right over her pulse.
However, Lord Kim had no idea whose trap he had just walked into. The very second his lips touched her skin, Rehany's body temperature dropped instantly, turning colder than glacial ice. Her blood-red eyes flared with a lethal, psychotic fury her prey had willingly thrown himself directly into the jaws of the beast, and the grim reality of what was about to happen hung heavy in the freezing air.
All of Lord Kim's arrogance and false sense of power instantly devolved into a grotesque, twisted lust. He was so blinded by the belief that he had finally subdued his prey that he remained entirely oblivious to the imminent danger staring him in the face. Driven by a feral impulse, he bared his teeth and buried them deeply into the pale, glacial skin of Rehany's neck.
As the warm, metallic taste of blood hit his palate, the primitive monster within Lord Kim surged to life. In a manic frenzy, he wrapped his arms even tighter around Rehany's body, clinging to her as if trying to drink down her very life force. His eyes rolled back in a wave of warped, intoxicating satisfaction; he genuinely believed he had finally broken and conquered this mysterious entity.
Yet, throughout all of this, Rehany stood completely motionless and silent, like a statue carved from stone. Not a single sound escaped her lips, nor was there any physical struggle or resistance from her side. She stood there passively, letting him indulge. But had Lord Kim dared to look into her crimson eyes, he would have seen a chilling, lethal promise of vengeance lurking behind her unbothered facade. She knew that her blood was far from ordinary, and the slow-acting, silent poison entering his veins was already beginning to seep through every single fiber of his body. She was willingly letting him taste her, only so he could savor the true flavor of his own doom.
While Lord Kim was consumed by a manic frenzy, drinking from her neck, Rehany kept her eyes calmly closed. Not a single trace of fear crossed her face; instead, a ruthless, shadow-steeped satisfaction curled at the edges of her closed eyelids.
Completely blinded by the intoxicating illusion of victory, Lord Kim grew even more reckless. Void of any human decency or restraint, a wave of warped, sadistic euphoria drove him to reach out with both hands, tearing at the bindings of Rehany's blood-red attire and stripping away her garments.
Yet, he remained utterly oblivious to the true nature of the entity he was touching. This supreme audacity and filthy violation served only to fully awaken the dormant, monstrous abyss within Rehany. Letting the blood linger at the corner of her lips, she slowly opened her eyes and under the blistering glare of her crimson gaze, Lord Kim's momentary triumph began to morph into a terrifying, inescapable nightmare.
Just as Lord Kim's hands grew even more reckless against her garments, an unbelievable and bone-chilling transformation took place.
A sudden, glacial wave of otherworldly power radiated from Rehany's body, instantly making the surrounding air suffocatingly heavy. The man who had considered himself victorious while drinking her blood suddenly felt his teeth grind against something as unyielding as solid stone, and the warm, metallic taste in his mouth vanished into a sickening numbness.
An abnormal, paralyzing cold spread rapidly through his throat and mouth. Panic clawed at his chest as the terrifying realization struck him: he hadn't consumed the blood of a mere mortal. Instead, a lethal, foreign venom was flooding his veins, scorching his insides while aggressively draining away his life force.
Consumed by a sudden surge of horror, fury, and blinding disbelief, a choked, frantic gasp tore from his throat:
"Fucking...!"
As that choked gasp tore from Lord Kim's throat, Rehany snapped her crimson eyes wide open. A chilling, otherworldly glint flickered within her gaze, radiating a cruel, macabre amusement.
Realizing too late that he had walked straight into a death trap rather than a conquest, Lord Kim froze in sheer terror. Instead of pulling away, Rehany leaned forward with calculated, predatory grace. She pressed her lips directly against his trembling ones, sealing his mouth in a deep, glacial, and deeply sadistic kiss.
There was no warmth in it—only the paralyzing chill of death and the intoxicating taste of ultimate betrayal. The moment her freezing lips met his, the last remaining vestiges of strength drained rapidly from Lord Kim's body. His eyes widened in absolute horror, and a violent shudder wracked his frame. The sweet victory he thought he had claimed instantly devolved into a silent, inescapable grave.
Lord Kim's arrogance and twisted lust vanished in a single instant. Overwhelmed by sheer terror, the agonizing burn of the glacial poison, and Rehany's lethal closeness, his pale face suddenly flushed crimson with a mix of shame and humiliation. But this was no ordinary human blush; it was a wretched, suffocating disgrace born from the bitter realization of his own utter foolishness and inevitable doom.
The world began to blur and darken before his eyes. He finally understood that the woman he had treated as his ultimate conquest was, in truth, an angel of death. Trembling violently from a combination of dread, humiliation, and the creeping ice in his veins, he tried to pull away but not a single ounce of strength remained in his body to escape her grasp.