The ornate gardens of the Avriantya estate sprawled under the late afternoon sun, their manicured hedges and blooming flowerbeds a stark contrast to the corruption that had just spilled from the meeting room.
The heavy oak doors groaned shut behind the five noblemen as they emerged, each man's expensive boots crunching against the gravel paths with the swagger of those who believed themselves untouchable.
Lord Matthias led the group, mopping his sweating brow with a silk handkerchief as he glanced back toward the estate.
"Hah, that was closer than I'd like," he muttered, loosening his collar. "The bitch actually came prepared with documents."
"Documents we can handle," Lord Garrett replied, pulling a silver case from his vest pocket.
He extracted a thin cigar, rolling it between his fingers. "It's that sharp look in her eyes that bothers me. Too calculating."
The group naturally gravitated toward a secluded fountain near the garden's edge, where a cluster of marble benches sat beneath the dappled shade of ancient oak trees—far enough from the estate's windows to speak freely, close enough to the carriages for a quick escape.
Lord Benedict produced his own smoking case, offering it around with practiced ease.
"Anyone else feel like we just got interrogated by the Imperial Treasury itself?" He struck a match, the sulfur scent mixing with tobacco as he lit his cigar.
"Paranoid bastard," Harwick chuckled, though he accepted a cigar gratefully. "She's just a woman playing at politics. Probably read some ledgers and thinks she understands commerce."
Matthias settled onto a bench with a grunt, cigar clenched between his teeth. "Fifteen percent skimmed from the caravans, she said. Hah! As if those merchants don't deserve it for using our roads."
He took a long drag, exhaling toward the cloudless sky. "Been bleeding them dry for three years, and suddenly it's a problem?"
"The farming villages were genius," Garrett added conversationally, settling beside him. His own cigar glowed cherry-red as he inhaled. "Paperwork errors, I told her. Simple as that. Delete a village from the tax rolls, pocket the revenue while the peasants starve. They can't complain if they're officially non-existent."
Lord Crenshaw remained standing, pacing as he often did. "Manufacturing permits, border tariffs—we've been emptying her coffers for years. She has no idea how much gold has passed through our hands."
"Speaking of which," Benedict said, tapping ash onto the manicured grass, "did you notice how she carried herself? All prim and proper in that burgundy dress, like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth."
The shift in conversation was subtle but unmistakable. Matthias's eyes glinted differently as he exhaled.
"Hard to miss those curves when she walked out," he said with a slow smile. "That dress hugged her in all the right ways... I wouldn't mind finding out how easily she loses that composure."
"Mmm," Garrett nodded appreciatively, his cigar forgotten. "And the way she moved—enough to make a man imagine all sorts of ways to… wasn't she under suspicion for killing her husband too? What if that's true?"
Harwick leaned back against the fountain's edge, smoke curling around his head. "You think she looks that dangerous? Don't you see how she just sighed at our gazes? She is nothing but a weak woman who has some charm to turn others' gazes at her, not like she knows this."
"Of course she knows," Benedict scoffed. "Women like that always know. Probably practice that walk in front of mirrors."
Crenshaw smirked, his voice lowering as he thought of something indecent. "I wonder how she'd fare if she had to deal with all of us at once. Might not seem so sharp when she's—
THUD
The wet sound of something hitting the gravel made them all pause.
Lord Crenshaw looked down in confusion, then slowly turned to where his right hand should have been attached to his wrist.
It wasn't there.
His severed hand lay on the ground beside him, fingers still twitching around the cigar he'd been holding, blood pumping from the clean cut in rhythmic spurts.
"What—" he started to say.
Then the pain hit.
"AAAAAaaaaaRRRRGGGHHHH!"
His scream tore through the afternoon air like a siren as he stared at the spurting stump where his hand used to be. Blood painted the manicured flowers in crimson arcs as he stumbled backward, clutching his wrist.
"What the hell—" Lord Garrett spun around, his own cigar falling from nerveless fingers.
Behind Crenshaw stood something that made their blood turn to ice.
A beast.
Towering, muscular, with silver eyes that blazed with otherworldly fury and a scarred face that was a mask of absolute judgment.
His massive frame seemed to vibrate with barely contained violence, and blood dripped from his left hand—not his own blood, but Crenshaw's.
"It seems that coming here myself was a good call," the beast said, his voice carrying the quiet finality of a death sentence.
"N-no, wait—we didn't mean—" Matthias started, his portly frame shaking as he scrambled backward.
"AAAHHH! MY HANDS! MY HANDS!"
"Wh-who are—" Crenshaw didn't get the time to discuss as his voice met with two claws strong enough to hold.
CRACK—TEAR—SNAP
Crenshaw's jaw unhinged completely, hanging at an impossible angle as the beast continued pulling. Blood poured down his chin in rivers as the soft tissue of his cheeks began to split.
But the beast wasn't finished.
His grip shifted higher, fingers now pressed against Crenshaw's temples while his thumbs hooked inside the ruined mouth.
"GGGAAAAAHHHHHHHHRRRGGGGG!"
The wet sound of tearing flesh grew louder as instantly his cranium was plucked off from his jaws.
Blood splattered around the garden area as the other noblemen stumbled, stammered, and fell in horror.
They had no time to voice their thoughts, only letting out screams that echoed in the empty garden, where the scene of punishment for their indecency was observed from afar through the palace window.
---
"Idiots... I told them not to talk nonsense." Luna, seated in her office and gazing out the window, rubbed her eyes.
The bloodied scene outside was something she couldn't digest—and didn't want to—especially in her current state.
She stared straight ahead, holding the documents in her hands, before crossing out the names of the last five nobles—completing the list of twenty who had already been killed.
"Sally, send someone to wash the garden, and also tell that man to come decently dressed after changing his clothes," Luna said firmly, glancing at Sally, who was also looking out the window at the scene. She didn't seem excited to see Javrian—more confused, her mouth twitching as she turned her gaze back to Luna.
"May I ask you something, Luna?" Sally asked, dropping the formality. Her tone made Luna pause mid-motion, waiting for her to continue. "I—no, everyone thought you and Javrian had broken up and would never meet again... then how?"
From their last meeting three months ago, Sally could clearly recall how the two had separated—on terms that made it seem they would never so much as look at each other again.
Yet, barely a month later, Luna was sending him letters... and he was coming every day.
"Hah," Luna exhaled, faintly aware of how often she'd been sighing these days. Resting both elbows on the desk, fingers interlocked, she placed her chin on her hands.
Closing her eyes for a moment, she recalled exactly how her determination to end all that two days romance crumbled just a month later—one that had turned what she thought was a finished romance story into something entirely different.
"Sally... I'm pregnant."
"Pthoo—!" Sally spat.
"...." Luna blinked, looking at her for a fleeting moment before noticing her gaze drop to the floor as she used her feet to clean it.
"F- forgive me, I can't—" Sally began to clarify, but Luna interrupted her.
"No, I get it… maybe better than ever." Luna consoled her before looking straight ahead, closing her eyes and resting her chin on her knuckles before exhaling, "Haa…"
After all, in these three months, she had developed the habit of exhaling.
With her eyes closed, she recalled exactly what happened three months ago after her unexpected… breakup.