Into the Rose Garden Novel - Chapter 10.1 Trapped in the Living Hell Late at night

He came to the shack again. And Kloff looked down with a somber expression at the Omega, who stood in the darkness, gasping for breath, on the verge of fainting. The faint bruises from where he had struck him in a fit of rage after speaking with his son still stained his pale skin.

He had become extremely emaciated. It was only natural, having given birth to four children. No matter if one was an Omega, male childbirth was not something to be recommended. One or two, perhaps three at most, was the limit. Moreover, Aerocc was not a born Omega. The only reason he was still alive was because he was originally an Alpha, possessing a strong life force. That’s why he couldn’t die early and suffered more. But now, even that tenacious life force was fading.

Aerocc greatly resembled the deceased Raphiel. Yet, at first, he hadn’t thought they were similar at all. His dead wife was thoughtful and meticulous, while this person was arrogant and unpleasant. But now, seeing his dying appearance, it seemed they truly shared the same blood. Especially as Aerocc’s features had become finer and rounder with repeated childbirth, he sometimes resembled her so much that Kloff’s heart would plummet. Sometimes, his heart would pound.

“Crazy bastard.”

Those words were directed at himself. He felt a deep sense of self-loathing. Even if it was something he had brought upon himself for revenge, it was disgusting to feel aroused by the enemy who had so miserably killed his wife, but to be conflicted by him made him truly the worst.

Kloff roughly guessed what Aerocc had endured in the depths of society. To succeed without anything, one sometimes had to join hands with those who had abandoned their humanity. He was not ignorant of the brutal realities of the bottom. He himself had secretly shed tears, struggling and suffering every day, but Aerocc seemed different.

When Aerocc returned to the mansion, dressed simply in worn-out clothes with no adornments, yet exuding an unyielding nobility, Kloff felt an indescribable emotion. He held his head high, as if nothing could defile him, and still spoke with a refined tone, a faint smile playing on his lips.

He flinched instinctively at the gaze that met his own. He wanted to hurt this radiant being who bowed to nothing, so he sarcastically called him “Count” or whatever, but it was childish. Even as his already thin and pale complexion turned even whiter, as if bleached, Aerocc responded with composure. He casually critiqued the artwork of a new painter and elegantly drank tea. And, following the etiquette of a noble accepting an invitation from a host with children, he spoke of the children.

“They were beautiful children.”

Kloff thought Aerocc was mocking him. To refer to children he himself had borne as if they were someone else’s. He was truly a hateful creature, devoid of any emotion. He felt an urge to shatter that unbroken mask.

“They resemble their mother.”

He deliberately spoke with sarcasm. To imply that those children were born of no one else but him.

Aerocc seemed deeply shocked by that. It was the first time he had seen the man, who always spouted sharp venomous words, so shaken. Though unexpected, Kloff was quite satisfied with his reaction. Even amidst such shock, true to his noble Count persona, Aerocc politely praised the tea and left a refined, neither excessive nor lacking, expression of gratitude for the hospitality before departing the mansion.

Watching him walk away from the window, Kloff felt a strange sensation. His steps had always been light, like a dance, but now Aerocc’s steps felt utterly weightless, as if he might be carried away by the wind. He had a premonition that the faint silhouette, which seemed as though it might vanish at any moment, might never be seen again. He quickly informed the gatekeeper, Hagen, and ordered him to follow.

Late that night, the gatekeeper returned with Aerocc, soaked and unconscious.

“I pulled him out of the river.”

Even in his unconscious state, Aerocc’s lips were blue, and his body trembled violently. Kloff personally picked him up and carried him to the bathroom attached to the room previously used by the former Counts. While the hot water filled the tub, he undressed him. His emaciated body was covered in scars of unknown origin and filth.

When placed in the warm water, perhaps startled by the sudden temperature change, he couldn’t breathe properly even while unconscious. As he trembled and gasped, Kloff pressed his lips to Aerocc’s to help him breathe. Unable to sit upright, Aerocc slipped into the water, forcing Kloff to enter the tub himself, still dressed, and embrace him.

Thin legs, like branches, floated in the splashing water. Unlike his own legs, enveloped in dark fabric, Aerocc’s pale legs, along with his limp arms, seemed to melt into the hot liquid. Kloff took the unresponsive, floating, slender hand and intertwined their fingers. Aerocc’s head naturally tilted back, resting on Kloff’s shoulder, which touched his slender nape. A faint breath echoed in Kloff’s ear.

“I won’t allow you to die so easily.”

Kloff couldn’t believe Aerocc had attempted suicide. He hadn’t known that merely pointing out that Aerocc had borne his children would make him want to die so badly. His emotions at that moment were indescribable. Only a burning rage, a conviction that this absolutely could not be the end, remained vividly in his memory.

He wanted to utterly destroy him, to make him cry and scream and writhe in agony, just like himself. At first, he had simply given him the drug deliberately, with the sole purpose of shattering his pride and obtaining a true child.

And those wet eyes, longing to be penetrated in heat. When Kloff realized that these were one of the few moments Aerocc showed emotion, he was intoxicated by a petty sense of victory, raping and defiling him repeatedly. He knew that the body, forcibly altered by drugs, could not withstand repeated pregnancies and births, yet he did not stop. He pushed him, filled with bitter hatred and malice, so that he would suffer a little more, scream a little more.

Even when he found Aerocc starving to death alone in this shack immediately after the birth of their first child, Kloff was enraged by his casual decision to give up so easily. He picked up the ambiguous body, which seemed both Omega and Alpha, in his arms and took him back to the mansion. For now, saving him was paramount. Aerocc, who regained consciousness along the way, smiled nobly and wrapped his arms around Kloff’s neck. Kloff trembled with disgust at his arrogant confidence.

After the birth of the second child, Kloff deliberately abandoned him to the bottom. And he forgot. No, he tried desperately to forget. Unlike the second child, who resembled him, the first child, who was a spitting image of Aerocc, grew to resemble his mother more and more as he matured. Every time he called the name Raphiel, which he had stubbornly given her, his heart felt pierced. It was then that he realized. He, consumed by hatred and lost to reason, was trapped in a hell of his own making.

Kloff repeatedly added hot water to keep it from cooling. After confirming that Aerocc’s complexion had returned, he carried him back to the shack and laid him down. The mansion was out of the question. He was not generous enough to allow Aerocc comfort. He deserved to suffer more. At least until he shed uncontrollable tears of blood, just like Kloff.

He didn’t know what Aerocc was thinking, but upon waking, he no longer tried to escape. The shack door was unlocked, and the mansion gate did not prevent anyone from leaving. Yet, he was always there, like someone confined by invisible bars. Kloff would stand at the mansion window, looking down at Aerocc coming and going from the distant shack.

He felt a sense of incongruity watching Aerocc pump water from the prepared well. The Count, who used to command with a haughty gaze, capable of such a thing. Had he learned that at the bottom too? This time, Kloff expected him to endure without eating or drinking anything. He anticipated that Aerocc would not break his stubbornness and would demand to be treated with dignity.

However, he did not leave the shack. He didn’t seek Kloff out, unlike that day he arrived, bleeding between his legs. Kloff felt strangely angry. He deliberately brought him unkempt, difficult-to-handle vegetables.

The next day, a small wisp of smoke rose from the shack. He still remained there.

Kloff lay on the hard bed, gazing at the sleeping Aerocc, and gently brushed back the damp hair clinging to his forehead.

No matter how thin and miserable he became, his innate nobility could not be suppressed. Even lying naked on a shabby bed, he was so elegant that anyone could recognize him as an aristocrat. His blue eyes, always looking straight ahead, possessed an untouchable haughtiness. Kloff had only recently realized that the desire to break him was fueled by both revenge and a desire for conquest.

Regardless of the motive, the Omega, who had gone through heat with him countless times and bore him four children, only offered a faint, ambiguous smile, which stimulated Kloff’s Alpha instincts. This, combined with accidental events that recalled old hatred, always became a trigger leading to uncontrollable situations.

After repeated violence, even as life drained from his now weakened body, Aerocc looked as haughty as a meticulously crafted, high-class doll. The only thing that made him seem human was the occasional tremor around his eyes. It was even doubtful if he was still breathing.

Kloff sat on the bed and leaned down, placing his ear beneath Aerocc’s nose. He felt a faint breath. As he turned his head, their lips brushed. They were chapped and rough, a little cold. Though similar in appearance to Raphiel’s soft, moist lips, the sensation was entirely different.

Aerocc was cold. His breath was cold, and his hands and feet were as cold as his soul. For him, the only thing alive were his arrogant eyes that looked down on others. Even those were now veiled by thin eyelids through which tiny blood vessels were visible.

Kloff wanted to strip away this inhuman shell. To make him beg and cling. Not out of mere fear, but to make him abandon everything, expose his raw, ugly true nature, and fall lower than the humans he looked down upon. To make him call Kloff’s name hotly and intensely, to become a normal human, entangled in the sins he himself had created, and suffer like Kloff.

To do that, he had to keep him alive. If he died, it would be useless. Kloff lay beside Aerocc’s cooling body and warmed him. Having spent several heat cycles together over the years, their scents had become intertwined. It was ironic. To feel such deep relief holding the person he hated enough to tear his heart out even in his sleep. It was also proof that he had become equally ugly.

As Kloff knew, Omegas found stability in the scent of an Alpha with whom they had a continuous relationship. As he held him and stroked his cold arms and legs, Aerocc’s pale complexion gradually returned. Even in his sleep, he sighed languidly and burrowed into Kloff’s embrace.

It was always like this. Despite his cold gaze and demeanor, Aerocc, even when glaring with icy eyes, never resisted like a normal human would, never raised his noble hand to strike, or screamed curses. He was always composed, which made Kloff even more frustrated and irritated.

When he lived in the mansion around the time of the second child, he imperiously gave orders as if he were the Viscountess, but when he returned to the shack, he was distinctly different from before. Kloff thought that his endless, noble confidence had finally diminished a little. But his true nature remained.

Now, he expected nothing from Kloff. His silent, indifferent demeanor seemed to accuse Kloff of being the only one clinging to the past. If he had cried and fawned, Kloff might not have left him neglected, even if he had laughed at him.

After a long time, years passed, and two more children were born, yet Kloff was still trapped in Raphiel’s death, still raging with anger and disgust, while Aerocc alone moved forward. He cooked for himself, and he did his own laundry. No matter what insults were thrown at him, he responded with a faint smile, doing his best to live.

Had he let go of something at the brink of life and death? Or has everything become meaningless? No matter how brutally he was raped, he only let out gasping moans, and when impregnated, he gave birth as instructed. Not wanting anything meant he had nothing to struggle for. He was living happily, even alone, with a smile.

“No. That absolutely cannot happen.”

Aerocc deserved to suffer and be conflicted and loathe himself as much as Kloff did. Kloff embraced the thin body, which emitted faint breaths, as if to crush him.

“Want to have sex?”

After all that effort to save him, the first thing he said upon opening his eyes was that. Kloff had forgotten that there were pathetic pig-like creatures whose brains were rotten, interested only in screwing and being screwed. And that Aerocc was one of them. Even after enduring such terrible things, Aerocc relentlessly showed interest in Kloff.

He was truly a consistent noble, and now the situation was even laughable. No matter what pain Kloff inflicted, if it was intercourse, Aerocc would eventually feel it and let out hot breaths. It was only then that he shed his hypocritical shell and revealed his true self. Breaking his haughtiness was surprisingly easy. Kloff smiled hollowly and climbed onto the bed.

This was the first time they had intercourse not for the purpose of inflicting pain or during a heat cycle. If he had given in to his rising temper, Aerocc would have suffocated immediately, so Kloff tried to loosen his grip as much as possible, embracing the thin body. He even caressed him a little and rubbed his lips against the body whose scent had faded as life drained from it. As if sharing life. To make the dying flame burn a little longer.

Aerocc showed extreme awkwardness. He acted like an innocent virgin who knew nothing of foreplay or anything else. Despite having lived in the depths for years and already having four children, a worn-out creature, when Kloff licked and sucked at his sensitive spots with his tongue, Aerocc’s face would turn red, and he would cover his mouth with his hand. His bewildered blue eyes looked at Kloff.

At that, Kloff curled the corners of his lips and acted even more spitefully, deliberately. Licking, touching, kissing his entire body, and finally, a deep, lingering kiss. Kloff had no memory of kissing Aerocc. Aerocc didn’t know what to do with the tongue that entered his mouth. Kloff let out a hollow laugh, seeing him pretend not to know how to breathe. He broke the wet kiss and whispered softly, licking Aerocc’s hot ear.

“Don’t pretend to be innocent, you worn-out whore. It’s disgusting.”

The blank gaze that had met his own turned away. Seeing him tremble faintly, he seemed weak to such things. Was it truly disliked, or was it pleasure?

Kloff unhesitatingly caressed Aerocc. Unlike what he had thought, once he set his mind to it, it wasn’t difficult at all. When Kloff took Aerocc’s genitals into his mouth and sucked, Aerocc convulsed and twisted his body. He seemed overwhelmed, gasping for rough breaths.

“Kloff… Ah… Stop…”

He lifted his hips, trembling faintly, and pushed Kloff’s head away with his hands. Yet, his thin thighs wrapped around the head of the man who held his genitals, and he soon reached climax. Kloff swallowed half of what was ejaculated into his mouth and fed the other half back to Aerocc with a kiss. Aerocc frowned as the metallic taste entered his mouth but did not break the kiss. Instead, his thin, thorny fingers gripped Kloff’s shirt shoulder.

Kloff’s fingers explored the damp, wet Omega body. Aerocc, who lay on his stomach, bending his upper body and lifting his hips as Kloff guided him, tore at the old pillow and gasped. As Kloff spread his buttocks and licked and probed the scarred, wrinkled area, which was far from beautiful even as a courtesy, Aerocc made a choking sound, as if about to cry. Kloff inwardly urged “just a little more” and pushed harder, but no tears stained the pillow. He clicked his tongue and inserted his erection into the already wet and loosened opening.

“Ahhh.”

A cry, neither high nor low, escaped him. His excitement intensified, and blood rushed further to his lower body. He wanted to lose control and thrust wildly, but he forced himself to hold back, fearing that Aerocc’s now bone-thin buttocks would truly shatter. Instead, he thrust gently and deeply, then later increased the pace. Aerocc, who had been moaning with his face buried in the pillow, soon began to scream uncontrollably. Even so, his faint sounds, as if he might die at any moment, were powerless, like a bird shot by an arrow, flapping its wings in its final struggle.

Kloff slowly reached his climax and then ejaculated deep inside, and at the same moment, Aerocc had his second orgasm. Having used up all his remaining strength, he immediately slumped, turned, and embraced Kloff, kissing him deeply. Aerocc’s face, hazy and relaxed, smiled faintly at Kloff.

“You’re different than usual. Why are you suddenly like this?”

His trembling eyes seemed to expect something, so Kloff whispered with a smile and a soft voice.

“I hate you so much. You’re disgusting. I despise you. I hope you meet the same miserable end as the things you’ve done.”

Seeing his pupils widen blankly, a childish satisfaction welled up. Kloff kissed his thin cheek and chuckled softly.

For a while, he had been busy with an important appointment. It was several days after his last encounter with Aerocc that Kloff was finally able to cross the rose garden alone. The path to the shack was now so familiar he could find it with his eyes closed.

Immediately after their first encounter that could be called sex, not rape, Aerocc’s expression changed. He didn’t entirely stop giving faint smiles, but once intercourse began, his face would contort as if he were about to cry, and he would cling to Kloff. Sometimes, when Kloff whispered cruel words, Aerocc would flinch, which was extremely stimulating.

Each time, Kloff would unconsciously embrace the Omega who clung to him and stroke his back and legs. Now, he even evoked a protective instinct. Kloff often gave a bitter smile as he embraced the trembling, emaciated body.

Today, the thought of seeing him like a drenched bird, so pitiful, brought a slight sense of enjoyment. Aerocc was pregnant. It was his fifth pregnancy already. His body was weak, and it seemed he had overcome several miscarriage crises. Kloff could only guess, as Aerocc didn’t speak of it properly.

After this child was born, Kloff planned to bring him to the mansion for the winter. His body temperature was continuously dropping, and it would be problematic if he froze to death in the shack. Since he would clearly be extremely weakened after childbirth, it seemed best to spend a considerable amount of time by his side. The hard wooden bed in the shack was uncomfortable, so if they were going to sleep together anyway, Kloff’s bedroom seemed better.

Or perhaps he should have brought him to the mansion before the child was born. If the child came early, he might be in danger alone in the shack.

Imagining Aerocc’s surprised expression upon hearing this, Kloff felt the corners of his lips curl. His steps quickened slightly.

But when he entered the unlit shack, all that enjoyment evaporated.

“Aerocc? …Aerocc!”

As soon as Kloff realized Aerocc was gone, extreme rage surged within him.

To run away now. The cunning bastard.

He could not tolerate Aerocc secretly escaping the hell they had both created. Kloff returned to the mansion, shouting loudly, and immediately unleashed his servants to search for Aerocc. No one answered Kloff’s pressing questions about when he had escaped. Even the gatekeeper Hagen didn’t know, so it was clear he had fled under the cover of night.

It was the first time he had run away. Kloff had always thrown him out; he had never fled on his own. The second time Kloff had left him in the shack, he had lived as if nothing had happened. So Kloff hadn’t even considered that escape was possible. He had always returned to the mansion, and even when wandering in the depths, he would find Kloff and walk straight to him, so Kloff had never thought to doubt him.

The shack didn’t even have a lock. After several years, there was no reason for his now weakened body to escape. Especially with childbirth so close.

He should have locked him up. Broken his slender ankles and bound him with chains so he couldn’t leave the small wooden house, so he would come running even if he hid in the darkness and dragged the chains.

Late regrets surfaced.

It took a full day to find him deep in the depths of society. When Hagen, who first discovered his tracks, ran to Kloff, who was searching elsewhere, looking pale, Kloff’s feelings were far more devastated than the first time he had experienced it. The news that someone carrying his child was found in the depths was enough once. He swore that even that single time was enough to plunge him into an unhealing pain. But why did he have to hear such news twice?

Why… why on earth…

Unlike his mind, which struggled to think clearly, his body moved with great agility. Soon, he found a heavily pregnant Omega surrounded by three or four Alpha men, being gang-raped in an alley near a dirty brothel.

“Wow, a pregnant one is this tight.”

“Do you know how much I looked for you in the years you were gone? Today, I’ll pamper you a lot and feed you plenty of raisin bread.”

“Where did you get pregnant? I thought this one was an Alpha. I was fooled all this time.”

“Who cares? As long as the hole is tight. It’s even better if it gives birth to an Omega. An Alpha is fine too.”

“He’s bleeding.”

“He won’t die. Hey! You’re not dead, are you?”