The Hero's Legitimate Wife Mandarin (4)
A solitary annex room, a young girl left utterly alone.
— Creeeak.
An outsider arrived at that place. He shoved the barred door open and strode in without the slightest hesitation, as if he were simply walking into his own home.
The afternoon sun had long since set; dusk had settled over everything hours ago. Even so, moonlight still existed, and a soft glow fell across the girl’s forehead.
The man gazed quietly at her face bathed in that light, then stretched a hand toward the empty fireplace. He had heard she was unusually sensitive to the cold for a northerner. Whether by magic or some other power, the crackle of burning firewood soon rose from the hearth even though no wood had been there.
The Hero’s gaze returned to the girl’s lips. Soft, red, glistening like ripe fruit—so tempting they made his throat burn with thirst just looking at them.
To think a woman like this isn’t a virgin…
Surrounded by the soft bedding, the young girl’s form seemed the very embodiment of purity and innocence. She was a woman with vermilion hair, yet her appearance was one that would have suited a pure white dress best of all.
Haa… the regret is driving me insane.
Every time Lucas reminded himself that Darin was no virgin, a quiet fury rose in him before he even noticed. He knew the resentment was unjust. Powerless as she was, she had been raped; she had never been given a choice.
Yet understanding with the head and accepting with the heart were two different things for a man. If only he had been the one to rape her—then she would have belonged wholly to him, and he could have achieved a truly pure and noble love.
Of course, soothing her wounded heart would have been his duty as well. Even so, she would have been his mate; bearing that burden would have been only natural, and he would have felt no complaint.
But what use were such fantasies? The man who first claimed the space between her pure legs had not been him.
“…Darin.”
Lucas called the unmoving woman’s name and pulled her tightly into his arms. The plump little shell of her ear twitched reflexively, like some small animal. And that was not all—the large breasts that did not match her petite frame, the lovably hollowed collarbones, the rounded shoulders, the soft body itself. Every part of her was an element that maddened a man’s lust beyond reason.
“……”
Only a few days ago she had felt so sacred he could scarcely bring himself to touch her. Yet the moment he realized another man had already fucked her, the woman who had once seemed so unapproachable now looked like nothing more than a seductress.
And at the same time, he was dying of curiosity.
What kind of moans would a girl who looked this pure make when she spread her legs?
Should I just fuck her right now?
Lucas was impatient. He wanted to dye Darin in his own color this very instant, to soil her with his seed and wash away every trace of the man from her past.
Considering Darin’s position, going slowly would be right… but it’s not easy.
In truth, even that would not be enough to satisfy him. He felt she would only truly become his once he had put at least five children in her and thoroughly wrecked and dirtied her lower half.
She might resent him for treating her so roughly, but in the end she was no virgin, was she? She had not preserved her purity for his sake; there was a limit to how much respect he could show when it came to sex.
Lucas intended to give her nearly everything else she wanted, yet in the category of joining their bodies he no longer wished to hesitate.
The only way to purify a wench soiled by another man was to overwrite her with his own color as quickly as possible.
“Are you asleep, Darin…?”
Lucas matched the curve of Darin’s body as she lay on her side and pressed himself against her back. At once he slipped a hand beneath her arm and gently kneaded her waist.
He continued the caress down near her hips; his shamelessness made it clear he already regarded Darin as his possession.
Wow… this is insane.
With a single touch Lucas could not help the silent gasp of admiration. Among every woman he had ever fucked, her body was uniquely soft. If a being had ever been born solely to be pinned down and crushed beneath a man, it was her. In that moment he finally understood why that soft-hearted Akael had raped her.
What the hell have I been doing all this time?
For the first time since coming to this other world, Lucas felt regret. If he had known of Darin’s existence earlier—if he had known she was a companion who shared the same past-life experience as him—he would never have wasted time hunting the Demon King. He would have conquered the land of Bayorn just so he could be her first man.
It’s not as if there’s no way to soothe the regret at all…
The one fortunate point was that she still had no man in her heart. And her rear entrance, at least, should still be untouched; claiming that would not be a bad idea either.
If he could make her bear his child as well, the regret would not vanish completely, but it would ease at least a little.
You’re my woman. You are my woman.
The obsession of a madman who had only just discovered love finally caught fire in earnest. The Hero freely groped the girl’s full breasts that swelled beneath her clothes.
“…Ah!?”
Darin, who had been sleeping quietly, opened her eyes at the alien sensation on her chest. The moment she registered the stranger pressing his face toward her lips, she could only scream.
“Kyaa!? Wh-who are you! Get away!!!”
When the girl whipped her head around and rejected the contact, Lucas’s expression soured; he raised one eyebrow in open displeasure.
“Darin, it’s me. Lucas.”
“Wh-what?”
“Your rejection is so strong it’s rather hurtful.”
“Why… why are you touching my body?”
“It may be a little startling, but now that I’ve arrived here, from this moment on you are my woman.”
“What…?”
Darin repeated the words without meaning to, as if she must have misheard.
“Is there a problem? Rather than staying with that rapist, becoming my bride would be far better.”
Yet Lucas only met her gaze with complete confidence. Perhaps because he had learned she was no virgin, the virgin-boy awkwardness with which he had treated her that very morning had long since evaporated.
“There’s no need to refuse. It’s not as if it’s your first time, is it?”
“You—how dare you say that!”
Darin had only just opened her eyes, yet her mind spun. Not only had he invaded her bed without warning, he was suddenly declaring she was his woman? It was the raving of a madman.
“Truthfully I don’t usually take non-virgins into my harem, but it seems I like you more than I expected, Darin.”
“When did I ever say I would enter Lucas’s harem? Did you think I would thank you for that? I clearly told you I didn’t want it!”
The girl swung both hands with all her strength and shoved against the Hero’s chest. At the open, violent rejection, Lucas stared at her as if he meant to devour her. She had lived just fine in the arms of the man who raped her—so why did she reject him so fiercely?
“Why is that bastard acceptable and I’m not? What am I lacking compared to a barbarian?”
“That’s not the issue.”
“Then what is the issue?”
“I told you this morning. I am in a position where I must repay the Bayorn family’s grace.”
“So you intend to go back to the man who raped you?”
“…Whether I was raped or not, I decide for myself where I belong.”
“You call that an answer?”
“Then do you think it was acceptable to bring me here without even asking my opinion?”
“I did it to save you.”
“I never asked to be saved. This is no different from kidnapping!”
“What…? Kidnapping?”
An enraged lion snarled as if ready to tear out its prey’s throat. He would not truly devour her, yet a sharp tension crawled across her skin until Darin had to swallow hard.
Even so, no matter how tightly her heart clenched with fear, the words that needed saying still had to be said.
“If you do this, you’re no different from Kael. Please, just let go of me!”
Faint blue bruises rose on her bound wrists. He crushed them with raw grip strength without the slightest regard for the difference in power, forcing a thin scream from her.
If anything, Kael almost seemed kinder by comparison. At least that child had still treated her as his mother.
“How would you know we’re the same? You haven’t even had sex with me yet.”
“That’s not what this is about—are you completely insane? You acted like a gentleman until this morning; why are you suddenly like this?”
The baroness’s face flushed a mottled red with fury. Fear was secondary; the more she thought about it, the more absurd and unfair it felt.
“I am different from Akael. Unlike him, I intend to show you every possible consideration.”
“Consideration or not, in the end you still plan to have sex, don’t you? I’ve told you over and over that I simply don’t want that itself!”
She had no intention of yielding. No matter that Lucas was a fellow countryman, he was not as precious to her as her own son, and she was not some helpless object to be violated.
Originally Darin had meant to persuade Lucas with a gentle manner. As the weaker party, that was the proper way to behave.
Yet his rudeness far exceeded anything she had imagined, and her reason finally snapped. After everything she had already endured, her mind was too frayed to maintain composure in a situation like this.
“……”
Perhaps the unbroken rejection had wounded his pride as a man. He stopped speaking and simply sat on the opposite side of the bed, staring at her.
Why… why is he looking at me with those eyes? He molested me on his own whim, so why is he staring as if I’m some damned bitch…
Even though it was night and no candle had been lit, the girl felt as if she were meeting a gaze filled with pure resentment.
I hadn’t planned to sleep with her today, but if she’s going to refuse this hard, it’s difficult to just let it go.
Lucas hated how high Darin raised her guard even though she was no virgin. He tried to understand it as the natural revulsion of a rape victim, yet the fact that she still wanted to return to Bayorn Castle only left him more baffled.
Perhaps, despite her pure appearance, she was actually a seductress who enjoyed masochistic sex? Or was she only reacting this way out of fear of Akael?
Either way, the rudeness she showed the man who had saved her from a barbarian’s clutches was already enough to anger him. And the way she looked at him with eyes full of fear, as if he himself were a rapist, displeased him even more.
“Darin, it would be wise not to take the rudeness too far.”
Even if she was a fellow countryman, if she responded to a man of his caliber’s goodwill in this fashion, he had no intention of playing the fool and simply accepting it.
“I am doing my utmost to be considerate of you, so why do you react so sharply? Of course I’m sorry for touching you without a word. I’m also sorry for bringing you here without a word. But I swear I never intended to rape you. Bringing you here was ultimately something I did out of concern for you. And yet if you continue to look at me as if I were some insect…”
The Hero’s overwhelming presence and glowing golden eyes fixed on the trembling girl.
“I will not simply keep holding back either.”
His gaze was filled with the fierce hunger to strip her bare from head to toe and devour her.