The Disobedient Daughter (3)
“Aigoo! Stop it! Please stop, Piel!”
A wet, insistent heat suddenly enveloped her nipple, flooding Darin with an instinctive revulsion unlike anything she had felt during her marriage bed. This was not just the body of a blood relative—this was her own daughter—and the primal horror of it burned through her like fire.
Slap!
Darin’s hand cracked across Piel’s left cheek with a viciousness that stunned even her. She had never struck a man-child like Kael in her life. And now she had struck her own daughter. This was the first time she had ever lifted a hand against one of her children in the thirty-plus years of her marriage.
Piel felt nothing but cold fury. The more she shoved, the stronger the repulsion grew. Wasn’t this what mothers were supposed to do—protect their children? Or was the truth that Darin loved the father more than she had ever loved her own flesh and blood? The thought made Piel’s chest burn with ugly, childish spite.
The white-haired girl narrowed her eyes, lips thinning into a pout of pure grievance.
“Why… why are you looking at me like that?”
Darin still knelt between her daughter’s legs, face-to-face, unable to look away from that accusing stare. Seeing her child’s pain made her feel the greater fault lay with herself, not the girl. She was the mother. She was the one who had failed.
“Why do you hate it so much, Mother?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Even if you are my daughter, this is wrong. I can’t stand having my body thrust against me like some nameless, meaningless thing!”
“Meaningless? That’s from your own mouth.”
“What do you mean?”
“Then you’ll go to Father instead, won’t you?”
“…Why are you bringing Father up now?”
“You say you hate him so much you throw tantrums, yet you can’t even let your own loving daughter kiss you?”
“Piel! Have you lost your mind!? What kind of words are you— eep!?”
The hand that had been submerged suddenly shot out and seized Darin’s ankle. The mother felt the terror rise in her throat. She thrashed to free herself, but the powerless stepmother had no strength left to overcome the unnatural power that now held her.
Before she could even scream, the rough grip dragged her entire body into the water. She sank like a stone, amber eyes wide beneath the surface, blinking desperately as the world closed in around her.
Piel had never imagined her mother could feel such cruelty. But jealousy burned hotter than any surprise. She would not stop.
“Stop sleeping with Father.”
The words were filth spoken from the mouth of her own child.
“Answer me.”
There was no way Darin could answer with her face underwater. The sudden violence of her daughter terrified her more than any punishment. Yet she had to answer. The air was growing thicker; she needed to breathe.
But she shook her head instead. This was not what she wanted. The bond between husband and wife was the duty of a noble lady. To refuse it now would look even stranger.
“Hah. See? You say you do it because you like it, don’t you? All this time you’ve been lying to your children?”
Darin shook her head again, eyes never leaving her daughter’s. Piel watched with a mixture of pity and spite, the mother’s frantic struggle beneath the water strangely adorable and strangely repulsive at once. She enjoyed the sight of the woman she loved fighting to escape.
This shouldn’t be happening…
The impulse was sudden, violent, and completely without reason. Was the blood of Bayorn in her veins? Or was it simply too much to bear having such a beautiful mother? Piel did not want to think about it now.
She’s so cute… I’m jealous of Father…
Touching her for the first time, feeling flesh against flesh—it excited her beyond anything she had known in battle. Harassing the vermilion-haired girl felt good. Such raw, vivid emotion had been impossible even on the battlefield.
Father is right. Mother should stay inside Bayorn Castle forever. She never belonged in northern high society.
Before Piel was even born, Mother had been the flower of northern aristocratic circles, celebrated wherever she went. Even though the gatherings were small and provincial, the moment high nobles heard of the beauty with orange hair, they sent letters, then came in person to propose.
She had been a married woman, yet they still dared. If the vermilion-haired girl had not suffered such a violent tantrum, perhaps Mother would have become a duchess or a countess instead of a mere baroness’s wife.
The pride of knowing the woman who had captured their father was so stunning, so perfect, made Piel’s chest swell with a strange, victorious satisfaction.
Damn it…
Jealousy twisted into curses. Her father had been truly lucky. He had snatched up a country girl who knew nothing of the world and made her his wife. After the aristocratic balls, letters of marriage proposals had arrived daily. Some had even been crushed by Bayorn’s mailed fist. The northern territory had begun to isolate itself because of them.
Is it time to break her?
Mother’s face in the bathtub had turned red, steam rising around her. Piel decided she had suffered enough. She slowly pulled her upward.
“Ugh… Piel!”
“Did it hurt…?”
“You… what… ahh!”
Piel dragged the protesting mother out and placed her on her own lap. The flushed face could only gasp for breath, too shaken to fight back properly.
“You were trying to go to Father, that’s why.”
Piel’s palm landed again and again across her mother’s back while she gently wiped the corners of her lips. The hot, labored breaths that followed made Piel lean in and press a soft kiss to her mother’s mouth.
It was the first kiss of her life. No warning, no plan—just the sudden, messy collision of lips and flesh.
Every time their mouths met, it felt as though fireworks exploded inside her skull. The wonder of kissing the first person she truly loved was so intense she had not even noticed her mother’s hand trying to push her away.
What if I put my tongue inside? What if I tasted her between her legs too…
Would she feel like she was floating in heaven? She had been about to imagine Father pinning Mother down and stealing her away forever when the words tore from her mother’s lips.
“Ah… why… why are you doing this, Piel…”
The sob-filled voice struck Piel’s heart like a hammer. The tears already streaming down her face, the trembling, the raw pain—everything was too much.
“C-crying… how can you say such things to me…?”
The gaze that had only stolen quick glances at her mother’s chest, between her legs, and over her belly now finally fixed on her face. Darin’s ears, stuffed with water, rang faintly. She covered them with both hands and screwed her eyes shut.
“You don’t even know how I shared my bed with your father!!!”
Darin had never spoken such honest emotions to her children before. But today was different. The pain had come from her own daughter, and it was unbearable. The words burst out before she could stop them.
“How could you do this to me? I raised you, I—”
Hot tears spilled freely, dripping from her chin. Piel stared at the pitiful sight she herself had created and felt a strange, dizzying shame.
No matter how cute, no matter how beloved. She was still a mother. A clear, older maternal figure. And a child had treated her like a toy—rudely, without care.
“Haaang…!”
The stepmother could no longer speak. She simply wailed aloud, body shaking with broken sobs. Having been forced into marriage was already heartbreaking enough; now her own daughter was treating her like a whore. She had wanted her first son so badly—her gentle, doting boy—yet he was nowhere to be seen.
The mother, still cradled in her daughter’s arms, shoved Piel’s shoulder hard enough to make her fall back. Then she crawled on all fours toward the bathroom door, tears streaking her face.
What have I done…?
The hand that had pushed her away had been her shoulder. But something lower on her body was throbbing with pain. Piel pressed her palm against the strange ache and shoved wet hair out of her eyes.
Soon the only sound left in the bathroom was her own childlike wailing. Her gaze drifted to the corner where her mother had curled up. Even in that moment of betrayal, Mother had not fled. She knew the servants would see and report to the faithful knights. They would blame the daughter for making their mother cry.
Piel lowered her head toward the limp hand. The hand that had once looked so huge when she was a baby now looked impossibly small and soft. The woman who had held her so gently, worried she would break, had been her savior.
One year. Five years. Ten years. Even after she grew up and outshone her daughter, Mother had loved her more than anything in the world. The smile she had worn while watching a butterfly flutter around her infant daughter’s nose still lingered in Piel’s memory.
She had once cried out for her mother inside a carriage and it had felt like yesterday.
But what was this daughter doing now?
Right in front of her was something far more precious than jealousy or resentment—something she had almost ruined forever.
“Mother…”
Piel approached the trembling figure slowly, voice hoarse. In that brief glance, Mother’s eyes held not just resentment but fear—and beneath both, the greatest weight of all: love for her daughter.
The foolish woman could not turn her heart away from such pain. But the wound was deep. Piel looked into her mother’s eyes and understood. If she continued treating Mother only as a woman to be used, she would lose everything else. The body would remain, but the rest would be gone forever.
Piel did not dare touch her mother’s bare skin. The guilty one simply sat there on her knees, head bowed in silence. She would even apologize to her own mother if that was what it took.
She did not want forgiveness for her crimes. She did not want to wash her sins clean. She only wanted to soothe the wounded heart of the woman she loved.
From the beginning, Mother had been a fragile soul. Having lived with a man she did not love for more than thirty years—it was a miracle she had survived. She had even decided to compromise in her own way. Yet this foolish daughter had struck the first spark of Mother’s anger.
“I’m sorry.”
Piel bowed her head toward her mother, guilt heavy in her voice. The hand she carefully took grew smaller and smaller until it became a child’s again. Yes. No matter how old she grew, to her mother she would always be her daughter. That was truth.
Darin wiped her daughter’s wet cheeks with trembling fingers even as tears continued to fall. She comforted the grown woman as though she were still the little girl she had once held.
This child was taller than she had been.
She was only a powerless, tiny girl.
But in the end, she was the daughter she herself had fed and raised.
Scolding her daughter could wait until the tears had stopped.