Chapter 10
Chapter 10
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: Was Lusting After Her
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"Yes, that's when I realized it."
Twenty-three-year-old Asherad murmured as he toyed with the tip of her breast. The fresh-faced innocence of that time was gone, replaced by the sight of this voluptuous woman spreading her legs before him—irresistibly seductive.
As he tormented the tip with his fingers, Daphne's lips parted.
Already glistening from his tongue's earlier teasing, it stood stiff with arousal. Finding it adorable, he flicked it a few times with his hand before gazing down at Daphne, trapped in his arms.
"That I was lusting after you."
Her blue eyes, moist like they held droplets of water. Golden hair that grew more vivid with age. Red lips like ripe fruit.
Yes, it had been the same back then.
Back then, Asherad had lusted after Daphne. He had felt an unbearable desire for her. And so...
As if to vent all those pent-up emotions from that time right here, his hand moved downward without hesitation. He teased that place between her legs, already wet in anticipation of taking him in.
"Ngh!"
Daphne twisted her hips. Her lips strained to swallow the sounds trying to escape, a pitiful sight. He pushed his thumb between her teeth. Her slick mouth engulfed it, letting muffled sounds leak through.
"You have to make some noise."
Asherad smiled faintly, watching his thumb caught in her mouth. When she looked up at him with teary eyes, lips still around it, he could hold back no longer.
"Ah!"
He pried open her slick thighs and thrust in deep. Though fully prepared to receive him, Daphne gasped with each push, her mouth opening in moans.
Each time, it drove him even madder.
"Ahh, ahh! Ah!"
With his thumb stuffing her mouth, she couldn't close it properly, letting sweet sounds spill out. From the start, his movements were fiercely intense.
As if determined to make her feel exactly what he'd harbored back then, he tumbled with his woman in the forest of pleasure, lost in ecstasy. Yes, that was the emotion the green boy had felt. At nineteen, Asherad...
Had lusted after a woman named Daphne for the first time.
A woman he'd deemed lower than a dog.
* * *
Four years earlier once more.
Left alone in the room, nineteen-year-old Asherad was dumbfounded. He stared at his pants, swollen with blood. She—whoever she was—had left after greeting him without even realizing what that prominent bulge was. She clearly had no idea.
But Asherad knew exactly what it was, and that was the problem.
"Why?"
It was laughable. This was a farce. Him, of all people, getting hard because he wanted to fuck that woman? That one?
He preferred cleanliness, so he'd planned to never mix bodies with anyone but his fiancée, the one fit to stand behind him.
Yet the moment that filthy, impure, lowborn girl touched him... it was like a switch flipped. His groin reacted, breath growing ragged.
Was it because her mother was a seductress, passing on her ways?
No. Asherad wasn't so foolish as to blame others.
It was simply that her touch had aroused him instantly. It had felt off from the moment her hand brushed his thigh. Off from the moment her bare skin touched his back.
For the first time, Asherad regretted it.
And with regret came fury.
The prince of Pindus had felt the exact same toward her. And now he understood why.
The bitch he'd trampled underfoot was growing more alluring by the day.
Those innocent blue eyes looking up at him from below were so clear. Her teeth, visible between slightly parted lips under her pert nose, were perfectly even.
Her loosened golden hair shimmered.
He wanted to ravage those defenseless lips, trample them, wring pleasure from them. He wanted to drink every tear welling in those big eyes, make her cry again.
He was truly mad. Utterly insane. Was he a mongrel himself, finding pleasure in a dog?
Maybe so.
He thought of Daphne's hair. Of the smile that bloomed on her lips once he cleared the misunderstanding.
So what if he was a dog?
If anyone else approached his pretty little pup, he'd kill them himself. And if that pretty pup turned her back and ran from him again, if she tried to avoid him... he'd make sure she could never escape.
Simple as that.
* * *
Daphne beamed. Asherad cherishes me. His Highness the Crown Prince values me! For days, Daphne was lost in happy thoughts.
No matter how grueling palace life was, it didn't matter. As long as Asherad cherished her and kept her by his side, that was enough.
The man was so upright and handsome that just thinking of him made her heart race.
"You. Come here."
Daphne turned at the voice. She flinched when she saw who it was.
It was Olga, one of Asherad's personal ladies-in-waiting. The fallen baron's wife, she'd been close with Asherad's late wet nurse, or so the rumors went.
Olga.
Trembling in fear, Daphne hesitated. This woman only ever did one thing...
"Grab her!"
Daphne startled and struggled, but the maids of the Crown Prince's Palace seized her.
"Wh-what! Eek!"
Daphne flailed in shock, but her mouth was covered. Dragged roughly by the maids' arms, she was soon thrown into a dark room.
"What is this!"
"Strip her."
"Eek—!"
The maids grabbed her arms and lunged to tear off her clothes. Daphne thrashed and screamed, but a cloth was stuffed in her mouth, turning her cries into muffled animal whimpers.
Nude and forced into a humiliating pose, she squeezed her eyes shut the moment she saw Olga's gleaming eyes staring between her legs.
It was like appraising livestock before slaughter. Olga inspected Daphne's smooth skin, checking for any marks of a man's touch.
"Put this on!"
Clothes flew at Daphne as she shuddered in shame. Too furious to even snap, she snatched them to cover herself.
Olga sighed.
"Well, His Highness wouldn't touch trash like you anyway."
Daphne gritted her teeth.
"If you'd... if you'd just asked me! It would've been fine if you'd asked!"
A sharp slap rang out, stars bursting in her vision.
"No one's ever told the truth when I asked!"
Olga's main duty was to monitor and weed out women approaching the Crown Prince. But the rumor-deaf Daphne had never imagined such a humiliating method.
"Don't harbor wicked thoughts toward His Highness the Crown Prince. Especially not a seductress's daughter like you!"
It was less advice than a scornful warning. As if she was someone unworthy to even dream of. Daphne knew that all too well.
"Foreign guests will arrive soon."
"..."
"Candidates for Crown Princess."
Daphne fell silent. Olga smirked bitterly at the sight, as if she knew exactly what thoughts Daphne harbored.
"If you ever sleep with His Highness, I'll kill you."
Tears plopped from Daphne's eyes.
* * *
Daphne wept alone. No matter how tightly she clutched her clothes, the shame of being forcibly stripped and ogled wouldn't fade.
If they'd just called her lowly and told her to stay away, she would've understood. Because she truly was lowly.
Daphne wiped her streaming tears.
"What's that noise..."
Huddled in the corner crying, she stood as a patrolling knight caught her. Biting her lip, she glared at him.
Tears rolled down. The red-haired knight looked at her curiously.
"Miss."
"..."
"Miss. Are you in some kind of trouble...?"
At the kind knight's words, Daphne desperately shook her head.
Her rabbit-like eyes, brimming with tears, fixed on him. The knight stared, mesmerized, at the girl's face trembling with humiliation.
Daphne bit her lip. She'd thought no one would come. Why a knight, of all people? She bolted from the spot.
"Fabian! You said you sensed something!"
Fabian turned at the voice.
"Owen, that girl running off—is she a maid?"
"Ah... That one's the seductress's daughter."
"The seductress's daughter?"
"Yeah, His Majesty's concubine."
"Oh... So she's the girl who pretended to be His Imperial Majesty's daughter?"
Owen nodded.
"Watch out. His Majesty and His Highness the Crown Prince both despise her."
"...Poor thing."
Fabian muttered softly. Hearing it, Owen warned him.
"Fabian, don't get any funny ideas."
"Hm?"
"You can't cause trouble for Count Rocania, who got you placed here."
At Owen's caution, Fabian curled his lip.
"Right. Got to show my loyalty."
Fabian chuckled. His eyes stayed glued to the corridor where she'd fled.
"But she's pretty, that girl."