Chapter 118
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 118
Barkas’s pupils flared, the silver-gray flecks within his blue irises trembling with sudden agitation. However, that trace of shock lasted only a fraction of a second.
Regaining his stony composure instantly, Barkas stared her down, his eyes flickering with a chilling blue light. A parched voice, laced with a hollow, mocking laugh, finally broke the silence.
“Do you even understand the weight of what you’re saying?”
“Do you take me for a fool?”
Thalia maintained an arrogant facade despite the paralyzing tension that made her knees weak. She refused—absolutely, positively refused—to look like she was begging.
“I’m saying I intend to sleep with you.”
“……”
“Why? Do I need to be more blunt?”
As she tilted her chin up and shot him a provocative look, the mockery lingering at the corners of his mouth vanished. He uncrossed his arms and began to slowly approach her.
“You’re going to sleep with me?”
The heavy bass of his voice vibrated against the crown of her head, sending a sharp chill down her spine. Thalia forced strength into her neck, resisting the instinctive urge to shrink back. Barkas looked down at her without a single tremor. He reached out, gripping her chin and pressing his thumb firmly against her lower lip.
“Is that why you came here looking like this?”
She felt the sticky rouge smear across her mouth. Flushed with heat, Thalia sharply struck his hand away. A faint, derisive smile played on Barkas’s lips.
“You’re horrified by this much contact, yet you think you can handle the rest?”
“That’s only because you’re always touching me so suddenly…!”
Thalia, retorting with a flustered face, abruptly clamped her mouth shut. She couldn’t let herself be swept away by this man’s pace.
“Why are you talking so much? I’m telling you I’ll do it!”
The corners of Barkas’s mouth twisted subtly. “If you say you’ll do it, am I just supposed to follow blindly?”
His reaction was sharper than she had anticipated, causing a wave of heat to rise to her neck. Swallowing her humiliation, she glared at him with fierce, unyielding eyes.
“Yes.”
“……”
“You have to do as I demand.”
His sharply defined eyes narrowed. His reaction wasn’t so much one of displeasure as it was sheer, utter disbelief.
Thalia forced strength into her stiff legs and stood up. She stepped directly into his space, tilting her head back provocatively until they were nose-to-nose.
“You are now the head of House Sieorkan, and you have an obligation to produce an heir. This is simply what is expected of you as a married man.”
“I didn’t realize you’d suddenly become so burdened by a sense of duty.” A bitter, cold laugh brushed his lips. “So, what you’re saying is, you’ll sacrifice your body for me and my family? Is that it?”
Thalia looked up at him, her face rigid.
She had expected him to be reluctant, but she hadn’t expected him to be so overtly sarcastic. Hadn’t this man been disconcertingly gentle with her since they married? Perhaps he simply loathed the idea of sleeping with her that much.
Thalia swallowed her shame and snapped back coldly.
“How much longer do you think we can maintain this farce? The fact that we aren’t a real couple will be discovered soon, and I’ll become an even bigger laughingstock than I already am. If you go too long without an heir, your vassals won’t stay quiet either.”
Thalia, speaking in a rapid-fire burst, let out a sharp, jagged laugh. “Or is that what you’re hoping for?”
Barkas’s handsome jawline tightened visibly. Ignoring the warning glint in his eyes, Thalia continued mockingly.
“If you just hold out for a few more years, people will be clamoring from all sides for you to dissolve the marriage and bring in a new Grand Duchess. Even His Majesty the Emperor will likely grant the divorce, pretending his hand was forced. Perhaps you interfered with my sister’s marriage because you intended to remarry Aila then—”
“Know your limits.”
His voice, honed to a razor edge, scraped harshly against her. Leaning in close, the man spoke with a low, threatening rumble.
“There is a limit to how much I will stand here and listen to.”
Thalia knew she was stepping over a line she shouldn’t cross. But she couldn’t back down now. She fixed him with a gaze like a needle and raised her voice.
“If that’s not it, then do as I demand! You don’t have free will anyway, do you? You’re nothing more than a puppet moving according to duty.”
“And aren’t you just the Empress’s puppet?” Barkas countered mockingly.
Thalia felt the blood drain from her face. Looking down at her pale, ashen expression, Barkas added coldly, “I don’t know what that woman coaxed you with, but I have no intention of acting as your breeding stallion.”
With that, he straightened his posture and picked up the coat he had set aside.
“Your Highness should use this room tonight.”
Thalia watched him walk toward the door with vacant, hollow eyes. A chill washed over her as if she had been doused with ice water. Trembling with humiliation, Thalia chased after him with a limping gait.
She grabbed the fabric covering his broad back and pulled violently. She felt his large, muscular frame go rigid. She pushed against him with all her might, but his body was like an unyielding fortress. As she shoved him again in a burst of pure resentment, Barkas grabbed her shoulders.
A groan escaped her lips at his crushing grip. Hearing the sound, the man flinched and withdrew his hands. Thalia didn’t miss the opening; she charged into his iron-like chest. Finally, his solid frame tilted backward.
Thalia knocked him down and straddled his waist. Her breath, ragged from the struggle, scraped her throat like sandpaper. Exhaling hot, heavy breaths, her chest heaving, Thalia glared down at him with eyes like fire.
“You must not defy me.”
The man’s beautiful face distorted slightly. She spat the words at him as if coughing up blood.
“You said you’d do everything I asked. You said you’d do everything in your power!”
The hand he had raised to push her away froze in mid-air. Thalia gripped the front of his shirt and pulled it forcefully. The tremors shaking her body grew more intense. She tried her best not to plead, but her voice was thick with unshed tears.
Thalia forced strength into her trembling jaw and shouted desperately, “Keep your word!”
Following that ringing cry, a storm-like silence descended upon the room. Thalia couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye anymore. She lowered her forehead onto his chest, feeling it rise and fall in a slow, steady rhythm. A bead of sweat rolled down her temple, lingered near her eye, and then dropped onto his shirt.
As she stared blankly at the damp spot, a firm finger touched the tip of her chin. Her head was lifted, and her blurred vision was filled with his face. He wore an inscrutable expression. Before she could grasp its meaning, her shoulders were gently pushed back.
“……I understand.”
Barkas sat up, his voice thick and low. Thalia met his gaze with trembling eyes. She could see his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. After a long pause, he spoke again.
“I will do as Your Highness wishes.”
Even though she had finally gotten the answer she wanted, her trembling only grew more violent. Thalia wrapped her arms around herself, her fingers twitching. Then, his voice, condensed and firm, pierced her ears again.
“But not tonight.”
She snapped her head up to glare at him.
Barkas continued urgently, “It hasn’t even been a few weeks since you collapsed coughing up blood. Once your health has sufficiently recovered……”
“My body is fine!” Thalia shouted harshly. “I will do it when I decide. And that is today. Right now.”
She felt his entire body go rigid. Was he feeling resentment toward her for acting like a tyrant? It didn’t matter. If she backed down now, she would never be able to find this kind of resolve again. Once this madness-like impulse cooled, she would lock herself back inside her own walls.
It had to be this moment, while she still held every last ounce of courage she possessed.
“You cannot refuse.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Was it anger? Disillusionment? It didn’t matter.
This… this wasn’t anything like love. It wasn’t passion or desire. It was merely a struggle to survive. And because of that, she told herself, there was no need to feel miserable.