The Lord Of Sinal (11)

“I’ve dreamed of you for a long time. In my imagination you were a fierce, terrifying beast; a terrifying, ruthless beast who gives his heart to no one. The rumors were so strong, please understand.”

Kaiston smiled bitterly. The rumors about him spread across the Isles seemed to have been worse than he imagined.

“I walked right into the den of such a terrifying beast myself?”

Holding Liris’s slender shoulders with one arm, Kaiston loosened the bow at the front of her pale violet nightgown.

“I was arrogant. I thought only I could thaw your heart. My father said it so many times… that you were my match.”

She hadn’t been raised like a greenhouse flower. She’d lived a rather hard and fierce life. All the more, she had dreamed of a fairy-tale. At least in her imagination, she wanted that.

“I wanted you to be the kind of fool who wanted and wished only for me, blindly. But you are far more than I expected…”

A moan mixed into her words as his lips descended on her exposed breast, but Kaiston listened without missing a single word.

“You’re far greater… and that scares me. Compared to you I’m a child, immature, not good at anything.”

A thin sigh escaped. Her self-esteem, worn down again and again during the time with him, hit rock bottom. The guardian of the Grand Domain Sinal. The object of blind devotion from countless knights. A noble man, wise and strong, with the dignity of royalty in every fiber.

“You still don’t know your own worth… I didn’t know until I saw you myself. No one in the Isles could imagine it.”

Kaiston laughed softly.

“Does that matter?”

He lifted his head and looked into Liris’s clouded amber eyes. His captivating violet eyes softened. Liris’s heart pounded wildly, asserting itself.

“There is nothing a man and a woman need to love one another.”

Ridiculously, his single sentence made everything she thought important feel trivial, as if under a mind-control spell. She was completely captivated.

He kissed her again. This time it wasn’t a light kiss. Like a portent of what was to come, it was fiery and so intense it stole all her senses.

His hand gripped her breast and, slipping the pale peak between his fingers and twisting, her arm that had been bracing the desk trembled. Just being caressed there made her whole body contort and her thighs grow wet. When his long kiss ended and his breath left, she missed it. He lightly kissed the tip of her nose, her forehead, as she caught her breath.

His hand slid down from her breast, slowly stroking each rib, the hollow of her lower belly, her slender flank and pelvic bone.

“Liris.”

Wherever his touch, warm to the point of heat, landed, a thrilling warmth rose.

“Or… should I call you Liriana the Crown Princess?”

His low, gentle voice calling her name alone made Liris feel faint.

“You’ve succeeded. You’ve already captured me completely.”

He simply removed her underwear, ruined and soaked with their joined fluids. His hand parted her thighs and revealed the layered petals glistening with sweet moisture.

“Ahh, uh, yes…”

His tongue probed that sweet place and his lips sucked. His thumb gently stimulated the hidden jewel between her petals, and her body kept twisting. How deep would he go? The intense pleasure even birthed fear. She felt like she might truly lose herself.

“Hngh… uhn…”

The slurping and wet sounds buzzed in her ears. When his tongue long-licked up the parted slit of her petals, Liris trembled all over and reached the first climax of the night.

The ecstasy that began past midnight in the duke’s study continued without end when they returned to their bedroom—in the bathtub, and then again on the bed.

Kaiston watched Liris moan in exhaustion and gently tapped the bridge of her nose.

“You didn’t properly eat dinner, did you?”

Perhaps, but would she be this tired simply from missing one meal? Liris pouted in indignation.

“It’s all your fault.”

Not eating properly was his fault, the dizzying misunderstandings in her head were his fault, and being exhausted from taking all the pleasure he gave was his fault. Kaiston didn’t precisely deny her words. After all, surviving him, who was always exceptional at using his body, was an achievement.

“I’m pleased. You’re saying it’s all because of me.”

Liris blinked and looked up at his unexpected reaction to her blame.

“…Pleased?”

Kaiston snorted a laugh.

“Yes. I want your crying and your laughing to both be because of me. I want you to think of me all day long.”

Look only at me, hear only my voice, think only of me, and give yourself only to me.

“I’m insane, aren’t I.”

Liris blushed as she watched him murmur. The sincerity he sometimes revealed was startlingly deep and dark. Yet she didn’t dislike it. She was already deeply in love.

“Now sleep. I’ll stay by your side until you fall asleep.”

“And you?”

Kaiston only smiled without answering. If he said his body wasn’t sated, he’d look a proper madman. But he wouldn’t be satisfied unless he swung his sword enough to make the broad training ground tremble for at least three or four hours. In the Red Moon he could go out with Aaron anywhere, but in Sinal it was only possible before the knights began their dawn drills.

Liris closed her eyes at his soothing touch.

“You too…”

Liris spoke with her eyes closed.

“Do you love me too?”

Kaiston thought quietly.

‘Love. Love, huh.’

He didn’t really know what love was. This was his first time courting a woman, the first time he’d let someone stay by his side, the first time he’d given body and heart.

But if this isn’t love—if something that heats the body like a fever, makes one ache, makes one weep and laugh—if that’s not love. If this wretched feeling that keeps bending his blade-like resentment toward her father simply because he’s her father isn’t love.

Kaiston smiled bitterly. If he didn’t know at his age, he must be an idiot.

“Yes.”

It took him a while to answer so Liris couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep, but he confessed in a low voice.

“I love you, Liris.”

The soft word felt strange coming from his mouth, so Kaiston raised his eyes. Pure white moonlight poured through the tall window and scattered coldly over the bed they shared, accompanying his difficult confession of love.

Although he had been busy finishing his duties as duke up until just before the banquet day, Kaiston appeared in excellent condition. He smiled several times a day, a rare sight even once or twice a year, which astonished his retainers and subordinates.

What was surprising was that Liris was the same. Seeing him show not a shred of worry despite the large matter ahead reassured her. He smiled more often with her, hugged her at every chance, and occasionally told her he loved her.

No matter what he felt inside, he looked happy. Liris trusted him as he appeared.

The New Year arrived, and along with it the banquet day. Though the banquet started in the early evening, Sinal Castle had been bustling since morning. Guests who had already arrived at nearby noble houses or villas by the Haran River would begin to enter the main Sinal estate as the afternoon progressed. With no guests personally close to the duke, the guest pavilions inside Sinal Castle were quiet—a relief, since their master lacked the energy for entertaining.

Kaiston summoned the maids to help dress the Crown Princess. The top-grade magic bag sent by the Emperor contained dresses, jewelry, and beauty tools like the cosmetics she used. He wanted to throw away everything the Emperor had sent and buy new things himself, but Sinal rarely hosted social gatherings and had no exceptional tailor, the dress was unavoidable.

Aside from Kaiston witnessing the maids tighten the corset so she could hardly breathe and ripping it off to fling it aside, preparations went smoothly. She’d expected to have gained weight, but surprisingly the dress fit well. Liris thought perhaps the married-women’s saying that ‘sex is good for dieting’ might be true.

After dressing, Liris stood before the mirror and was quite surprised. She felt that a woman in love became this beautiful. She realized her past self had been nothing more than a doll prettied up.

Liris thought Kaiston would also be very pleased to see her like this. But he was now radiating a grim aura as he stared at her back. Having to reveal the precious woman he’d wanted to keep to himself stirred a dark desire in him to annihilate everything breathing around them.

But when Liris turned to face him, he hid all negative emotions and greeted her with exactly the expression she had hoped for.

“You’re so beautiful I might go blind.”

He meant it, except for the wish that other men’s eyes would go blind before they could look at her.

“Hehe, thank you.”

Liris smiled with joy. Kaiston placed a luxurious, velvet-clad gift box on the table.

“What is that?”

“A wedding gift.”

Hearing that, Liris realized the box contained the accessories he’d ordered recently. When she opened it, beautiful pieces studded with violet-hued gems, ones that made her think of him at a glance, displayed themselves. She knew and owned most of the precious gems of the continent, but she couldn’t guess what these were. She could sense an alien aura, one only a holder of sacred power could detect. Ordinary people would find it hard to notice.

Kaiston placed a tiara on her head. The beautiful diadem, one a Crown Princess could wear, shone dazzlingly against her platinum hair. As a design personally chosen by the lady who reigned at the pinnacle of society, it was flawless. He draped the matching necklace over her long, slender neck, and only the ring remained. The ring was not in the box.

He knelt on one knee before her.

“Crown Princess Liriana.”

He kissed the back of her left hand. Liris trembled so much she felt she might suffocate.

“From now on, the owner of my heart will be only you, forever.”

His violet eyes held only her.

“Will you become mine as well?”