The Lady Of The Red Moon (4)

Before Liris could even ponder the meaning of Kaiston’s words, her legs were lifted again.

“……!”

Then, without time to brace herself, something heavy began to thrust in. A fierce pain surged, and her body stiffened instinctively.

He furrowed his brow faintly.

“You’d be better off relaxing your strength.”

She wanted to obey him, but the pain below was beyond imagination and her mind went blank; she could do nothing.

He looked down at the woman who squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip until it bled. Even though he had confirmed she was sufficiently wet before inserting, she was strangely in pain. The tightness inside, clamping at him like madness, felt excessive.

“Could it be… your first time?”

He muttered as if to himself, but had no intention of stopping. Only after driving deep to the very end did he give her a brief moment’s respite. She finally gasped for the breath that had nearly stopped. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead. A crack seemed to form between his brows as he looked down at her.

“S-sorry.”

“About what?”

“I… well…”

She meant to say she wasn’t good, that it was her first time, but couldn’t finish the sentence and clamped her mouth shut again. It was because she realized the words themselves sounded absurd.

“Then at least try harder from now on.”

He said it with a sneer and began to move again. To reward his slow, considerate motion, she tried hard to relax. Fortunately, the drug coursing through her dulled the pain gradually. A faint pleasure began to spread from her belly. Sensing her tensing body loosening, he started to move with more greed.

Taking possession of such an exquisitely beautiful body was far more enjoyable than he had imagined. He hooked one of her legs over his arm and plunged deeper. Their bodies fit together without a single seam.

“Ah—”

The woman couldn’t hold back a moan. He recognized it as one of pleasure, not pain. He thrust into her again. Her amber eyes, glossy with moisture, trembled mercilessly.

“Master…”

Her pitiful voice stimulated his sadism even more. He became rough with no consideration. Changing positions, he took her several times. He drove her so hard it felt cruel for a first-timer. She was too beautiful to be handled with mere restraint. Even her moans and tearful expressions were excessively arousing.

As always, Kaisten woke before dawn. He normally slept like a statue, motionless at attention, but today he lay on his side holding a woman in his arms. The sweet scent of her flesh and the soft, yielding body against him stirred his lust, but he didn’t want to break his dawn habit just because he was cradling her.

As he began to sit up, she woke as well. Her amber eyes heavy with sleep looked up at him.

“Master…”

He couldn’t help but furrow his brow a little. The woman, utterly unguarded and disheveled, was overwhelmingly erotic. He wanted to see that tearful, moaning face again, but after a quick glance at the time he shook his head to clear his thoughts and got out of bed.

“Sleep a bit more. I’ll have to go out this afternoon.”

“Yes… I will.”

Already very drowsy, she had fallen back into a deep sleep by the time he finished getting ready and left the room. Even though it was his command, the ease with which she took up the bed suggested she was clearly not of the lowest class. Kaisten gathered his complicated thoughts and headed to the training grounds.

For over ten years, he had never skipped his dawn practice. The mana concentration in the air was strongest and clearest at this hour, making it ideal for improving his skills, and he liked this quiet, solitary time when no one else was awake.

He drew his sword, Pluto, a long-time comrade in battle, from its sheath. The famed blade slid out soundlessly with a perfect draw and seemed to shimmer. Like him, the sword favored this hour—the border time just before the queen of night recedes, when the darkness spits out its deepest black.

The arcane swordsmanship, passed down only to his direct line and honed in life-or-death combat, unfolded as his personal style. At first, slow and weighty, focusing on the flow of mana, the techniques gradually accelerated. Imagining the most extreme situations, he cut down countless phantom foes, scattering a cruelly bright edge with each precise strike.

Whoooosh—!

The air around him tore and surged, and in an instant the vast training ground was dominated by that force.

However, when he normally wouldn’t stop until dawn, Kaisten suddenly faltered. He slowly straightened and let his sword drop. The fierce aura that had been sweeping the area gradually subsided. His violet eyes blinked slowly and then closed completely. He even let out a small groan.

Never before had stray thoughts intruded during his training, but today they clung to him like a planted seed he couldn’t shake off.

“Commander…?”

Saik, the brown-haired lieutenant who had come to the training ground a bit earlier than usual, discovered Kaisten like this.

“Saik. You’re early.”

“Yes. I couldn’t stand the curiosity.”

At Saik’s words, Kaisten opened his eyes and looked at him. He knew what his oddly excited subordinate wanted to hear, but Kaisten ignored him and sheathed Pluto. Saik fell into step as he turned away.

“Ah… Commander. Is this how you are?”

“What do you mean?”

Saik paused. The curt tone in his commander’s reply didn’t sound pleasant.

“Gasp. Surely His Majesty has sent some hideous hag?”

He hesitated. He had wanted to ignore it completely, but couldn’t let that remark go without a response.

“No.”

For some reason, or no clear reason, he replied that way.

“Then? Is she pretty? How expensive is she?”

Kaisten knitted his brows. There was no need to conjure her image again. She had occupied his thoughts all through training and remained vivid. He ground his teeth and muttered.

“Damn that bastard the Emperor.”

“Eek! Commander!”

Saik was aghast at his commander casually uttering words tantamount to treason against the royal family. Of course, there was no one out here to hear and carry it to the Emperor. And even if he did say such things before the Emperor, he knew Kaisten would face no punishment. Still, as a subordinate he should at least feign admonishment.

“Why are you like this? Is there something wrong with the ‘lady’?”

There was. A rather serious problem, indeed.

“Saik.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“How long has it been since you visited the capital?”

“About three years, sir.”

Kaisten turned to look at him. His lieutenant, an illegitimate scion of a marquis family, had earned countless merits at the fortress and long ago been accepted as a formal member of Kaisten’s house, yet for some reason he still showed no inclination to leave.

“Then have you met many women?”

“Yes?”

Saik asked back in a dazed voice, thought for a moment, then quickly nodded.

“I’ve more or less greeted the young ladies of high society at least once each, I believe.”

“Is that so?”

Kaisten hummed, looked at him anew, then turned his back and began to walk.

“Ah, Commander! Why do you ask that?”

He followed and asked, but Kaisten gave no answer. Yet his curiosity would be naturally satisfied in the afternoon.

Saik stared at the woman before him with a slightly dumbfounded look. Her dress, the rough, drab frock she’d worn yesterday, had been washed clean and put back on, and she had no makeup, yet the commander’s ‘lady’ exuded an aura that could not be treated lightly.

Her gem-like amber eyes and tiny face were unbearably lovely, and her waves of platinum hair seemed to emit a faint glow of their own.

“His Majesty the Emperor must be mad.”

Half a day later, Saik added his voice to Kaisten’s contempt for the royal family.

Kaisten sat in his office chair, frowning as he looked at Liris. After sufficient rest and a few warm meals, vitality returned to her and she managed to even surpass the shock Kaisten had felt upon first seeing her.

Saik couldn’t understand. Why would the emperor not keep such a woman for himself and instead send her to this perilous fortress? He hadn’t had the chance to meet the royal family, but having met all the famed beauties paraded by the capital’s great houses, his surprise only grew.

How could such a frail-looking woman be a slave? Was that even conceivable?