Pherenike Episode 10
Perhaps he had even thought it would be better to die. He was quite the princely boy.
In any case, it had been a resolute refusal, but Pherenike, unable to withstand the sudden shock, had fainted right before his eyes.
After that, whenever Deucalion was being healed, he behaved like someone whose mouth had been gagged and whose limbs had been bound.
It did not matter what they had been doing or what he had been saying just before. Deucalion could not hurt her in the slightest.
Hiding the pain that had suddenly come to her stomach, Pherenike deliberately said in a flat voice,
“It’ll be over soon.”
“I know.”
Unlike his blazing eyes, Deucalion’s reply was flat as well.
She forced herself to ignore those eyes and, in order to suppress the pain, silently recited the language of the goddess inside her mouth. All at once, the tip of her tongue grew hot, as though it had been burned by fire.
Suddenly, she realized that none of this was the same as before. Something was strange.
Even though she had pierced through the Orthea restraint, the healing was slower than before, and most of the Althea she poured into him flowed like water down to their feet.
Surely, it was almost done.
Yet her Althea could not place the final mark on that simple act, wandering aimlessly through his body instead. Pherenike breathed hard in agitation.
Deucalion let out a sigh.
“It’s done, so stop now, Pherenike.”
“Just a little more.”
“Never has it been as dreadful as it is now that I can’t push you away with my own hands.”
With a cynical expression, he only looked gloomily at his lover’s hand.
That the healing was finished was only his claim. The reason Deucalion could not push her away of his own will was because there was still pain left in him. Because that pain could be transferred to her.
He did not know nothing of pain. He merely always ignored it. A son who had earned his father’s hatred in a royal house had to grow up that way as a matter of course.
“……Pherenike, damn it, you’re breaking out in a cold sweat.”
“Mm.”
“Is it because of the restraint?”
It was a condition even she had no way to explain. So Pherenike roughly let it be that and nodded. Then she stubbornly finished the healing to the very end.
At the last, nine-tenths of the Althea she sent out scattered uselessly at his feet. She was utterly exhausted.
Even so, she wanted to see his body clean, without so much as a single small scratch. Call it obsession and spite, if one wished.
From him, she always wanted to see life. She wanted to see only the perfect opposite of everything she had seen on the day they died.
If possible, she wanted to lock him away like this forever. Deucalion would probably be driven mad with horror at such a state.
Even so, if only he could be safe.
Perhaps the deal she had made with Aktor was no different from that. No matter how dreadful Deucalion found that bargain.
She simply wanted his wholeness, madly.
“Damn it, fix that accursed stubbornness of yours.”
“Mm.”
No sooner had Pherenike’s hand fallen away than Deucalion, as if he had been waiting, wrapped one arm around her waist and lifted her up.
“You answer so well, and yet.”
Suspended in the air, she wrapped her arms around his neck as though on impulse. He kissed her as if by habit. Deucalion’s silver hair spilled over her. His tongue slanted into her mouth.
It was quite irritable, but tender. Tender, but also retaliation. Everything was clumsier than the Deucalion she remembered. That clumsiness made Pherenike feel a little sorrowful.
Deucalion at this time was a man who thought the most indecent act in the world was no more than a kiss. Even as he held her whole body in his arms and kissed her tenderly all night, he had never once dared think of lifting the hem of her clothes.
Now, several years had already passed since they had reached the age of adulthood at sixteen. If not for her forced betrothal to Aktor, they would have been wed in the year they came of age, just as first promised.
As his royal mother and her father had promised long ago.
Had that happened, he and she would already have been more than old enough to become parents.
But they only married and spent their first night together in the land of strangers far, far in the future. They had always longed for each other, but not once had they crossed the line.
As though better days than the present were waiting for them. As though waiting for some perfect time.
But there had been no such days. Not until they died.
All of it had been foolish. Every promise of a next time had been in vain.
Even then, on that night beyond the Paliuron Mountains, when Deucalion set out for Lyke, he had promised only a few days later.
The few days he had promised her then would now never pass for all eternity.
It seemed all sweet things in life existed only to leave a bitter taste in the end. Happiness taught one misfortune. Love was the seed of tears.
Pherenike embraced him tightly. She bit his lower lip, making him open his mouth again, and pushed inside. She stirred through every part of his mouth. Before long, her breath grew short.
Deucalion keenly noticed that breath and pulled away, but she held on to him tenaciously. His steps, which had stopped in the middle of the room, moved irritably toward the bed.
A sudden, burning thirst rose within her. She wanted to see him. Deucalion as Deucalion, even while knowing that he was not the man who had thrust into her countless times.
She wanted to draw out and look upon the face of the man she had loved most, that moment. She wanted to be crushed beneath her husband’s entire body. Pherenike laughed at herself. Well, she did not want to give her first time to Aktor either.
If Deucalion knew these thoughts of hers, he would surely despise her. It would be as if the woman he treasured most in the world were saying lightly that, before she soon gave her body to another man, she wanted to sleep with him at least once.
His rough breath scattered at her lips. A long chain scraped against the marble as it followed them.
She fell onto the bed.
“I waited quietly. Your answer?”
“…….”
“You said you would tell me.”
Pherenike lay loosely on the bed and looked up at the impatient face of the man climbing over her.
He wanted her, but there was no sign that he was seized by lust. Deucalion was merely blocking her path of retreat.
A cold hand brushed gently over her cheek.
“Aktor Nikandros does not want a few desperate words from you.”
“…….”
“He wants you, Pherenike.”
It was the first time he had mentioned Aktor’s true intentions in any form. It seemed her husband had known long ago what she had learned only when it was time to die.
She quietly looked into his eyes. The eyes that had shone transparently like peridot beneath the sunlight were like moss in the shade.
“I hated even the thought of you knowing that feeling, so I didn’t tell you. As if it didn’t even exist in this world, I let you mistakenly believe that bastard didn’t want you.”
“You should have kept it that way.”
She answered indifferently. Deucalion clenched his teeth as if forcing down his anger.
“But he wants you.”
“…….”
“Don’t take Aktor’s hand. Don’t let me become that damned pretext.”
“Do you.”
“…….”
“Do you not want me?”
For a moment, he looked down at her with a rather dumbfounded expression.
But Pherenike could not bring herself to show any interest whatsoever in Aktor’s feelings. Before they became a tool for her, she did not feel they were worth even a passing thought. Like some object that made no difference whether it was in her grasp or not.
Aside from the thought that she wanted to kill Aktor Nikandros, what thought could she attach to that hateful name?
Feelings. Had there ever been anything that could be called feelings in the first place? Aktor had merely wanted to seize her body.
He had wanted her without caring that she loved another man. He had bought a woman with his brother’s life.
“I don’t care what that man wants.”
“You owe him a debt in your own name. How do you know what he’ll want from you!”
“I truly don’t care. I only have to give him whatever it is.”
For an instant, Deucalion’s eyes went black and dead. She raised her hand and tenderly stroked Deucalion’s face.
“Because you lived this way.”
“……You’ve already given it, haven’t you?”
“He proposed.”
“Pherenike.”
“I accepted.”
He now looked as though he wanted to scream. Or perhaps as though he wanted to strangle her.