2
6. The First Union
Ashelard reached out and slowly undid the sash of Daphne's dress. Daphne stood frozen like a block of wood, looking up at him.
It wasn't as if she didn't know what this meant. A man who confesses burning love and then seeks to join his body with hers. In a way, perhaps it was only natural.
But he was the crown prince. He was someone who wouldn't even touch a maid like her, deeming it 'filthy.' The gap in their status was that vast—would he really share a bed with her? Truly?
This was the greater reason Daphne had been standing there like a fool. Would this man really join his flesh with hers? Or was this nothing more than a mocking threat?
With the Emperor coveting her, would the crown prince dare to lay with her as well? Surely not. Even Daphne had thought so bitterly, in self-mockery.
But by the time she came to her senses, all the buttons were already undone and her dress had slipped silently to the floor. She stood before Ashelard in nothing but her undergarments.
Only then did it begin to feel real. She instinctively stumbled backward, the backs of her knees caught against the edge of the bed, and she sank down onto it.
Ashelard smiled at the sight. Daphne, unable to stand and flee, scrambled away on the bed while still seated.
Ashelard climbed atop her as she found herself lying in the middle of the bed without knowing how.
He had thought too lightly of this, Daphne realized as she looked at Ashelard. This man truly intended to go all the way.
Contrary to his usual elegance and languor, his hands moved with urgent haste, undoing and peeling away her undergarments. Gooseflesh rose across her bare skin.
"I love you, Daphne."
Ashelard whispered sweetly. The false illusion he presented in the moonlight was endlessly beautiful. At a glance, his whispers sounded like truth.
"So stay by my side."
"......"
"Don't run away."
The hands drawing down her drawers were achingly slow. When the cold air touched her thighs, she knew she had become utterly naked before him.
Before Daphne could make any move, Ashelard began kissing her neck. It tickled, yet clung stickily. At the feeling of her entire body standing on end, Daphne flinched.
Slowly, the hazy sense of reality returned. When she denied reality, Daphne realized she was about to join her flesh with this man.
His always affectedly gentle face was stained with madness. Yet his lips, exhaling hot breath, were excessively sensual and beautiful. As though he could bear it no longer, he pressed his mouth to Daphne's cheek, then sucked and pulled at her lips.
"Don't leave me."
Ashelard said that again. Now even Daphne was becoming confused. Fabian had said Ashelard mocked her like a dog. That Ashelard hated her.
But could that be a lie?
Had I misunderstood? Could someone speaking so earnestly with such eyes truly be lying? At his softened words, Daphne almost asked whether Fabian was safe.
"Your Highness, Fabi—. Ah!"
When his hand touched a place it should not have, Daphne twisted her waist. As she looked up at him with tear-filled eyes, Ashelard said:
"How long will you keep talking about some other mutt in front of me?"
Her breath caught at the cold anger seething beneath his smiling face. The intoxicating face Daphne had always longed for was mottled with rage and lust because of her.
Ashelard gently kneaded Daphne's exposed breasts, then brought his mouth to their peaks. When his firm tongue teased her nipples, shrill sounds began escaping Daphne's lips.
"Ah, hngh...!"
She couldn't tell him to stop. He was completely mad right now. How could the noble crown prince be sucking at her breasts while grasping them in his hands?
She thought she had to run, but Daphne had grown accustomed to resignation; it was also the best method of survival.
With the Emperor, the crown prince—everyone coveting her, if she tried to maintain a firm sense of self, it would surely shatter and crumble to pieces.
Yet there was something distinctly strange about the way he indulged in her breasts. Even as she searched for Fabian, Daphne realized she was intoxicated by the fact that Ashelard wanted her.
The jaw of the man devouring her chest came into view. He acted as if suckling at her breasts was everything. Every time his tongue's tip found its peak, her hips bucked.
No words were needed.
Ashelard simply enjoyed Daphne's body as though savoring a feast. Before long, Ashelard sank his teeth into Daphne's wrist.
The ragged breathing grew faster and faster. The moment the man pinning her down and devouring her, too, became naked, she saw the magnitude of the desire Ashelard harbored.
"Ah, Your Highness!"
It was so savage that she twisted her waist trying to slip away, but her wrists were seized. Perhaps as punishment for trying to flee, he gripped her waist and laid her down again. Between her spread knees, his fingers began to friction against her.
"Ah, hngh! Nngh!"
She tried to clench her teeth, but her parted lips leaked hot breath. Tears streamed from Daphne's eyes. It was a dizzying feeling she had never experienced in her life.
Beneath a man she had believed she would never touch, naked, shamefully, with her legs spread, she was being toyed with by his hand. Even the sounds were unbearably lewd.
And yet, at the sight of the man observing her like this without so much as a blink, Daphne felt a strange excitement.
Someone who absolutely dominated others and was never swayed by anyone had lost his reason because of her. The corners of his eyes flushed crimson, and a peach-colored blush rose over his pale face. He continued to crudely shove apart Daphne's legs as they unconsciously tried to close.
With his fingers, her vision seemed to flash white. It was shameful. Yet her body heated at his touch. The moment she tried to lose herself in it——
"Aah!"
He pushed himself into her to the hilt in one thrust. It felt like she was going mad. Ashelard, too, let out a single hot, heaving breath.
Daphne shook her head in refusal, her eyes brimming with tears. As she had heard secondhand, there was none of the pain particular to a first union. But her breath caught at the feeling of something enormous pushing relentlessly into her.
Eyes stretched wide, she stared at Ashelard as though beseeching him. He looked at her undone face with no expression at all, and began to move his hips.
"Ah, hngh! Nngh!"
Not the sweet moans of a body being pleasured—reflexive cries rang out at the piercing of an unfamiliar place. But even her changed voice sounded stimulating to him; Ashelard, drinking in her ragged breaths, lowered his body and pressed himself against her.
"Did you do this with that mutt too?"
Daphne shook her head. She had never even had a proper kiss with Fabian. Fabian had always been careful with her.
He had never destructively pried into her body and heart like this, the way Ashelard did. A tear fell.
The wet slapping sounds changed to the sound of flesh striking flesh. Her soaked, soft flesh stuck together with a sharp smack, then parted. At the unfamiliar sensation, her breath quickened of its own accord and heat rose to her face.
"Ha, nn!"
As the tension left her body, Daphne's expression changed again. The moment pleasure, hidden beneath aching pain, began creeping its head up, she instinctively twisted her body to escape Ashelard's embrace, collapsed face-down onto the bed, and quickly tried to crawl away on her knees.
"Ah, nn!"
But before she could move much further, both her arms were seized and she collapsed prone.
"Running away again?"
At the forceful thrust, Daphne drew in a sharp breath. Her lips, pressed tightly together, kept losing their strength, and her breath grew ragged to the very base of her throat.
"Ah, ah, hngh!"
Daphne gripped the bedsheets until her knuckles turned white. Stars seemed to burst before her eyes. Nothing came to mind but the pleasure dominating her in that moment.
"I won't do it again."
"......"
"Your Highness, I won't run away, I was wrong!"
Daphne looked forward and begged, half-sobbing. But instead of forgiveness, he bit her neck and shoulders again and again.
It was the mating of beasts. Daphne wept as he put his weight into her. At the unfamiliar sensation she felt between her spread legs, she twisted her waist.
She clutched the bedsheets tight. She hadn't known Ashelard would get angry like this. Truly, she hadn't imagined this would be his way of unleashing his desire on her.
Feeling his scent soaked into the bedsheets and his desire enveloping her, Daphne exhaled a hot breath.
There had been a time when she wished that if she ever gave her body to someone, it would be to that man. That wish had been granted in the cruelest form.
Sleeping with him was wretchedly intoxicating. He laid Daphne back in the proper position, and before long began licking away her tears.
At the pleasure she felt for the first time, she didn't know what to do and clutched Ashelard's arm.
Her long nails scratched his arm with a sharp rake. But Ashelard, looking down at her expressionlessly, didn't so much as furrow his brow in pain.
His body, like steel, embraced Daphne roughly. Covered in his scent on the bedsheets where he had lain, Daphne continued to receive him.
* * *
Daphne lay utterly exhausted. Ashelard sat in a chair, watching her as she lay there.
His chest was exposed through the shirt he had thrown on carelessly. The clinging sweat hadn't been wiped away, which was unpleasant, but his mood was refreshed.
The pre-dawn light made Daphne's body look all the more beautiful. Lying on her side, her eyes meeting Ashelard's, Daphne seemed lost in thought.
Her spilled blonde hair wrapped her bare body like a garment that suited her perfectly. She tried to cover herself with the sheet, but nothing could be concealed.
Her snow-white skin was covered in red marks he had made. Everything was filled with traces of him. She was a woman who had yielded to him so completely, so recklessly.
He was satisfied.
Yet even in that satisfaction, he felt a lack.
It was like hunger.
He wanted more.
He wanted the little girl who had craved only his affection since long ago—as though he were her entire world. As if the thought had just occurred to him, he rose from his seat.
"Daphne, would you like to see Sir Pond?"
Ashelard smiled brightly. Just as a sinner requires punishment, the promised reward was every bit as necessary. Though at the moment, 'punishment' and 'reward' meant exactly the same thing.
Ashelard would become Daphne's entire world. That was what Ashelard thought.
Daphne, who had been lying down, nodded weakly and lifted herself up.
Ashelard, as if he had prepared in advance, gave her a white négligée. Since she could hardly stand, he even went so far as to dress her with his own hands.
The moment her feet touched the floor, she seemed to feel dizzy and leaned against him. He chuckled softly and gathered Daphne into his arms.
Daphne, mindful of his mood, did not ask whether Fabian was all right. That was a very satisfying thing indeed.
When they left the room, there were no escort knights to be seen. He kicked open the half-open door of the next room with a light tap of his foot. Daphne's gaze fell into that room. Light refracted through the window where the dawn light poured in.
Fabian had not been far away at all.
He had been in that very next room all along.
Tap, tap—the sound of some liquid dripping onto the carpet, already soaked dark.