Chapter 11
Karl Lago tightened his grip with a crushing force.
“Euk.”
She tried twisting her arm this way and that, but the undeniable difference in strength, offering no escape, ratcheted up the tension.
Still, her direction had clearly been correct.
He wasn’t angry.
On the contrary, he seemed immensely pleased.
“Win? The fight hasn’t even started yet.”
He moved her captured wrist down between his legs.
Their hands lifted the peach-colored Rosa and slid between her legs.
“H-heuk…!”
The moment his fingertips touched her most intimate part, her breath grew rough and the density of the sexual tension heightened.
Lewd sounds followed the movement of his hand.
“Mmm…”
Beads of sweat formed on her nearly bare chest, but Siara continued her visual duel with him with cool elegance.
She was haughty, only her heart, tense with unfamiliar excitement, thumping rapidly.
The moment sparks flew from their locked gazes, he drew his face close as if pulled.
She thought he would kiss her, of course…
But no.
He stiffened, stopping short, and did not press his lips to hers.
She quickly realized he avoided kissing above all else.
He had probably never kissed any woman with these lips.
“Even now, you’re scheming, trying to figure out how to control me.”
“Ah, Euk!”
Unable to resist his gestures, she trembled, but Siara did not look away from him.
Instead, panting, she provocatively challenged him.
“That’s right. I’m going to climb on top of you.”
“If you can.”
Karl Lago growled and moved his body.
“Try it.”
“H… Uuuuuk!”
Siara gritted her teeth, barely suppressing a moan.
This wasn’t a relationship between a man and a woman with affection.
It wasn’t even lovemaking shared through bodies.
It was merely a token of simple conquest—’you are mine.’
This was exactly what she wanted.
Because Karl Lago, too, must equally become Kasha’s.
Since she now held the most intimate part of this man, he was now her man.
Thinking that, her heart raced and desire surged towards his solid chest, broad back, and powerfully built physique.
As her eyes glowed vividly with desire for him, Karl Lago raised the corner of his mouth in a smile and began to make way.
At first, very slowly.
His movements were careful, as if trying not to hurt her.
Her lower abdomen ached with an unfamiliar pain, but Siara openly and unabashedly displayed her reactions.
If this was just a stamp of simple conquest for Karl Lago, then she would, in turn, conquer this man.
With sweet moans.
With skin that seemed like it could melt him.
With eyes so captivating they could tempt even the gods, driving men mad.
Karl Lago unconsciously brought the tip of his nose close as if to kiss her, but he braced himself with one arm pressed firmly into the bed cushion and came no closer.
So Siala raised her arms above her head, gripping the soft pillow tightly, and endured, turning her head to the side to press her red lips against her own pale arm, panting.
“Haa…”
She deliberately let out ragged breaths, taunting him.
If she could claim this man’s lips tonight, even for a brief moment—lips that had likely never kissed any woman—it would be her victory.
As if he sensed her thought, Karl Lago’s movements grew rougher.
“Keuk!”
Growing impatient, Karl Lago buried his lips in the nape of her neck, inhaling her lewd scent, then dragged his tongue slowly up the soft skin of her throat.
With his right arm, he lifted her slender waist and held her; each time their sweat-slicked skin stuck and pulled apart, she could feel his heart beating wildly.
His heart, once cold as ice, was now pounding thump-thump against her chest.
Creak. Squeak. Creak.
The bed shook, the curtains swaying.
Their bodies heaved as violently as their increasingly ragged breaths.
Tangled together as one, like animals caught in a trap, like wolves fighting with no way out, they clutched at each other frantically, gasping for air.
“Ah!”
Siara held her breath at the thrilling shudder, then ran her moist tongue over her heated lips.
The moment her tongue brushed against their almost-touching lips, Karl Lago shuddered fiercely.
“Damn it.”
It was a grunt declaring defeat.
His sweat-slicked body trembled, and then, as if he could no longer resist, he fiercely pressed his lips against hers.
Kasha, utterly exhausted, lay asleep as if unconscious.
Her face within the dishevelled hair was flushed red, and her white skin was blooming with dark, faint kiss marks, like manifestations of Karl Lago’s desire.
For the past four days, except when eating and sleeping, he had held her incessantly, yet his desire for this woman was far from satisfied.
On the contrary, carnal lust boiled up without rest.
Like a mountain engulfed in wildfire with no way to extinguish it.
Like an unbearable thirst craving water.
He was madly obsessed, lost in this body.
It wasn’t simply because Kasha was beautiful.
She constantly provoked and stimulated him.
Kasha’s moans, sharp cries, body temperature, even her small tremors became triggers for his lust, making him feel he would go mad if he didn’t hold her.
Especially her eyes.
He brushed the hair away from the sleeping Kasha’s eyes.
Just seeing her pupils staring directly at him made his possessiveness surge.
No.
It had started when he saw her throwing off her dirty rags and running beside his carriage.
The moment he saw her long black hair flowing in the wind and those mesmerizing eyes staring straight ahead.
The desire to possess her had surged then.
That day, Kasha had stood blocking the Imperial Prince’s procession, as if defying him, as if challenging him to possess her.
Even though women were meant to be chosen, not to choose.
He had never even imagined a woman like this could exist.
“Mmm.”
Kasha slightly furrowed her brow, let out a weak moan as if her whole body ached, and slowly opened her eyes.
They were beautiful eyes, clear and cold like winter water, capable of bewitching a person in an instant.
Remembering that she could have stared at Aksos with these eyes, a deep displeasure rose within him, and strength gathered in his lower abdomen as his lust surged again.
Karl Lago immediately covered her body with his own.
“Uuuuk!”
As her sensitized insides were stimulated, Kasha twisted her waist and let out a moan.
A dizzying thrill of pleasure made his shoulders shudder, and he held her, pressing her into the bed as if burying her.
A man who lost a fight died, but a woman could survive and change husbands many times.
Therefore, as long as he did not die, Kasha was his.
From her first night to her last, Kasha belonged solely to Karl Lago.
Karl Lago clasped a betrothal bracelet around her left wrist.
It was the official token marking her as his concubine.
Siara savored the weight of the solid pure gold, turning her wrist this way and that.
It was an astonishingly beautiful golden bracelet, engraved with a swirling typhoon pattern and set with a single unusual black gemstone like a demon’s eye.
Receiving the bracelet unexpectedly made her heart race, and she carefully traced each intricately crafted pattern.
She never thought he would give her a bracelet so soon…
Moreover, the fact that he had prepared the bracelet before summoning her to his bedchamber pleased her.
Could it be that making this bracelet took time, which was why he hadn’t called for her for a week?
No. Probably not.
Unless there was some hidden motive.
It was unlikely this mad prince had been so captivated by her at first sight that he prepared a bracelet.
Still, receiving the bracelet itself was a immense relief.
For the first time since the day her father, brother, younger brother, and uncles were killed, and her mother and sister were taken away, she had a fence.
Regardless of Karl Lago’s thoughts, she had finally become a woman under a man’s protection.
This was truly important, the very thing she had most desired.
This bracelet was a clear token that ‘Kasha’ was ‘Karl Lago’s woman,’ a woman he was obligated to protect and who was a credit to his honor.
Just as people dared not treat him, the Emperor’s son, disrespectfully, they would surely respect Kasha, the Prince’s woman.
Siara clasped an identical bracelet, differing only in size, onto his left wrist.
Putting the bracelet on his crippled left hand wasn’t easy, but the moment the two bracelets clinked lightly together, an unexpected flutter made her heart pound.
Simultaneously, possessiveness burned within her.
His first woman.
Her first man.
Karl Lago must wear this bracelet even when he entered his grave.
No matter how many beauties he might possess in the future, the owner of his first bracelet was unconditionally ‘Kasha.’
As if thinking the same, Karl Lago lifted her left hand.
He caressed the hollow of her palm with his thumb, then sensually stroked the arm bearing the bracelet.
Thud.
He laid her down lightly on the bed, pinned both her hands above her head, and held them firmly with just one of his.
“Feels quite good. Giving a woman a bracelet… it unexpectedly satisfies a sense of possession.”
He said with satisfaction, fiddling with Siara’s bracelet.
It was true.
Being with a man wearing the same bracelet intensely heightened her psychological satisfaction, feeling entirely novel.
When their abdomens pressed together, his breath instantly grew rough.
This man’s lust knew no bottom.
It blazed fiercely like flames, seeming to die down only to revive unexpectedly and sweep over her like a storm.
“You need jewels to adorn this beautiful body.”
He lifted her into his arms in one swift motion and continued through gritted teeth.
“I’ll give you so many jewels, you’ll be weighed down by them.”
“They’ve arrived! They’ve arrived!”
“Gifts for Lady Kasha have arrived from His Highness Karl Lago’s palace!”
The door swung open, and maids carried in countless large boxes.
Siara looked down at the large and small boxes being piled up around the long couch.
The three maids were terribly excited.
Normally, they would startle like chicks spotting a hawk if Nishta so much as glanced at them, but now, even under Nishta’s direct stare, they were boisterous and chattered excitedly.
“I wonder what he sent? Even in the rear palace, I’ve never seen such a quantity of gifts.”
As she lowered the leg she had been resting on the couch, one maid quickly snatched up a peony-patterned box, ran over, and opened the lid in front of her.
“See!”
Siara was startled, her eyes widening.
[I’ll give you so many jewels, you’ll be weighed down by them.]
He had said that…
She held her breath looking at the dazzling jewels.
Carefully picking up a heavy necklace set with colorful gems, the long, ornate piece shimmered brilliantly.
Meanwhile, the maids, more excited than she was, flung open the lids of the boxes.
Each box was filled with expensive accessories, jeweled hairpins, bracelets for the right hand, belts, hundreds of bolts of silk, and cases of silver and gold cosmetics.
“Even the gifts from the Emperor on the first night are just two or three sets of jewelry and maybe a dozen bolts of silk for a Rosa… but this much…”
“How happy you must be! To be loved so much, you must be so fortunate!”
The maids’ faces were flushed, their voices high-pitched with excitement and envy.
Hearing that, her heart raced for a moment, but these gifts were certainly not given because Karl Lago loved her.
It was more accurate to say they were items given for her to wear befitting her status as the Prince’s woman.
Still, she was happy, that was true.
Such an immense amount of jewelry.
It was truly a mountain of treasure. Siara Asra was now the richest person on the plains.
Siara picked up a pair of diamond earrings sparkling like dewdrops and held them to her earlobes.
Pretty.
Turning her head to look in the mirror…
The woman who had walked the winter plains clutching a desperate hope sat there elegantly, having won her first gamble, adorning the bracelet on her left wrist.
