Prologue
“Remember this well. Until you conceive the royal heir, you must never kill him.”
Repeating those words to herself, Seoryeon had spent many nights with him, yet she was coming to realize that conceiving a child was far more difficult than taking a life.
Standing as if rooted in place before the king’s bedchamber doors, Seoryeon finally gave a small nod after a long while.
At last, the court attendant announced,
“Your Majesty, the Wonju (院主, the second queen) requests an audience.”
“Let her in.”
No sooner had she stepped inside than the king spoke.
“Don’t tell me you’ve come again today to beg me to hold you.”
Sensing no need to answer the mockery laced beneath his words, Seoryeon simply walked past him and sat on the edge of the bed.
As if that were answer enough, the king let out a scoff and pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against, then strode toward the bed where she sat.
Without the slightest hesitation, he shoved her down.
Seoryeon merely closed her eyes tightly and did not resist.
Even so, something seemed to displease him, for like a man thoroughly angered, he roughly stripped away her night robes.
His touch held not a shred of care. Tears threatened to well up, but Seoryeon forced them back.
Just a child. I only need a child. That’s enough.
Heat engulfed her in an instant.
Seoryeon bit down hard on her lower lip and tightly clutched the silk bedding beneath her.
During her years as an assassin, she had been cut by blades and had faced countless men in combat—yet no matter how many times she endured this act, it never grew any easier to bear.
“Open your eyes and look at me properly. Remember who I am.”
As if she were only now attempting defiance, Seoryeon sharply turned her head away.
He seized her chin, forced her face back, and pried open her lips, thrusting his tongue inside.
“Mmph!”
Her lips, crushed without mercy, finally split, and the metallic taste of blood flowed into her mouth.
As though he relished even that, he swallowed it all and swept through her mouth with his blunt tongue.
Even so, he did not stop the movement of his hips.
Accepting him as he drove into her with the ferocity of an enraged tiger was no easy task.
Each time he thrust violently forward, her exposed chest trembled enticingly. When his large hand gripped it like seizing ripe fruit, the muffled sound she had sworn never to let escape finally broke through her clenched teeth.
“Ha—”
Seoryeon hurriedly covered her mouth with the back of her hand, but as he continued to drive into her as if to pierce through her very core, neither her body nor her voice would obey her will.
She could endure the pain of being stabbed or cut as much as necessary—but the involuntary moans slipping out and this overwhelming emotion that made her want to cling to him filled her with even greater shame.
Praying only for this act to end quickly, Seoryeon bit down hard on her teeth.
“You will come to seek me again. And again after that.”
He murmured the words like an incantation.
Seoryeon looked up at him as if asking what he meant.
The king lowered a haughty gaze and whispered into her ear.
“Because today as well, I have no intention of giving you what you want.”
