I couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh.
It was something he would have said a long time ago—back when he consciously focused only on humiliating and training me.
I slowly moved my lips.
A hoarse voice, rough from strain, barely escaped.
“You’re not asking me to suck… but you say you’ll do it. What are you supposed to feel, Riorem?”
“As I said before… if you want to make me uncomfortable and truly tame me as your slave… then just give me an order. Tell me to suck.”
“…Does it make sense to put this lowly thing in your lips?”
“You say strange things, Riorem.”
I reached out and smoothed his hair.
His black hair, damp with saliva and affection, fell disheveled here and there.
“I am your slave… but you’re the one who buried your mouth in a lowly woman’s legs.”
Riorem swallowed deeply.
“No, milady, you are not lowly.”
His large, rough hand trembled.
I couldn’t help but smile.
Making irrational and unreasonable choices one after another and not realizing how strange it was—his attitude was just like mine.
“Have I always been an exception in your life, Riorem?”
“If that’s so, then you love me too.”
“No.”
Riorem said firmly.
“Absolutely not. There’s no way.”
I tilted my head as I looked at him.
“Then why did you stubbornly endure here? Why did you go so far to gather power and wealth?”
“Why did you come to take me in the first place? Was there a justifiable reason to come all the way here even if it meant destroying my country?”
“It was just that I wanted to pull you out. To bring you down to where I am, to this bottom.”
“So why? There must have been a reason you thought that way.”
At my words, Riorem parted his lips.
He was silent for a long time before finally speaking.
His face twisted as if forcing himself to speak about something he never wanted to say.
“The price placed on you, milady… was too high. No, at the start… I didn’t even deserve to pay a price.”
“Ah. Because you’re a slave-born with no family or lineage?”
“Yes.”
I laughed quietly with satisfaction.
“So, you wanted to keep me by your side, but since you couldn’t even cross the threshold of marriage, you made me your slave?”
I laughed out loud for a long time, finding it ridiculous.
It was an absurd story—almost to the point of feeling futile.
But since I wasn’t angry, it seemed I really did love him.
Anyway, what I had to say was clear.
The duty of one who was once his master.
And as the older of the two.
“You loved me absurdly, Riorem.”
To have gone through all this just to have the right to be by my side.
To sacrifice his life and my country.
What an unfathomable love.
I continued to gaze at the man who looked up at me from below my feet.
I reached out my hand to him.
“Stop it and hold me, won’t you? I’m tired from feeling too much.”
“It’s the request of a woman who loves you.”
At those words, Riorem slowly stood.
Soon, he pulled me into his large arms.
I buried my face in his hot, solid chest and felt the lingering aftereffects pass.
I heard the rough pounding of Riorem’s heart against my cheek.
The louder it beat, the more his trembling gradually eased.
When he finally regained calm, I asked him again.
“Do you love me, Riorem?”
Riorem didn’t answer immediately.
He was silent for a long time, as if organizing something in his mind.
Then, finally, he pushed out the words shaped on the tip of his tongue through his lips.
Very low and quiet, almost like a whisper.
“Yes.”
Riorem’s answer held no hesitation at all.
“Perhaps it is so.”
Since that day, nothing much changed between us.
Maybe it was natural—after all, we had only just learned the name of the feeling, but we had always acted based on love.
The only difference was that Teumesha strangely looked relieved.
She even became somewhat kinder to me, though still somewhat blunt.
However, the life of Chernea Antoinetta del Péroa itself was being swept into a whirlpool.
It seemed many who wished to rebuild the duchy around me were rampaging about, as the crown prince personally contacted me.
His advice was to stay alert and not let new people in.
Fortunately, the mansion was always troubled by unwelcome guests, so the security was very tight.
If only those unwelcome guests hadn’t become an increasingly bigger problem.
Today, like usual, the butler came to me around the same time.
“Prince Alpheios has come to visit.”
As always, he arrived right after Riorem left the castle. I responded to the butler,
“I should get ready. Please call the maids. Tell Alpheios that I’m just waking up and will be late getting ready.”
“Yes, understood.”
The butler bowed and left.
As soon as he was gone, the maids entered the room.
They were the same girls who had been anxiously pacing the door since it was almost time for Alpheios to arrive.
“Just dress me up about the same as usual. Just don’t repeat yesterday’s style.”
As soon as I finished speaking, the maids moved efficiently.
Even though I knew Alpheios would come that day, and even when I knew when he would come, I deliberately did not prepare early.
It was only to buy time.
‘I don’t want to see him too early anyway.’
Of course, the servants around were anxious while that brute occupied the reception room, but my peace of mind was more important than theirs.
So, after dressing slowly enough not to be rude, I went down to the reception room where Alpheios was waiting.
Alpheios’s usual bodyguard glared at me, but I ignored him and entered the room.
As soon as the door opened, Alpheios smiled broadly.
“You’re beautiful again today, Cherni. You make it so I can’t complain even though you kept me waiting more than 30 minutes.”
He said this with pressure in his voice.
I laughed off his words.
After all, if anyone could be criticized in this situation, it was him.
“There’s no helping it, understand? The castle gets busiest when the lord is away, and your visits always come right after the Lord of Dynamis has left.”
Besides, Alpheios always came without warning.
Though he always showed up in the same situation, so it was almost like a warning.
Alpheios laughed off my meaningless reproach.
He stood and handed me a tedious bouquet and gift.
“I had to come quickly to bring you the freshest flowers. Please forgive me, you who are more beautiful than the flowers.”
I accepted them, consciously lifting the corner of my mouth.
“Did you come to propose again today, Alpheios?”
“Of course.”
With an elegant gesture, Alpheios knelt before me.
His manners were truly textbook-perfect, at least on the surface.
“I want you to be my rain, Cherni. Will you accept my proposal?”
I gave a half-hearted laugh.
But these days were somewhat bearable because I had someone in mind at this moment.
‘A man who, though he could pay the enormous price set for marriage with the Péroa princess, had no right to do so and thus abolished the princess’s position itself.’
‘And who said it wasn’t even for marriage but just because he wanted to be with me.’
Thinking of the adorable Riorem made Alpheios’s boring act somewhat tolerable.
“The right over me belongs to Riorem Velik, Lord of Dynamis. Go and get my master’s permission first, Alpheios.”
I refused Alpheios’s proposal with words much like usual.
Honestly, it was a repeated, scripted line by now.
But today, the usual reply didn’t come back.
Words like “I don’t want the man, but your heart’s permission, Cherni,” or “You’re making me restless,” those silly lines didn’t come.
Instead, what I saw was Alpheios glaring at me as if ready to kill, his shoulders shaking.
“…You.”
“You?”
I tilted my head at the sudden casualness of his address.
His boiling voice stabbed at me.
“You, are you thinking of another man in front of me right now?”.