The man’s large hand stroked her stomach through the soft fabric of her dress. It was a slow, possessive caress, claiming her as his own.
“You wear the same scent as your mother. Lady Senevier’s hair smelled just like this. Once you have tasted that fragrance, you cannot help but crave it… again and again… like an addiction.”
His hand groped upward toward her breast.
Talia twisted frantically to break free of his hold, but he did not budge.
Pinning her from behind, he pressed his damp, hot mouth beneath her earlobe. It felt as though a caterpillar were clinging to her flesh, sucking out her life.
Talia, who had been frozen and trembling, suddenly began to thrash as if seized by a fit.
He shoved her down, slamming her hard against the carpet.
She flailed like a drowning creature. The small table overturned, sending the puzzle tower she had spent hours building crashing to the floor. She scrambled through the scattered wooden pieces, desperate to escape him, but his hand caught her ankle and dragged her back.
Talia looked up at him with terror-stricken eyes. The sheer helplessness—the ease with which he overpowered her—sent a cold, primal horror surging through her veins.
“Stay… stay still for just a moment.”
He pinned both her wrists to the floor with one hand and took hold of her chin with the other.
She strained with everything she had to wrench her head away, but she could not move an inch. He squeezed her cheeks hard until her lips parted, then forced his thick tongue into her mouth.
Nausea seized her, clamping down around her throat. It felt as if a giant slug were slithering down into her.
She did not even possess the courage to bite down on the foul thing. A muffled, agonizing sob tore through her throat as tears pooled in her eyes. Feverish with lust, he ground his heavy weight into her, panting hot breaths against her face.
“Ah… Lady Senevier… How I have missed you…”
His hand slid beneath the hem of her skirt. The scrape of his rough palm against her bare skin sent a sickening shudder through her entire body.
A dread like death itself swept over her as his long, thick fingers forced their way between her thighs.
At the sharp, tearing pain within her, Talia gasped, choking like a fish thrown onto dry land. Pressing his clammy lips against her mouth, the man whispered in a ragged rasp.
“Hush, do not tremble so. The pain will pass quickly. Soon, Your Highness will be crying out in pleasure—”
Then, in a single instant, the crushing weight vanished.
Talia scrambled on hands and knees into the corner, curling into a tight ball. Her mind went blank, entirely unable to grasp what had just transpired.
Only several seconds later did she see him: Varkas, clad in his Imperial Knights uniform, clutching the man’s head in one hand and ruthlessly smashing his face into the wall.
It was so surreal she could only stare in a daze. Half of the nobleman’s handsome face was shredded and dripping with blood, ground raw against the stone, and sickening groans spilled from his slack, broken jaw.
“L-Let go… Let us talk…”
Varkas seized the thrashing man by the hair and slammed his skull against the masonry once more. With dull, heavy thuds, the man’s features were mangled beyond recognition. Talia barely managed to stifle her scream.
“Talia.”
His voice was quiet, though his gaze remained fixed on the bloodied wreck before him.
“Go to your room.”
The tone was so flat and composed it seemed impossible it belonged to the man committing such brutality. Because of that, she did not realize at first that the order was meant for her. Only when she met his blue eyes, veiled beneath a dull grey haze, did the truth sink in.
“Talia Roem Guirta.”
An eerie stillness lingered in his voice. Uttering the imperial princess’s name without deference, he spoke again, slow and deliberate.
“Did you not hear me tell you to go to your room?”
Talia only huddled in the corner, staring up at him vacantly. Then, a roar tore from him like an explosion.
“Go, now!”
A jolt of electric terror struck straight through her limbs.
She scrambled to her feet and fled the study like a whipped mare. Collapsing onto her bed, she buried herself beneath the heavy duvet, her whole body throbbing with a dull ache.
She scrubbed frantically at her raw skin. It felt as if that slick tongue and those rough hands were still crawling over her. Desperate to strip away the filth, she scratched at her neck, her chest, and her inner thighs before beating her own flesh with clenched fists.
It was monstrous. That man, her own defiled body, and the fact that Varkas had seen her in such a wretched state—all of it made her sick.
She pounded her thighs until they bruised, buried her face in the pillow, and wept like a wounded beast.
How long she lay there, she did not know. Sinking into the silence, she sensed another presence and snapped her head up.
Varkas stood framed in the open doorway. Impeccable and composed, not a single hair was out of place.
“You will never have to see that man again,” he said flatly.
Talia blinked through her tears, her voice shaking.
“…Did you kill him?”
At that, his brow furrowed slightly.
After a brief silence, he spoke again.
“He has been sentenced to permanent exile. For the rest of his days, he will never set foot in the capital, nor in any major city…”
At those words, the thread holding her sanity together snapped. She grabbed a pillow and hurled it directly at his face.
“Why! Why did you let him live? You should have killed him! You should have torn him to pieces! You should have severed those filthy hands that touched me! And that disgusting tongue… that tongue he used on me… !”
Screaming like a madwoman, she suddenly seized her throat, her shoulders racking violently. Her windpipe seized, as if invisible hands were choking the life out of her.
“If he is alive, he will come back to ruin me again. He will defile me. He… he told me so! He said he couldn’t stop himself, that he craved it like an addiction… !”
A raw, broken sob tore from her constricted throat.
Burying her contorted face in her hands, Talia gasped for air. Then, as if possessed, she began seizing anything within reach and hurling it toward him.
“You useless bastard! I don’t need you! Get out! I said get out! Get out of my sight… !”
Books and dolls flew blindly through the air. Then, all at once, Talia’s breath caught. The iron candlestick she had hurled in her frenzy had flown straight toward his head.
The heavy iron struck Varkas’s temple and brow with a sickening thud, scraping skin before clattering against the floorboards.
Her lips parted in horror. A dark crimson trail of blood was already running down his pale cheek and onto his neck.
A faint, broken sound escaped her—‘ah… ah…’—like air leaking from a crushed chest. Looking down at her with cold, silent eyes, Varkas slowly turned away.
An icy dread washed over her, freezing her to the marrow.
She scrambled off the bed to stop him, but Varkas had already stepped into the hall.
Staring into the empty, darkened corridor, Talia collapsed onto the floor. She wished the earth would open up and swallow her whole.
Varkas had saved her life. Yet she had turned him into the target of her hysterical rage. Anyone would be disgusted. Anyone would grow sick of her. Pressing her crumpled face into the carpet, she wept bitter, burning tears.
From that day on, Varkas never came to see her. It was months before Talia laid eyes on him again, at the ceremony appointing him Commander of the Imperial Guard.
From far back in the crowd, she watched him kneel on one knee before the Emperor, reciting his oath of allegiance in a calm, steady voice.
Her father unsheathed the imperial sword and set it upon Varkas’s shoulder, proclaiming in solemn tones that the command of the Imperial Guard was now his.
Though it was a staggering weight for a youth not yet twenty years old, not a single soul dared question his appointment. Varkas rose, turning to descend the dais. Across his unyielding face, the light cascading through the high arched windows poured down like a radiant storm.
She burned every detail of that sight into her retinas.
Shoulders squared and tall, Varkas parted the sea of nobles. His cold profile swept past her without a glance.
Watching his back stride away toward a horizon she could never reach, she whispered under her breath.
Goodbye.
And in the same breath, the silent cry followed.
Don’t go.
Talia pressed her brows together as tears welled, blurring her vision until he vanished from sight.
And so, the boy her mother had left to her seven years ago walked out of her life forever.
END