Chapter 31
The man’s large hand slowly stroked her stomach over the soft fabric of her dress. It was a touch that claimed her as if she were his personal possession.
“You use the same fragrance as your mother. Lady Senevia’s hair smelled just like this. Once you’ve been intoxicated by this scent, you can’t help but seek it out… again and again… as if you’re addicted.”
The man’s hand fumbled upward toward her chest.
Talia instinctively twisted her body to escape his arms, but the man didn’t budge.
Pinning her from behind, he pressed his damp, hot lips just below her earlobe. It felt like a caterpillar clinging to her skin, sucking out her essence.
Talia, who had been frozen and trembling, suddenly began to struggle like someone having a seizure.
The man threw her down, pinning her violently against the soft carpet.
She flailed her limbs like a drowning person. As the table overturned, the puzzle tower she had spent hours building came crashing down. She scrambled over the pieces, desperate to escape the beast suppressing her, but he grabbed her ankle and yanked her back down.
Talia looked up at him with eyes wide with terror. A primal fear washed over her at the realization that someone could neutralize her so easily.
“Stay… stay still for a moment.”
The man pinned both her wrists with one hand and cupped her chin with the other.
She tried with all her might to turn her head away, but she couldn’t move an inch. He pressed down on her cheeks, forcing her mouth open, and shoved his thick tongue inside.
A wave of nausea made her throat tighten painfully. It felt as though a giant slug had crawled into her mouth.
She didn’t even have the courage to bite down on the horrific thing. She let out pained, stifled sobs as tears pricked her eyes. He rubbed his massive, muscular body against hers, breathing heavily in a heat of passion.
“Ah… Lady Senevia… How I have missed you…”
The man’s hand crawled under the hem of her skirt. The sensation of his hard palm fumbling against her bare skin made her entire body shudder.
A fear like death itself surged through her. She felt his long, thick fingers invading the space deep between her thighs.
At the stinging pain inside her body, Talia gasped like a fish out of water. The man pressed his lips, sticky as glue, against her mouth and whispered in a hoarse voice.
“There is no need to tremble so. The pain will be brief. Soon, Your Highness will be screaming in pleasure—”
Then, suddenly, the weight crushing her vanished as if it had never been there.
Talia instinctively crawled into a corner and huddled. For a moment, she couldn’t comprehend what had happened.
It was only after several seconds passed that she realized Barkas, dressed in his Roem Knights uniform, was gripping the man’s head with one hand and ruthlessly crushing his face.
The sight was so surreal that she was momentarily dazed. Half of the man’s once-neat face was soaked in blood, looking as if it had been ground against the rough surface of the wall, and pained groans escaped his grotesquely agape mouth.
“L-Let go… L-Let’s talk…”
Barkas grabbed the struggling man’s hair and slammed his head mercilessly against the wall. With heavy thuds, the man’s face was horribly mangled. Talia barely managed to swallow a scream.
“Talia.”
He spoke quietly, his eyes fixed on the bloodied face.
“Go to your room.”
His voice was so calm it was hard to believe it came from the man committing such a violent act. Because of that, Talia didn’t immediately realize the words were directed at her. It was only when she met his blue eyes, which looked like they were clouded with thick grey mists, that she realized he was speaking to her.
“Talia Roem Guirta.”
His voice was eerily still. Barkas, who had dared to speak the Imperial Princess’s name so casually, added slowly.
“Did you not hear me tell you to go to your room?”
Talia only stared up at him blankly, huddled in the corner. Finally, an explosive shout erupted from him.
“Go, now!”
In that instant, a sensation like sparks flying spread through her entire body.
She bolted from the study like a whipped horse. As she ran into her bedroom and buried herself under the thick blankets, a dull ache throbbed throughout her body.
She rubbed her stinging skin roughly. It felt as if that slimy tongue and those hard palms were still crawling over her. Trying to erase the sensation, she frantically wiped her neck, chest, and thighs before beginning to strike her own body with her fists.
It was horrific. That man, her body that he had groped, and the fact that Barkas had seen her in that state—all of it was horrific.
She struck her thighs hard enough to bruise before burying her face in a pillow and letting out a beast-like wail.
How long had she been like that? She sensed another presence. She snapped her head up.
Barkas stood tall in the doorway. As always, he was elegant and composed, without a single hair out of place.
“You will never have to see that man again,” he said flatly.
Talia blinked blankly before letting out a trembling question.
“…Did you kill him?”
At that, Barkas’s brow furrowed slightly.
After a brief silence, he spoke again.
“He will be permanently exiled. For the rest of his life, he will not be able to set foot in the capital, nor in any major city…”
In that moment, the thin thread of her sanity snapped completely. Talia grabbed a pillow and hurled it at his face.
“Why! Why did you let him live! You should have killed him! You should have killed him horribly! You should have cut off those filthy hands that touched my body! And that filthy tongue that… that violated me… !”
After screaming like a madwoman, Talia suddenly clutched her throat, her shoulders shaking violently. A sense of suffocation washed over her, as if someone were strangling her.
“If you let him live, he’ll… he’ll come to trample me again. He’ll try to defile me. He—he said so. That he couldn’t help but keep… keep seeking me out, like an addiction…”
A sudden sob burst from her constricted throat.
Talia covered her face, distorted with weeping, and gasped for breath. Then, like someone possessed, she began to throw everything at him.
“You useless bastard! I don’t need someone like you! Get out! I said get out! Get out of my sight… !”
As she blindly threw books and dolls, Talia suddenly stopped breathing. A candlestick she had grabbed in her frenzy had flown toward his head.
The heavy piece of iron scraped harshly against Barkas’s forehead and temple before clattering loudly onto the floor.
Talia stared with her mouth agape as a dark red line of blood stained his pale cheek and neck.
A strange sound, like a sigh—ah… ah…—escaped her throat. Barkas, looking down at her with cold eyes, slowly turned away.
In an instant, a chill spread through her entire body, as if she had been doused with ice water.
Talia scrambled off the bed to catch him. But Barkas had already left the room.
Staring blankly at the dark hallway, Talia collapsed. She wanted to sink straight into the ground.
Barkas had saved her. Yet she had used him as a target for her vent. It would be strange if he didn’t feel disillusioned. It was only natural that he would be sick of her. She buried her wretchedly crumpled face into the carpet and poured out hot tears.
After that day, Barkas did not show himself before her. It was only months later that Talia saw him again, attending his appointment ceremony as the Commander of the Imperial Knight Order.
From a distance, she watched as he knelt on one knee before the Emperor and recited his oath of loyalty in a calm voice.
Her father drew the imperial sword and placed it on his shoulder. Then, in a solemn voice, he proclaimed that the position of Head of the Imperial Guard had been bestowed upon him.
Though it was a heavy responsibility for a young man not yet twenty, no one questioned his qualifications. Barkas slowly turned and walked down the steps. Over his resolute face, the sunlight piercing through the windows poured down like a deluge.
She etched every detail of that moment into her retinas.
With his back straight, Barkas cut through the crowd. His cold profile passed her by indifferently.
Toward that back, which was striding away to a place where her hands could no longer reach, she whispered quietly.
Goodbye.
Having said that, she added instinctively.
Don’t go.
Talia furrowed her brow as tears threatened to spill. Soon, his figure disappeared completely from her sight.
Seven years ago, the boy her mother had given her as a gift left her side just like that.
