The Forgotten Field - Chapter 124

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 124
When I pressed my lips beneath her earlobe and gently drew in the fluttering skin, her delicate shoulders flinched and contracted.
I smoothed my palm over the taut, tender muscles and pressed my chest against her slick spine. The sensation of bare skin meeting bare skin was devastatingly stimulating.
“No, please don’t….”
She murmured in a faint voice. Letting her words pass through one ear, I nibbled gently at her refined shoulders before trailing my hand lower, past her waist.
She was drenched. When I caressed her glistening skin—slick with the mingled evidence of us both—the woman who had gone rigid suddenly began to writhe.
I reflexively caught her wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“I told you to stop! I have no intention of repeating that twice in one night!”
She cried out, her face drawn and diminished.
Barcas gazed down at her with a furrowed brow, then exhaled a soft sigh and drew the blanket up.
“If Your Highness does not wish it, I shall do nothing more. Still, please sleep in my bed.”
I wrapped her in the soft fabric and, embracing her waist once more, watched confusion and anxiety flicker across her small face.
Like a snail withdrawn into its thin shell, she peeked out from beneath the blanket, her eyes sharp with wariness.
“Why must we? By now, everyone in this castle knows we’ve consummated our marriage. There’s no need to endure such discomfort by sleeping separately.”
I felt the languid warmth that had enveloped my body evaporate in an instant, and I fixed her with a hard stare. Had she not looked so desperately anxious, I might have unleashed something cutting.
Barcas drew in a long breath and slowly stroked her curved spine.
“There is no reason we should not share a chamber. It is only natural for a couple who have spent the night together to share a bed.”
“But… we….”
She fumbled, her face flustered.
I brushed the hair clinging to her face aside and brought my lips to her cooling cheek. Her slender neck trembled and flinched as my breath grazed her skin, tickling her.
Feeling my impatience mounting, I swept my hand across her lower abdomen through the thin blanket.
“We are no different.”
I whispered the words against her ear, and I felt a subtle tremor run through her body.
The face pressed against the bridge of my nose grew increasingly warm. Had the light been brighter, one could have seen a rosy flush spreading across her translucent, milk-white skin.
I felt my barely-sated desire rising again and gently bit her soft earlobe. She gasped sharply and trembled.
Sensing no real resistance, I circled her bud-like ear with my thumb, then let the tip of my tongue brush against the small opening. She startled violently and threw her head back.
“You said you wouldn’t do anything more!”
“Is merely touching not permitted?”
I held her small frame close and whispered against her forehead, her large eyes quivering intensely.
Sensing her inner conflict, Barcas toyed with her slender waist through the thin blanket, then traced near her navel with its long, straight line.
She curled her body tighter. But this time, it was not from tension or anxiety—it was from arousal.
My insides burned with the hope that perhaps she might accept me once more.
“May I remove the blanket?”
“No, you can’t.”
“Are you certain?”
Even in the darkness, I could see her eyes rolling as she deliberated.
With the corner of my mouth drawn up, I carefully slipped my hand beneath the blanket and gently parted her knees.
In that instant, the woman who had been slowly relaxing suddenly thrashed violently as though struck by lightning. I narrowed my eyes and gripped her slender waist firmly. A sharp cry tore from her lips.
“It hurts!”
He released his arm as if burned by fire.
Seizing that moment, Aria bolted from the bed, her body swaddled in blankets as she staggered toward the door, her feet unsteady.
Barcas, his eyes darkening with displeasure, quickly caught up to her.
“Why are you so desperate to return to your chamber?”
“I… I don’t want to be here. My own room is more comfortable.”
Her voice trembled with palpable fear. The moment he recognized it, it felt as though ice water had been poured over his head.
She harbored a profound aversion to physical intimacy. The thought struck him that his forceful actions might have triggered her nightmares.
“Have I made you uncomfortable?”
He muttered the words through clenched teeth, and complex emotions flickered across her face.
She lowered her gaze, her voice subdued.
“You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s just… I prefer my own way.”
“Your way being to flee like a frightened rabbit after we’re finished?”
Though he had no wish to corner someone already appearing so fragile, his voice sharpened despite himself. Fortunately, rather than wilting, she bristled in response.
“Who said I was frightened? I simply prefer efficiency.”
In the pale darkness, the Princess lifted her chin with characteristic arrogance.
“I’ll stay as long as I wish and leave when I choose. You may do as you please while we’re together, but afterward, I’ll do as I see fit!”
He crossed his arms over his chest, sending her a crooked look. Even as her shoulders trembled, her defiance kindled a cruel impulse within him.
He could easily bend her to his will. He could pin her to the bed by force, could indulge his desires without restraint.
Yet he knew that surrendering to such barbaric impulses would wound her irreparably, in ways that could never be undone.
He closed his eyes firmly, then opened them.
Those blue eyes that had provoked him ceaselessly since childhood glimmered like shattered glass in the darkness. He met them directly and asked.
“Is that truly what you want?”
Hesitation flickered across her pale face. Yet she stubbornly thrust out her chin.
“Yes.”
Barcas, gazing down at her quietly, twisted his lips into a smile.
“Then I have no choice but to wait until you wish to remain in my chamber longer.”
The words seemed unexpected; confusion bloomed in her eyes.
“That will never happen.”
“We shall see.”
Barcas replied flatly, fishing his trousers from beneath the bed and pulling them on swiftly. Then, draping a tunic over his shoulders, he lifted her into his arms, blankets and all.
Startled by the sudden motion, a cry escaped her lips.
“No, stop! I can walk on my own!”
He ignored her protests and strode into the brightly lit Corridor.
She immediately buried her face within the blankets. At the sight of her curled up like a caterpillar in its cocoon, Barcas let out a soft chuckle and continued down the Corridor with measured strides.
The Servants he passed cast startled glances his way, but he paid them no mind.
Reaching her Sleeping Chamber, Barcas steadied her back with one arm while turning the door handle.
As he stepped inside, she barely poked her face out from the blankets.
The sight of her glistening, reddened eyes and disheveled golden hair sent a wave of heat through him, his throat tightening with sudden, intense thirst.
Suppressing the urge to press his lips to hers immediately, he lowered her onto the bed and knelt before her.
“When do you think you might wish to visit my chamber again?”
“I don’t know either.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I said I don’t know!”
His brow furrowed. If she didn’t come to him, he could simply seek her out—but he couldn’t be certain whether pressuring her in such a manner would be wise.
She wanted to choose of her own volition. If that was the only way this impossibly timid woman could find peace, then he would honor it.
He wound a strand of her hair—gleaming like spun gold beneath the lamplight—carefully around his finger, caressing it with deliberate tenderness.
“I shall wait.”
Firelight danced across her azure irises in prismatic waves. He gazed into the depths of her trembling pupils, then spoke with measured slowness.
“Come to me when you are ready.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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