The Kidnapped Prince is Mine Now - Chapter 14

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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 14
At that moment, Rotar Eisenrit did not know that Elise was repeating meaningless variations within their cyclical conversation. He simply thought.
‘Does this woman dislike Maximilian?’
Her eyes narrowed with a soft fold, her lips curving gently upward.
At first glance, it appeared she was expressing favor toward Maximilian with a radiant smile. In reality, she was not.
Eyes that remained unmoved even by the Crown Prince’s overt interest. Curt responses that betrayed no willingness to continue the conversation.
As expected, she ended her private audience with Maximilian swiftly. The moment she spotted young noblewomen approaching the Crown Prince, she relinquished her time with him under the guise of saintly consideration.
She ignored Maximilian’s gaze, which clung persistently to her back.
At that time, I found her peculiar. Despite being the Archbishop’s person, she possessed a strange obstinacy.
And.
‘Maximilian was not wrong.’
I found myself muttering without realizing it.
The words of my despised half-brother were correct. The Saint’s eyes possessed something captivating.
Silver hair like moonlight and mysterious violet eyes that shimmered with an ethereal glow.
Beautiful, certainly, yet not overwhelming.
At first glance, her impression seemed excessively delicate. With her finely-drawn features and small, slender frame, she appeared as though she might crumble at the slightest touch.
Yet when one observed her eyes, the assessment changed entirely.
A cold, settled gaze of an observer.
Within it dwelt neither fear nor excitement—only a keenness, as if appraising the utility of chess pieces arranged across a banquet hall.
‘What role does she fulfill at the Archbishop’s side?’
Harboring only that much curiosity, I deliberately turned my gaze away.
My circumstances differed from Maximilian’s. Should I display overt interest in the Saint, I would invite needless scrutiny and suspicion.
It was merely that degree of observation.
Until I witnessed her retching by the lakeside.
The banquet proceeded as it always did.
The sickly Emperor’s indifference and Maximilian’s provocations. The First Prince Faction swarming like flies, gnawing at wounds not yet healed, and women approaching with lustful intent.
Yet perhaps because of what had transpired that morning, enduring all of it became more difficult than usual.
I signaled Tobias and briefly excused myself from the gathering.
‘It must be because you have a great undertaking ahead,’ Tobias consoled me in a lowered voice, but was that truly so? If I were to sever Maximilian’s neck and seize the Imperial Palace, would this wretched existence improve even slightly?
I proceeded to the lakeside of the Imperial Palace without certainty. My calculation was that the crowd would be sparse, as the banquet was unfolding in the Central Garden.
Yet there, the Saint was present.
‘Retch.’
The Saint, prostrate on the ground, expelling her stomach’s contents into the transparent waters of the lake.
‘Gag, heave! …Hah.’
How had she come to this place? It was a location that even those unfamiliar with the Imperial Palace’s inner sanctum would scarcely know.
After retching for some time, the Saint wiped her mouth and lifted her head. Her tear-streaked face was utterly forlorn.
Yet her eyes alone burned with clarity. Within those amethyst irises, I read desire for the first time. It was the most familiar thing to me.
‘The desire to kill.’
Yet this was no emotion befitting a proxy of Pelmira, the goddess of light and life.
However, it was not an emotion that a representative of Pelmira, the goddess of light and life, should display.
Whose death did he wish for? He watched her from behind the thicket, concealing his presence.
‘Maximilian, that bastard.’
A crude curse tumbled from her delicate lips.
Had he misheard? Rotar Eisenrit couldn’t trust his own ears.
‘Disgusting, the way he keeps pestering me. I’ll slit his throat and hang his head on the City Walls for all to see.’
The words that followed jolted him back to reality.
Yet what startled him more than the Saint’s hidden nature was the content of her soliloquy.
He’d noticed she found Maximilian disagreeable earlier. But he never imagined she harbored such hatred.
The Saint wiped her eyes with both hands, rose from her seat, and smoothed her dress. After steadying her breath several times, she turned toward the banquet hall—her demeanor identical to before.
Rotar watched the Saint disappear into the distance, then slipped out from behind the thicket.
He glanced at the lakeside where the Saint had knelt and prostrated herself. Ah—a school of massive carp had already gathered there.
They would feast after so long. He didn’t wish to witness that spectacle, so he averted his gaze.
What was her relationship with Maximilian? What bitter karma bound them that she would retch at his mere presence?
Separate from such questions.
“….”
Rotar Eisenrit touched the nape of his neck.
Strangely, his chest felt lighter. As though someone had bored a hole through the hollow of his heart.
By chance, he had witnessed her speak without filter—words she would never dare utter within the Imperial Palace, where everyone deferred to Maximilian’s whims.
After the banquet ended, Rotar Eisenrit watched the Temple’s carriage depart from the Imperial Palace and commanded Tobias.
‘Investigate the relationship between the Saint and Maximilian.’
‘Pardon? Is there something between them?’
‘That’s precisely what I want to know.’
Yet despite thorough inquiry, no useful information surfaced. He merely reconfirmed that the Saint was an orphan from the Orphanage and a commoner with nothing remarkable about her.
Then what reason drove the Saint to despise Maximilian so profoundly? The opportunity to resolve this mystery never came.
‘If you wish to live, cooperate. Before I mar that handsome face of yours.’
Not until the Saint selected him as her partner in a forced marriage.
‘So don’t misunderstand.’
Rotar Eisenrit understood. Why Elise had chosen him as her partner in this abduction.
It wasn’t because she was attracted to him romantically, nor because she needed a man to protect her from Maximilian.
The Emperor’s second son—a rival in the succession struggle, capable of opposing Maximilian. A single card held in Elise’s hand.
For now, Rotar Eisenrit possessed no greater value to her than that.
And yet.
“…Even abduction carries responsibility.”
It was Elise who had placed the noose around his neck.
Had she remained at a distance, it might have been different. But she drew close, pressed her body against his, and became his imperial consort—sharing the same boat.
From this moment forward, only one person would never die alone. They would live together, die together. A community of shared fate more ideal than any couple who vowed to perish on the same day and hour.
Perhaps that was why Rotar himself had come to this point.
“….”
It was his first time. Never before had he harbored such interest and possessiveness toward a single woman.
Perhaps it was only natural—for Elise was the only woman who had devoted her entire life and more to bringing down Maximilian.
Once I became aware of it, my gaze kept drifting toward her. When I caught sight of any man daring to covet her, my insides turned pitch black with jealousy.
‘But Elise…’
In contrast, her attitude toward me was remarkably plain and unadorned.
That fleeting tension of desire lasted only a moment. She had never shown the slightest interest beyond that. I found myself doubting my own masculine appeal.
I had never once considered myself possessive by nature. Only recently did I discover that the more one’s desires grow, the more foolish one becomes.
Rotar Eisenrit exhaled another shallow sigh and immersed his feet into the steaming bathwater. It was only then that he noticed the fragrant oils arranged nearby.
‘What scent does she prefer, I wonder.’
An unfamiliar, ticklish question bloomed unbidden in Rotar Eisenrit’s mind.
“….”
With a sense of resignation, he reached for a glass vial containing crimson-hued oil.
***
“…My, Your Highness the Imperial Princess Consort?”
Your Highness? Who is Your Highness?
Oh, right. Me.
At the unfamiliar address, my eyes fluttered open.
The face that greeted me belonged to the maidservant who had assisted with my bath and grooming.
“Your preparations are complete, Your Highness. Shall we have you rise?”
Good heavens, finally?
Only then did I recall that I had fallen asleep while being adorned.
‘How many hours did it take to prepare this body of mine.’
It had begun in the bathing chamber.
They drenched my hair and body in lily-scented oil, and after a considerable time had passed, I spent another hour on skin treatment alone. Apparently my complexion had grown weary from the cold air of the Northern Region.
Next came the selection of dresses. I barely managed to dissuade the maidservants from having me try on over forty gowns, compromising instead on trying approximately ten.
And now.
“How do you find it, Your Highness? Does it please you?”
At the maidservant’s question, I turned my gaze toward the woman in the mirror.

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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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