The Kidnapped Prince is Mine Now - Chapter 18

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

Chapter 18
Rotar Eisenrit didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he carefully removed the chain ornament draped across my hair. As the pins and ties came loose, my half-pinned locks tumbled down in a silvery cascade.
He combed through the disheveled strands with deliberate care. The soft whisper of the comb gliding through delicate hair was audible in the profound silence of the room.
After a moment, Rotar Eisenrit spoke.
“Carry no burden in this.”
“What?”
His touch continued—slow and cautious, as though handling a fragile child.
“Forcing a child into existence only multiplies unhappiness, does it not?”
I nearly countered. Whose story was that supposed to be?
Then, having finished combing, his hand moved behind me. A soft click—the sound of a button unfastening.
The off-shoulder dress yielded easily to his touch, slipping downward. A thin slip beneath became visible, draping to my waist.
In the mirror, pale skin showed through, half-exposed.
“….”
Wait. Was I the only one who found this unsettling?
I’d just heard him say to carry no burden.
His hand reached my nape—whether to unfasten the necklace’s clasp, he lowered himself to one knee.
The moment I felt the heat of his fingertips against my skin, our eyes met in the mirror.
Dark, deep eyes like shadows beneath a dense forest. He asked:
“Yet surely you can permit yourself some pleasure?”
The necklace he released fell onto my lap with a soft chime.
Then his broad palms settled on both my shoulders. His index finger caught on the thin strap of my slip.
Warm breath touched my nape—the very place he’d marked in the carriage.
My lower abdomen tightened inexplicably. Nothing had even begun.
I swallowed discreetly.
I could have ignored his advance, dismissed it entirely. A man’s desire to hold me—wasn’t that familiar, tedious even?
Yet different words escaped my lips.
“It was never mere pleasure for me. Not once.”
Why? It was a pointless thing to say.
I knew Rotar Eisenrit was a man who would respect my refusal with a single word.
Was it the memory that had surfaced? Belated regret couldn’t retrieve words already spoken.
Then his lips touched my nape.
A slow, weighted kiss—it felt less like a caress and more like an act of sharing warmth with skin grown cold.
“Are you afraid?”
But speaking with his lips pressed against me, the whisper of his mouth and the breath escaping tickled.
“I’ve heard it often. When we rest together.”
“…Heard what?”
“The sound of you wandering through nightmares.”
His words made my heart stop.
“You said it hurt. And.”
He pressed his lips down once more.
“He asked me to kill him. That’s what he said to ‘Your Majesty.'”
“….”
I hadn’t known. Not even as I’d raced through to my sixth life.
Suddenly, a question I’d heard from Rotar Eisenrit in the carriage surfaced in my mind.
‘I see. When did such a serious sleep disorder begin, Your Highness?’
Only now did I understand why he’d asked such a thing.
I didn’t need Rotar Eisenrit to describe it in detail. I could see it myself—what nightmares I’d wandered through every night. Or rather, how I wished it were merely nightmares.
‘It hurts, Your Majesty, please… kill me….’
‘No, just kill me! Please….’
The memories came flooding back—those moments when I’d crawled across the floor, begging Maximilian for mercy.
They remained within me like scars. Even through all those deaths and resurrections.
But.
“That’s enough. Never speak of it again.”
It was nothing but a repugnant past. I pushed his head away with my palm, my voice harsh and cutting.
“You’re not going to stop at just kissing and sucking, are you? What comes after that makes me uncomfortable.”
I had no desire to recount things I’d endured so long ago. Even less did I want pity.
I didn’t even notice my voice growing sharp despite myself.
From the beginning, all I’d wanted was an alliance with him. A marriage in name only. A husband and wife in name only.
Wasn’t it enough to wear a convincing disguise and move according to our respective purposes? As so many couples do.
So.
“If you want to use that part of yourself so badly, find a mistress. Don’t make demands of me…!”
“Understood, Elise.”
His brief reply cut through my rising voice.
With his calm tone, the emotion that had surged up scattered like air from a punctured balloon.
No. Perhaps my words had caught because of what he was doing—pressing his lips against my palm as I pushed his head away.
“….”
The heat in my mind subsided.
Something felt strange. Soft lips were being crushed carelessly within the confines of my narrow palm.
Rotar Eisenrit never took his eyes from my face. Even through the mirror’s reflection, there was an unmistakable warmth emanating from his gaze.
‘…Affection?’
Was this what it would feel like if a very large dog were being cute?
Or perhaps like a predator with prey right before its eyes. Wolves and dogs differ by only the finest margin, after all.
‘I have no idea. Truly.’
How had it come to this?
I’d thought this kind of atmosphere wouldn’t arise after the Temple recognized the marriage contract.
It wasn’t mere speculation. Hadn’t I even commissioned the Information Guild when I began my sixth life?
Back then, I’d demanded every scrap of information about the Second Prince’s romantic history and sexual preferences without exception.
And the result was.
[No history of association with women or men.]
[No records of visits to pleasure districts.]
[Estimated to enter into a strategic marriage with one of the Second Prince’s faction families.]
This was the level of intelligence I was working with.
“Would you permit me to offer you service instead?”
“Ah…!”
The sensation of something warm and moist brushing across my palm jolted me awake.
I saw it in the mirror.
A man with deep green eyes—his thick, elongated tongue extended and pressing against the palm he held, rubbing it with deliberate slowness.
“Are you displeased at this moment?”
Rotar Eisenrit’s tongue curved with a slightly slurred pronunciation, and soon the soft flesh between his middle and ring fingers was wedged inside.
“Hm…!”
He stimulated the tender, pliant flesh before applying pressure with the tip of his tongue, rubbing upward along the knuckle of my middle finger—a dull, spreading pleasure radiating from the base of my spine.
My lower abdomen tightened involuntarily.
When he finally withdrew his tongue, he spun the vanity chair around. Only then did my eyes meet the real Rotar Eisenrit, not through the mirror’s reflection.
He was already on both knees, looking up at me.
He rested his chin against my thigh, tilted his head, and asked in a low voice.
“Tell me. Did you dislike it?”
“….”
Dislike it? I looked down at my palm, still wet from Rotar Eisenrit’s saliva.
Something felt strange. In six lifetimes, this was the first time I’d ever received such intimate caresses—his tongue tracing between my fingers and across my knuckles.
Yet I couldn’t say I disliked it.
“No.”
Why was that? What had changed from before?
“Then I’m relieved.”
Ah.
The moment I saw Rotar Eisenrit’s face break into a smile at even my brief response, understanding dawned on me.
Never before had I been regarded so preciously by a man who desired me—not even within the grandest and most beautiful Emperor’s Bedchamber in the Empire.
Soon Rotar Eisenrit’s hand touched my ankle, specifically the edge of my shoe’s heel.
While maintaining eye contact with me, he deftly removed the shoe I couldn’t see him removing. He set it gently on the plush rug, then cradled my now-bare foot in both hands.
“I hope you’ll grant me this opportunity.”
Rotar Eisenrit whispered, slowly pressing his thumbs into the arch of my foot.
With each firm pressure point, the accumulated fatigue seemed to dissolve. I barely managed to suppress the pleased sigh threatening to escape.
“An opportunity to serve Elise’s pleasure without anything like penetration.”
His hands, which had been massaging upward along my foot, became more insistent as they reached my knee and the hollow behind it.
He pressed his thumbs firmly, rolling them over the round, firm bone, while simultaneously his middle finger probed into the warm, moist crevice.
Then, when Rotar Eisenrit’s thumb pressed forcefully against the upper part of my thigh.
“Hm…!”
I bit my lip and swallowed the moan that escaped unbidden.
Rotar Eisenrit’s touch stilled. He kept his thumb pressed against my thigh, looking up at me.
“Please, let me see you express your pleasure.”

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