The Kidnapped Prince is Mine Now - Chapter 8

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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 8
My body went rigid as hands lifted the hem of my dress. In that instant, memories from the carriage flooded back.
‘There’s nothing wrong with feeling good, is there?’
Lips that had savored every inch of my body, and….
‘No, forget it. Just forget!’
The dress slipped away like a shed skin, effortlessly, along with the slip beneath it.
Rough palms brushed across my ribs and forearms. Wherever skin met skin, heat seemed to linger.
Lothar set the dress and slip on the floor.
Now I was completely bare. I never thought I’d be exposing my back without a single thread to cover it.
Somehow, saliva pooled in my mouth.
“Please wait a moment.”
With a brief whisper, Lothar rose and moved away. The sound of a towel being soaked in water on the table followed.
I shivered slightly in the cool air, wrapping my arms around my knees.
Don’t think about it. He’s just like a bathhouse attendant. My back is hard to reach, so I’m simply receiving a little help….
Damn it. I can’t stop thinking about it. The realization that I’d asked for his service came too late.
Unable to bear even a moment of silence, I opened my mouth. Besides, this was a topic Lothar wanted anyway.
“The private soldiers you were secretly gathering—in this life, the Staufen Margrave exposed you, didn’t he?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“In my previous lives, there was always a different informant.”
The sound of water being wrung out carried an oddly suggestive quality. After swallowing discreetly, I revealed Lothar’s long-standing weakness.
“Tobias.”
….
“The commander of the Imperial Third Knight Order who served you so long. He’s the one who betrayed you. Every cycle.”
I recalled Tobias’s frozen face this morning when he had to hand Lothar over to me.
By now, he’d probably arrived at the Imperial Palace and was begging on his knees until his palms wore thin.
I was curious what reaction would come. Would he drop the towel he was holding with a thud?
Then, a quiet voice reached my ears.
“I suspected as much.”
“Huh?”
When did he figure it out?
“From the moment we headed toward Lumen Monastery, he kept saying things he normally wouldn’t. That he was sorry for not serving me properly, that he was troubled by having such an incompetent subordinate….”
His voice drew closer, and a warm, damp cloth touched my back.
“Ah.”
A languid sigh escaped me as warmth enveloped my skin. Now I felt like I could live.
“If it were normal circumstances, I would have told you to endure a little longer at the monastery. That opportunity would come as long as you didn’t die.”
Lothar began wiping my back with slow, gentle strokes. I’d expected his touch to be rough, but it was surprisingly tender.
So Lothar had anticipated his own death from the moment he boarded the carriage heading to the monastery.
Was that why he so readily accepted the seemingly absurd proposal of a kidnapping marriage?
Suddenly, an image of Lothar from the past came to mind. A corpse in a coffin.
As it was an imperial funeral, the Archbishop made sure not to exclude me, a mere ornament.
A man lay among vibrant flowers like a perfectly crafted doll. When I saw his face, a thought crossed my mind.
‘He’s similar to me.’
Maximilian’s puppet. Beings who must live if commanded to live, and die if commanded to die.
My brief reverie was interrupted by a calm, low voice.
“Do you also know why Tobias abandoned me?”
Of course I knew. I’d heard it countless times from Maximilian’s own lips across multiple lifetimes.
He’d always found it amusing that his half-brother’s trusted subordinate had chosen him instead.
I felt Lothar’s hand descend along my lower back as I responded.
“Because Frederike bore Maximilian’s child.”
At that moment, Lothar’s hand froze.
“Fredi… you mean his child?”
Fredi. Frederike.
Both names referred to Tobias’s younger sister.
The way he used the diminutive suggested they were quite intimate. Though that relationship was already ruined.
“Next spring, their wedding will be held. Under normal circumstances, I would have announced it after your funeral.”
Maximilian and Frederike’s marriage, and the birth that would follow.
A future repeated ad nauseam. It meant Tobias’s sister would become the Crown Princess of the Elheim Empire and the future Empress.
Lothar’s hand, which had been suspended, resumed its movement.
“Tobias must indeed stand at a crossroads of choice.”
His murmured voice had grown slightly heavier than before. This man was rather pitiful.
Would he aid the political struggle of the lord he’d served his entire life? Or would he serve as Emperor the husband of his sister and the father of his unborn nephew?
From the choices presented, Tobias had always chosen Lothar’s death. Never once had he chosen otherwise.
Was it a decision made solely for his family’s welfare?
‘Not a chance.’
Tobias would gain a countship in exchange for exposing the location and scale of the private forces Lothar had amassed.
For the second son of his house, betrayal had become an opportunity.
And that was merely the beginning. Afterward, he became Maximilian’s right hand and took on all manner of dirty work.
‘A complete bastard, through and through.’
Perhaps Tobias had been a proper subordinate while at Lothar’s side. But a single human soul corrupts far more quickly than one might expect.
The Tobias I’d encountered in my past life was nothing more than the Emperor’s puppet—no more, no less.
“If he went as far as Lumen Monastery… then Tobias must have come at me to claim my life.”
“That’s right.”
I hoped Lothar wasn’t naive enough to be unaware of that fact.
Having finished drying my back, Lothar draped a warm cloth across my shoulders. I heard him rise from his seat.
“Then I shall step outside for some air. You seem quite shy.”
What? What was he talking about?
“Me?”
“Your earlobes have turned as red as radishes.”
“….”
Damn it. Was he serious? I instinctively reached up to touch my ears.
Without a mirror before me, there was no way to verify the truth—only the faint sound of low laughter echoing from behind.
Soon, I heard the door open and close. I glanced back cautiously. It seemed he had truly given me space.
“…Is this consideration, or mockery?”
Muttering under my breath, I picked up the towel draped across my shoulders.
Lothar didn’t return to the guest room until I’d finished changing into my undergarment and prepared for bed. His mind seemed occupied with something.
I climbed onto the bed first, hesitated for a moment, then lay down on the left side, leaving the right side empty.
And for only a brief moment, I thought of rice, kimchi stew, and rolled egg—foods I hadn’t eaten in so long.
“Haa… huh?”
I must have fallen asleep without realizing it. When I opened my eyes, the lamp in the guest room was already extinguished.
And.
“It seems your sleeping habits are worse than expected.”
In the darkness, I met his eyes—a deep forest green that glimmered in the moonlight.
And I realized the truth: I was lying on my side, my right leg draped across Lothar’s thigh.
‘Oh, damn it.’
My thin undergarment had ridden up long ago.
Below the hem of my skirt, which precariously straddled the boundary between hip and thigh, pale skin overlapped with his bronzed complexion.
It was an excessively indecent scene. At first glance, it looked as though….
“….”
As though what?
I’d clearly lost my mind for a moment. Today had been rather exhausting, after all.
I withdrew my leg as if nothing had happened and tucked it beneath the blanket.
As I turned my body to face the ceiling, a pleasant baritone voice continued.
“Now that I think about it, I missed something important.”
“What?”
“How you persuaded the Staufen Margrave. Given his nature… even if you’d shared information, I suspect he would have been more inclined to tear Tobias limb from limb.”
A fair assumption.
I’d met the Staufen Margrave only once in this lifetime, across all my cycles. Yet he was such an intense figure that I grasped his nature immediately.
That woman would have been a soldier even if born in modern Korean society. Or perhaps a terrorist.
In any case, it was a reasonable question from Lothar’s perspective.
Tobias’s betrayal. The Staufen Family’s deliberate treachery, knowing the fact beforehand.
It was a plausible chain of events, yet there was no clear link between the two.
‘Because I didn’t tell him the most important thing.’

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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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