The Wind Calms the Fire - Chapter 36

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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 36
“What on earth is happening…….”
The moment Lea turned to him to make sense of the situation, he collapsed before her eyes.
“Your Highness?”
She startled at the sight of him gripping his chest, breathing in painful, ragged gasps.
“Your Highness.”
To examine his condition more closely, Lea crouched to meet his eye level and took hold of his arm.
Suddenly a wind swept through, sending her hair billowing into the air.
She recognized the Urgent Spirit Warning.
‘Rampage?’
The only thought that seized her was that she needed to calm him quickly.
She moved to tilt up his bowed face to press her lips to his.
But he turned his head away from her touch.
“Back away, leave…….”
Gasping for breath, she gathered the gist of his incomplete words.
“Your Highness. The Spirit is in rampage right now. Treatment can’t wait.”
Carrion couldn’t finish speaking, choking back a cry as he merely gasped for air.
The Spirit began to rage as if to say it had only been patient while they made their way here.
A wave of heat crashed through him as though concentrated energy had suddenly detonated, stealing his breath.
The problem was that the heat consuming his body brought more than mere agony.
His lower abdomen tightened, and despite his will, blood rushed to his core.
During the two instances of Spirit Rampage in Poema, he had nearly lost consciousness, aware only of his body engulfed in searing flames and excruciating pain.
Contact with her had been like a single drop of dew offered to one wandering in the Desert—he’d clung to it to survive.
Yet now what dominated his mind was not survival instinct, but desire.
If he touched her like this, he feared he would do something dangerous.
“The princess…… in danger…… go…….”
He ground his teeth, uttering only fragmentary words.
It was not acceptance of death, but rather a small measure of trust he possessed.
That his mind remained relatively lucid, that back in the Imperial Palace the Spirit had communicated with him.
Perhaps he could attempt to negotiate with the Spirit again and suppress this attack.
For that, she had to disappear from his sight first.
The mere fact of her proximity made his center throb with need.
“Hurry. Go, please…….”
‘He’s worried about me, even now?’
Lea was moved by his attitude. Wasn’t it true that in desperate moments, people usually revealed their worst selves?
At first she’d thought him merely frustrating, but this man’s integrity had increasingly touched her heart.
“It’s not I who’s in danger right now—it’s you, Your Highness. And why should I leave? This is my bedroom.”
If this situation truly posed a threat to her, the Spirit would have warned her; but the wind said nothing.
Lea quickly gripped his face firmly with both hands and pressed her lips against his.
The instant her soft lips made contact, the cord that had barely been holding his body together snapped.
For just a moment his body trembled, then he cradled her face in his palms and tilted his head deeper, plunging in.
Pressed back by the force of his advance, Lea’s body toppled backward.
“Mm!”
She braced for her head to strike the floor, but his palm came between it and her skull just in time.
His full weight bore down on her as her mouth was invaded.
The kiss from above was unrestrained, breath and saliva mingling deeper.
Unlike the careful warmth of his earlier kisses, this one had no hesitation.
“Hah…….”
When a tingling sensation sharp enough to bring pain swept across her lips, a jolt of pleasure rose through her, and a small moan escaped unbidden.
The tips of her fingers, gripping his shoulders, quivered.
Each time she withdrew as if to escape, he kissed deeper still.
“Mm.”
When his tongue’s tip brushed somewhere along her palate, a pleased breath flowed from her.
He barely lifted his lips even as he shifted angles repeatedly.
Without pause, he pulled and brushed against her lips with his own.
Her lower lashes trembled, then her eyelids lifted slightly.
Though the bedroom was dim, she could see his face—imagination filling in what darkness obscured.
His image bloomed in her mind: head tilted back fully, lost in the kiss.
The excited breathing of a man who usually seemed sealed shut was raw and primal.
‘Ah…….’
Lea did not dislike the weight of the man pressing down on her body.
In this moment, as the controlled man lost all reason and clung to her desperately, she discovered in herself a shameful exhilaration.
The wet sound of their lips meeting and parting echoed in her ears.
He licked the corner of her mouth, drew her lip between his teeth, and stole her breath.
His large hand rose above her nightwear.
“Huh!”
She gasped in surprise, her eyes flying wide.
As his hand applied pressure and then withdrew while kneading, a ragged breath spilled from her lips.
The memory of that night at the Poema Residence, caught in the grip of his rampage, returned to her mind.
Tonight was similar to that night, yet different.
Then, he had seemed like an unreasoning beast charging blindly at her; now, he was methodically stoking her desire.
Through the thin fabric of her nightwear, his heat, the sensation of his palm, became vividly clear.
The fabric brushing across her chest sent a tingling through her.
“Ah…….”
There was something dangerously intoxicating about teetering on the edge of propriety.
So this is how one commits a night’s indiscretion, she thought with understanding.
Even as worry whispered, ‘Is this right?’, curiosity countered with, ‘What comes next?’ The languid warmth that suffused her was different from drowsiness, and it felt good.
So when his body, pressed against hers, moved to brush every part of her, she found no resistance within herself.
His movements became more deliberate and intimate.
She felt the heat of another person in a place she could scarcely believe.
‘Oh!’
The moment she understood what it was, her face burned hot with shame.
Carrion seized both her hands and interlaced their fingers, pressing them together.
Though they were only hands, the way their fingers intertwined and met deeply felt like a caress.
As she flexed and straightened her captured fingers, he pressed deeper, his fingertips stroking the inner curve of hers.
‘Ah…….’
Lea was bewildered. That her body should coil from nothing more than fingers touching felt like evidence of a depravity that shamed her.
He drew his lips away and tilted his head beneath her chin.
“Ah…….”
Unlike the urgent kisses that pressed breath from her, his lips now brushed softly against her neck—a kiss tender and reverent.
Lea found herself reassured. This man did not seem so lost in abandon as to forget who lay beneath him.
He moved with great care.
A cry escaped her lips, mingled with startled breath.
“Ahh!”
Where their bodies met, the heat was searing; her vision blurred.
His presence was too vivid for her to pretend ignorance of what it was.
Lea’s flushed face bore the mark of her own teeth upon her lip.
Separated only by their clothes, it differed little from the act itself.
Should those clothes fall away, what would unfold was all too plain.
‘Why……. Why am I not pushing him away?’
When he devoured her lips roughly, Carrion was still seized by the hunger to slake his desire.
Ordinarily, kissing her would cool the painful fire—but this time, something was different.
There was no pain, yet the heat did not fade. Instead, a warm heaviness pooled in his lower belly.
He realized then that this was not the heat of the Spirit, but his own hunger.
He greedily claimed her lips, touched her with bold, reckless hands, and felt desire consume him utterly.
Craving her ever closer, he pressed his body without gap against hers, held her hand so she could not escape, and held her tight.
He found himself wishing that she would cry out, push him away, strike him, and condemn what he was doing.
But the more meekly she accepted the outrages he committed, the more he felt contempt for his own cowardice, and gradually his mind grew cold.
To pin her down with a man’s strength while yearning for her to refuse—it was not just. If what he did was wrong, he himself must put a stop to it.
This woman should not be violated like this, in this place.
She was to be his wife, after all—more precious and dear to him than anyone in the world.
The relentless movement of his lips gradually stilled.
“Forgive me.”
At the sound of his voice in her ear, Lea felt a surge of inexplicable displeasure.
“I mean no excuse by it. The order was not right.”
The furrow of her brow smoothed. At words so perfectly in character for this man, her displeasure dissolved, and laughter rose instead.
“……I forgive you.”
Carrion raised himself from over her, and as he did, he slid his hand beneath her back, drawing her up with him.
Sitting face to face in the darkness, they remained silent, only watching each other.

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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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