The Forbidden Claim and the Shadow of Betrayal
Her lips, more glistening and swollen than ever before, drew Arkin’s gaze like a magnet. The urge to cover her mouth with his and drink every last drop of her breath straight down his throat clawed at his throat.
Arkin buried his body deep inside Nefetia, pressing his burning forehead to hers. Her eyes, languid and unfocused, pleaded with him—begging him to kiss her, to claim her.
“Ah…”
Her hand cupped his cheek. Reason was on the brink of shattering. Their palms burned like embers, fever-hot against each other.
The distance between their lips was no more than a single finger’s width. A mere tilt of their heads and they would touch.
Arkin fought the conflict, eyes squeezing shut. He rubbed his nose against the bridge of hers. Their mingled breaths slid deep into his lungs.
But…
Though her longing was fierce, it was far too intense. She was a woman destined to sit the throne. He could not trifle with her lips. This was the only mercy he could offer her future. He could not let even that future be ruined by a moment of selfish greed.
Just as the desire was about to swallow his reason whole, Arkin grabbed Nefetia’s cheek and lifted his head. All that remained was the aching tip of his fingers hovering above the forbidden, sacred lips.
With trembling gentleness, he stroked the petal-soft lips. Nefetia’s lashes fluttered and flushed faintly red, as if she already understood his thirst without a word.
Nefetia’s lips slowly parted. She took Arkin’s finger still resting on them and drew it inside, guiding him to claim it.
“…!”
A low groan escaped Arkin. His slippery tongue coiled around the finger like a snake, sucking and pulling. In reply, his blunt fingertips plunged into her scorching, drenched mouth, tracing the neat line of her teeth.
That narrow, scorching place was drenched as thoroughly as anything below, gripping Arkin with savage intensity as if trying to swallow him whole. His mind reeled as his buried cock twitched, swelling deeper into their joined bodies.
“Hah…”
Arkin began rocking his hips frantically. He seized Nefetia’s hand, pressing a kiss to each slender, elegant finger before sealing them fully with his lips.
Instead of lips they could never reach, their gazes locked in silent fury over their saliva-slick fingers intertwined. Neither Arkin nor Nefetia broke eye contact for a single heartbeat. Both were fused deep below, their eyes burning with desperate heat.
Squeak… squeak…
Arkin’s thrusts grew fiercer, the bed groaning in protest. Wet slaps and ragged breaths filled the room. Arkin stared at her as if drinking her in. He withdrew his hand and gripped her waist.
“Hah… haaah…!”
The moment her sealed lips cracked open, Nefetia clamped both hands over her mouth.
Arkin’s eyes slid down to the tightly locked junction where ecstasy nearly made him shudder. The thick cock, glistening as if oiled, buried itself deep into her folds. The sight was devastatingly lewd.
“Hah… ng…”
Each brutal upward thrust made Nefetia’s body rock. Arkin yanked one of her hands into his and wove their fingers. Tears tracing her lashes were licked away as he continued to thrust.
As pleasure made Nefetia writhe in his vision, a flash of lightning kindled in his chest. As she had said—fate. He even wondered if they had been born from the very first moment to fit together like this.
“Ah, I’m going mad, Nefetia.”
Arkin pulled her upward while she sat on his lap, dragging her hips down until she was straddling him fully. He bucked upward, shaking her. Nefetia let out a slender cry and wrapped her arms around his head.
“Ah… haa… Arkin… it feels so good…”
“Me too… me too…”
Nefetia’s breasts swayed before his eyes. Arkin buried his lips against the warm swell of them and his eyes fluttered shut.
This pleasure was theirs alone. He felt none of the mysterious tremor he had felt on the first night they met—the power that could not be named, the foreign magic. That was why it felt even more exquisite. Without any outside force intervening, the pure sensation born of their own bodies colliding was infinitely precious.
The scent of sweat-slick skin was so intoxicating Arkin buried his face in Nefetia’s breasts, driving his hips wild. Every time he pulled back just before his tip slipped out and drove in to the hilt, Nefetia’s arms tightened around him.
“Hah… Arkin…!”
Arkin’s eyes, glazed with lust, devoured every fractured feature of Nefetia’s face. Her half-lidded gaze was hazy with the pleasure he alone could give.
It was only beneath him that she collapsed. The obscene, unprotected ecstasy of knowing a man besides himself had seen that expression was overwhelming.
Right then, as he savored the climax, a sudden thought struck Arkin’s mind like lightning. Tearing through the fragments of his fading consciousness rose an unpleasant truth he wished to deny. The reality he could not face clawed at him with savage force.
If I send her to Kepet…
Other men besides me would touch her…
“Ugh…”
Arkin’s face twisted with sudden revulsion. A wave of disgust rose from his gut and choked his throat.
Anger surged like blood rising in reverse. Pain as if his heart were being torn into thousands of pieces. The thought that someone else—anyone else—might touch this precious body, violate its fragile core, made him want to break.
Arkin’s face went deathly pale. He suddenly shoved him body away and changed positions. The cruel, monstrous emotion he had never felt in his life surged up from the marrow of his bones.
“On your stomach.”
He grabbed her waist and panted. On your stomach? Nefetia, about to turn her back, was pinned by Arkin’s forearm.
“Shut your mouth, Nefetia.”
While Nefetia lay face-down on the bed with only her hips raised, an ugly hand seized her round backside and spread it wide. Unlike the startled Nefetia, Arkin’s blue eyes were suddenly cold.
Her thighs were soaked with a glistening mess. The once-full slit that had housed his huge cock had narrowed back to its original form, as if it had never existed. Arkin aligned his tip with the drenched opening and slammed his cock in again.
“Ugh!”
Nefetia cried out on the bed, body shaking. The angle with her hips lifted made the insertion even deeper. Unrelenting, brutal thrusts began, the sound of flesh slapping loudly filling the room. Jealousy, rage, and a wretched, pathetic feeling were dropping Solinar’s noble prince straight into hell.
Nefetia buried her face in the sheets and sobbed. Arkin’s forehead was covered in pulsing veins as he drove his hips with insane force. His grip on her waist tightened with vicious strength.
Arkin pulled her upper body up and wrapped his arms around her back. His large hand once again covered her mouth.
“Ugh! Hah… ngh…!”
The jealousy boiling inside him turned him even more violent. He drove into her as if trying to carve his existence into the deepest parts of her body. He wanted no trace of another man’s scent to have ever slipped inside her. He wanted her mind to be filled with nothing but him—no one else could ever exist in her thoughts.
Like a beast that had lost its reason, Arkin surrendered to uncontrollable instinct and continued the frenzied rut. While he had kept her mouth shut, his own could not, so rough moans spilled from between his lips.
“Ah… ugh… hah…”
The sound scraping from his throat was obscene. Nefetia’s eyes, pushed so hard beneath him, squeezed shut. She never imagined the man’s groans approaching climax would be so stimulating. The rough rasp of his breathing pierced her ears, sending shivers racing across her skin as if swept by violent waves.
Slap slap slap—the speed of his upward thrusts increased further. With overwhelming force, Nefetia’s limbs flailed like broken dolls. The stimulation Arkin gave her was simply too intense; she was about to lose her mind.
“Ugh! Hah…!”
Thank the gods her mouth was covered. The stifled moans and cries were all trapped inside Arkin’s palm. Her body rocked and her black hair swayed wildly. The sensation of his cock scraping and driving while filling her belly made her whole body tingle.
“Hah… ugh… haa…”
Arkin’s face twisted in pleasure. He buried his lips in the nape of her neck as if biting it, then shook his hips like a wild animal.
Sweat droplets fell from his wet hair and slid down Nefetia’s chest. Like an endless wave pushing her without pause, he ravaged the deepest parts of her being without stopping. At the limit now. Sensation shot up her spine to the tip of her head.
“Haaah…!”
Her vision flashed black. Her feet vanished, and she floated in dizzying emptiness. Arkin thrashed, spilling himself deep inside her over and over.
“…Hah… haa… Nefetia…”
Nefetia… ah… Nefetia. A call that was almost a plea or a scream. At the end of that excruciating act, Arkin slowly collapsed onto her back. He held the precious little body tight enough to break it, barely exhaling the breath he had been holding.
Nefetia received Arkin’s full weight and collapsed, spent. She lacked the strength to lift her eyelids, but the steady thud of his heart against her back made her desperately want to get closer to him. Finally moving her hand, she placed it softly over Arkin’s large hand covering her own chest.
“…Ugh.”
Feeling the warmth of his hand over hers, Arkin gave a faint smile. He turned his palm over and slid his fingers deep between hers.
A tender touch that gently stroked each finger without a word warmed her chest. The satisfaction and swelling happiness she had never felt before filled her entire body.
Yet, though she showed nothing, Arkin felt the pain just as deeply. His heart throbbed with anxiety and dread. He did not know how to handle the emotions that had grown so vast, or whether he could endure this end. Nothing felt possible.
As he stroked her slender fingers, Arkin let out a silent sigh. The words he could not speak aloud burned in his throat like thorns.
I love you.
I love you so much it hurts.
I desperately want you to be the only man in my life…
***
“My legs have no strength…”
Nefetia leaned into Arkin’s arm and mumbled. Watching her unsteady legs, Arkin felt awkward.
“Should I carry you?”
“No. If someone sees us suddenly it’ll be a problem.”
Nefetia shook her head. She was already leaning on him enough and reached up to stroke Arkin’s messy hair.
The touch brushing his forehead made Arkin hold his breath. In truth, his own condition was worse than hers. His head was spinning.
He did not want to return to the lodging. Holding Nefetia was happiness enough. If he could stay buried in her body all day… Arkin rubbed his own face vigorously while Nefetia’s gaze was turned away.
Enough. Stop thinking crazy thoughts.
I’m afraid Nefetia might get disgusted and run away from me.
The two slipped out of the hallway like stray cats. They had skipped dinner, locked themselves away, and tangled their bodies while the sun set and the courtyard fell quiet. They had not thought of it at the time, but belated worry crept in.
“What should I say if they ask where I went?”
“Hmm… maybe I can say I fought because of archery.”
“No one will believe it? And fighting this late?”
“Well, yeah…”
Muttering, Arkin glanced at Nefetia. He suddenly froze in shock. He had not seen it in the dark, but on her straight neck were faint marks he himself had left…
What now? Arkin nervously rubbed his lips. The first time had been fine, but this time he had not been able to hold back. No… I didn’t know marks this clear would be left…
“Um… hey, Nefetia?”
He had to tell her the truth. Arkin was about to call out to her when tension filled him.
“You’re not thinking straight? Why are you so late?”
A sharp, nervous voice came from the darkness nearby. Nefetia and Arkin both stopped dead and their eyes met.
“Don’t be so arrogant.”
The rough, oppressive tone dripping with irritation could only be Draconis’s. And the shadow standing beside him was…
‘…Serena?’
Arkin’s narrowed eyes stared into the darkness.